Fred Lybrand

Jack of All Trades Master of None, But Oftentimes Better Than a Master of One

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@Rainmaker1973 Four Projects? That's Focus!

[Summer Jaeger @SummrWrites]

My grandma could’ve told them this.

She always told me the two requirements for a happy marriage are: your spouse loves God & has a sense of humor.

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@stevebwilson @StefanMolyneux Huh? John didn't know Jesus?

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@StefanMolyneux If they don’t do as much as you… Then there’s some level of division involved, true?

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@StefanMolyneux You did imply it

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@StefanMolyneux Stefan is gone

[David Deutsch @DavidDeutschOxf]

Everything sufficiently evil merges with the Pattern.

[GnosisWolf @GnosisWolf]

She’s a keeper. I hope she makes it. 🙏

[David Deutsch @DavidDeutschOxf]

@IMAO_ One awful result of postmodernism and its offspring is that if morality is just narratives to achieve purposes, moral talk is just performative. People can learn to perform differently in different contexts. Seeming to apply different moralities, they are unable to criticise any.

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@DavidDeutschOxf Yep, but only slightly worse than, "Well, I agree with all that, but..."

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@StefanMolyneux Stefan,

On the 'allowing Iranians in the USA' --- Those in charged of this are not the ones who have now closed the border. But, I may not be understanding your point.

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@Lyndonx @GadSaad Also True for Lawyers, Caucasians , and Bacteria.

[Math Files @Math_files]

Bayes’ theorem is probably the single most important thing any rational person can learn.

So many of our debates and disagreements that we shout about are because we don’t understand Bayes’ theorem or how human rationality often works.

Bayes’ theorem is named after the 18th-century Thomas Bayes, and essentially it’s a formula that asks: when you are presented with all of the evidence for something, how much should you believe it?

Bayes’ theorem teaches us that our beliefs are not fixed; they are probabilities. Our beliefs change as we weigh new evidence against our assumptions, or our priors. In other words, we all carry certain ideas about how the world works, and new evidence can challenge them.

For example, somebody might believe that smoking is safe, that stress causes mouth ulcers, or that human activity is unrelated to climate change. These are their priors, their starting points. They can be formed by our culture, our biases, or even incomplete information.

Now imagine a new study comes along that challenges one of your priors. A single study might not carry enough weight to overturn your existing beliefs. But as studies accumulate, eventually the scales may tip. At some point, your prior will become less and less plausible.

Bayes’ theorem argues that being rational is not about black and white. It’s not even about true or false. It’s about what is most reasonable based on the best available evidence. But for this to work, we need to be presented with as much high-quality data as possible. Without evidence—without belief-forming data—we are left only with our priors and biases. And those aren’t all that rational.

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

You can't know it'll work until after it works.

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

THEY: Perception is reality.
ME: So is misperception.

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@GadSaad Not sure... but isn’t he teaching/supporting that one overcomes the fear of dying by being afraid to die apart from Jihad?

[Anders K. Hvelplund @Falliblemusings]

I used to think Sapiens was a great book. Sweeping, provocative, the kind of book that makes you feel like you finally understand the big picture of human history. It's on every CEO's bookshelf, assigned in universities, praised as a masterwork of synthesis. Yuval Noah Harari is treated as one of the serious thinkers of our time.

But something nagged at me. Some passages felt off. Claims that human rights are just figments of our collective imagination, not real things, just stories we tell ourselves. That nations, laws, money, justice, doesn't exist outside our heads. That meaning itself is a delusion we've invented to cope. That we're far more powerful than ever before but not happier. That hunter-gatherers had it better because they had no dishes to wash, no carpets to vacuum, no nappies to change, no bills to pay.

That sounded depressing to me, but was perhaps just the realistic scientific worldview? What it meant to see the world clearly, without comforting illusions.

Then I read The Beginning of Infinity by @DavidDeutschOxf. Deutsch has a concept he calls 'bad philosophy.' Not philosophy that's merely false, but philosophy that actively prevents the growth of knowledge. Ideas that close doors rather than open them. That makes problems seem unsolvable by design.
After soaking in Deutsch's framework (it's dense, a bit like digesting a delicious whale), it becomes clear: Harari's books are riddled with bad philosophy. They're smuggling nihilism in under the guise of scientific objectivity. Some examples:

On meaning: "Human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose... any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion."

On human rights: "There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings."

On free will: "Humans are now hackable animals. The idea that humans have this soul or spirit and they have free will, that's over."

On progress: "We thought we were saving time; instead we revved up the treadmill of life to ten times its former speed." The Agricultural Revolution? "History's biggest fraud." We didn't domesticate wheat, "it domesticated us."

On our cosmic significance: "If planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. Human subjectivity would not be missed."

On the future: "Those who fail in the struggle against irrelevance would constitute a new 'useless class.'" Homo sapiens will likely "disappear in a century or two."

This is bad philosophy. It tells us our problems are cosmically insignificant, our solutions are illusions, and that progress is neither desirable nor within our control. It's also perfect nonsense. No one would ever go back to being hunter-gatherers. Would you rather worry about your kid spending too much time on Roblox, or face the 50% chance she won't reach puberty?

And our so-called "fictions"? They ended slavery. They gave women equal rights. They solved hunger. They eradicated smallpox. They turned sand into computer chips. They got us to the moon, and hopefully soon, to Mars and beyond. These "fictions" are already reshaping the universe, and over time they may become the most potent force in it.

Now compare Deutsch:
"Humans, people and knowledge are not only objectively significant: they are by far the most significant phenomena in nature."

"Feeling insignificant because the universe is large has exactly the same logic as feeling inadequate for not being a cow."

"Problems are soluble, and each particular evil is a problem that can be solved."

"We are only just scratching the surface, and shall never be doing anything else. If unlimited progress really is going to happen, not only are we now at almost the very beginning of it, we always shall be."

Where Harari sees a species of deluded apes stumbling toward obsolescence, Deutsch sees universal explainers, the only entities we know of capable of creating explanatory knowledge, solving problems, and potentially seeding the universe with intelligence.

The difference isn't academic. Ideas shape action. If you believe life is meaningless, progress is a trap, and humans are hackable animals with no free will, how does that affect what you build? What you fight for? What you teach your children?

Harari's books sell because they flatter a fashionable pessimism. They let readers feel sophisticated for seeing through the "delusions" everyone else lives by. That smug cynicism is corrosive. And it's everywhere: in schools, in media, in bestselling books. More than half of young adults now say they feel little to no purpose or meaning in life. This is what happens when you teach an entire generation bad philosophy. Less progress, less health, less wealth. Less flourishing. And ultimately, a higher chance that civilization and consciousness go extinct.

Fortunately, there's another equally well-written, but much truer, account of homo sapiens, appropriately titled 'The Beginning of Infinity'. And this one smuggles no despair in by the backdoor. But let's give Harari credit where it's due. He is right about one thing: if planet Earth blew up tomorrow, we wouldn't be missed. Because there'd be no one left to miss us, just a careless universe, blindly obeying physical laws. We are the only ones who can miss, but we're not going to. We're going to aim, hit, and keep going.

Full credit for the amazing meme to @Ben__Jeff

[Camus @newstart_2024]

Melanie Phillips delivers a chilling diagnosis of the West's intellectual crisis: Ideology has replaced knowledge, and reason itself is under siege.

Key points from her 4:37 clip:
- Modern orthodoxies (multiculturalism, lifestyle equivalence, etc.) are treated as absolute moral goods.

- Challenge them → you're not just wrong; you're evil, standing against human/planetary betterment.

- Dissent must be silenced: no platform, no debate, no hearing.

- Evidence contradicting the ideology is dismissed as lies or "not facts."

- Universities—once crucibles of reason—are now engines destroying it, while claiming moral superiority.

- Result: Civil discourse dies. Replaced by insult weaponized to shut people down.

This isn't just about politics—it's the erosion of objective truth, evidence-based reasoning, and the ability to disagree without demonization.

We're witnessing the destruction of reason itself.

4:37 clip laying bare how ideology has become inimical to rationality 👇

When ideology trumps evidence and disagreement becomes "evil," what survives of open society?

Where do you see this dynamic strongest right now—in academia, media, politics, or everyday life?

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@michaelshermer Ask her:

(1) Am I wrong to think that a man cannot get pregnant?

(2) Are there any cases in the literature/history, of a pregnant biological male?

(3) Do you have an opinion about a man's ability to get pregnant?

(4) Why do you believe a man can become pregnant?

[Fred Lybrand @fredlybrand]

@joelpollak @ScottAdamsSays Joel: you made a statement on the podcast after Scott passed that he had had, “an Incredible Amazing Life!"

That might be an even better Biography title/subtitle?:

"The Amazing Incredible Life of Scott Adams"