AnimalsDream

I lean in favor of rebirth, but via naturalistic processes rather than projections of our own moral wants. I don’t need a supernatural explanation to recognize that whatever is most irreducibly “me” was born at least once. Why would I assume it would only be once?

If we follow from that premise, we can also chart a kind of probabilistic, umm, not karma but something not far off: If we’re reborn after death, how do we determine what kind of life our next one is going to be? Pretty obvious actually, just look at what kind of life everyone has already. If, for example, only 1% of humans have an especially good life, it looks like there’s a a really slim chance any one of us is going to be the one who gets to have that kind of life.

By contrast, 99% of humans are living in increasingly bad conditions, lower wages, higher prices and virtually every economic card stacked against us, as well as *gestures broadly*. It’s remarkably more likely that anyone would be reborn as a 99 percenter.

But why should we assume that we would only ever be reborn as a human? The total human population right now is 8.2 billion. There are estimated to be about 20 quadrillion ants in the world. And more than 44 billion animals have been bred into existence and slaughtered for food this year alone. Are you more likely to be reborn a human, an ant, or someone else’s property?

There’s a consequence here if rebirth is the law of the land. It would mean that death is not an escape after all. The only way to give yourself your best chance of a better next life would be to put in effort to make the world better for everyone. There is no way out, only through.

Came in to say this. Linux on ARM is getting so close to daily driver ready.

In my work customers will randomly hand me Bible tracts maybe 1-3 times a month. I graciously accept them despite knowing I very much disagree with their religion, give a warm thank you, pocket it, later on read it one time as a rule, throw it away, and then move on with my life.

The majority of them are pretty standard stuff, blah blah blah, don’t go to hell, get saved yeah yeah yeah. Sometimes though, someone will give the most amazing tracts - they’re in the form of whole tiny comic books, and they have these wild stories about the Catholics and the pope being the Antichrist. Fascinating stuff.

Anyway, people who have other beliefs exist. Sure it’s annoying, and that person was in the wrong for persisting when you clearly indicated you weren’t interested, but also it sounds like you brought a lot of negativity to that interaction in the first place as well.