The Argument Against Arguments

Many excellent arguments about religion and politics were made during the Reformation and the Enlightenment.  What made these arguments possible was the 1000 years of harsh natural selection in medieval Europe which gradually killed off the lower end of society through starvation, disease, and capital punishment.  This eugenic force lifted intelligence to the point that a significant percentage of the population could actually understand coherent arguments.  And this is what made good arguments worth writing.

Sadly this is no longer the situation.  Modern culture is both dysgenic and anti-intellectual.  It makes people stupid both through genetic decline and through an education system designed to dumb down the population.  The result is that presenting a good argument to the general population makes as much sense as presenting it to farm animals.  And this is my argument against arguments, at least arguments aimed at a general audience.

What are the practical implications of this?  Don't argue politics or religion with the general population because they will be too stupid to understand what you are saying.  Don't attempt to reform a religion, Christianity and Islam in particular.  The best you can do is to associate with some religion that isn't too bad and try to prevent it from decaying.  But if you try to improve it, you will just be met with hostility.

The only way to improve things is to raise intelligence.  There is simply no other way.  Once intelligence is raised, hopefully in a few centuries, then there will be opportunity to improve religion and politics.  But we won't be alive then.  So the only thing worthwhile for us to do is to work on some means of improving intelligence.  This is what my Arkian project is about.  So become Arkian or suggest an alternative approach to raising intelligence.

Can intelligent people really be reasoned with though? My uncle's wife was a member of Mensa, and has some kind of mental gift where she can remember every day of her life in great detail, and she is a staunch advocate for the Covid vaccine, and got very offended when I said I was not taking the vaccine. Also, she converted to Baha'i and got offended when I criticized the plans of the central authority, even though they were criticisms that should be obvious to anyone who is capable of reason. You may say this is specific to women but lots of men in my family are the same. In some ways I think your average blue collar automechanic or pizza shop owner is better able to reason than the "high IQ" crowd.

I think intelligence is necessary but not sufficient.  Down to earth work also helps.  America's founders were mostly farmers, but were intelligent.

You talk of the reformation and the "enlightenment" as if they were good things, and talk about faith as if it's some self-help diet book that you can exchange for another as you see fit. There is only one Faith you should ever associate with, and that is the Orthodox Church. Truth by definition is exclusive, it's not something that you can decide for yourself and "customize" your own religion like some Rorschach test. Such an argument is inane and self-refuting, if that is what you mean.

I don't use your concept of truth, so this doesn't apply to me.

http://www.mikraite.org/Truth-and-Alternatives-tp1898.html

Of course it applies to you, it applies to everyone. One cannot "think" or "believe" that water is not wet, it is wet. It is the very nature of water to be wet.

Therefore you cannot make up your own reality, and if you do it only applies to you and does not exist independently of you. The Truth of Orthodoxy exists independently of other, heretical doctrines. A jew can ramble about his people being the master race, but that is not objective. A muslim can say that allah commands him to murder Christians, but that is not objective. jews have turned their backs on Christ, they demanded that He be executed and that His blood be upon them and their children for all time, and therefore jews are expelled from any sort of special treatment until they repent and are baptised. muslims murder in the name of their false god, baal, and one does not attain salvation through committing such acts.

Christ is Objective, and His Church is Orthodoxy. All others who claim that their heresy is "more" truthful or "more" pure is incorrect. What is True is what is Good, and identifiable by all regardless of who they are. protestantism has irreversibly damaged the Body of Christ, sowing confusion and innumerable heresies in the West. It is to the point where if you are protestant, you can never be called a "Christian". You misappropriate the Faith to serve your own ends, and you must acknowledge that.

You can't kill off the lower end of society. Something else will just take its place and become the new low end of society. Anyways history tells us the lower end of society existed during the reformation and enlightenment, directly contradicting your opinion: https://brewminate.com/the-growth-of-literacy-in-western-europe-from-1500-to-1800/ The link suggests that only the rich could understand coherent arguments as they were the ones able to afford education, and only when education was opened to lower classes was when lower classes were able to understand coherent arguments. Indeed this is natural selection by helping upper classes and hurting lower classes. But it is not natural selection by killing lower classes, no that is a different argument. If that were the case, then there would be no need to open education to lower classes like Maria Theresa did. By your assertion this lower class that Maria Theresa cared for is already dead due to natural selection in medieval Europe.

I said "a significant percentage of the population could actually understand coherent arguments", not all or even most.  My view is that the West peaked in the late 1700s.  The article that you linked to seems to support this.

Speaking of the inability of modern scum to handle arguments, I was banned from the "free speech" Discord server that you came from yesterday.  Typical of modern scum.