Five Starrrr

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@MittensOff Brain dead criminals

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@SamQari It is nonsense like this which is driving people away from Islam. In the West people are exposed to many types of music. On TV and films, on the radio, in the gym, in schools. All types of music is normal and acceptable. No one can seal themselves away from society.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@Roootttyyy @aiishadahir Masturbating is completely healthy and normal. If there is no alternative then men and women should do it regularly. Sex is a part of adult life and the lack of sexual activity is not to be recommended.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@starks_arq Spread love and kindness not hatred.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@Joshwydd_ Very impressive.

[Zoe Gardner @ZoeJardiniere]

100% this. We need to shame, call out & shun racists much, much harder than ever before.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@Mr_Andrew_Fox Very sensible words from Kemi.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@kelvmackenzie The solution is quite straightforward, start having more children.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@JMNewsNetwork_ Inshallah simply means ��God willing’ in Arabic. It is not controversial at all. You don’t have to be Muslim or Arabic to use it.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@surrakimuhammad They can do what they want. There is nothing wrong with this. Are people not allowed to have fun?

[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

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@caveheraa Quantum physics and Islam do not mix. Trying to give scientific answers to religious questions is a waste of time.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@fawadchaudhry Religion and politics should be separate. Religion should be a personal matter.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@shaunking There are many types of Muslims. Some are rigid, inflexible and some are slightly more relaxed. The rigid, inflexible types are a problem if they insist they are right and everyone else is wrong. They are also wrong if they want to create a religious state.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@JMPSimor Morality is evaporating, right before our eyes.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@YorkshiremanDan @LBC You can say whatever you want about his mayorship or politics but he is a Londoner. That’s where he lives and belongs. He doesn’t need to go anywhere.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@jk_rowling @DessieVendee You are certainly not alone in feeling that there is something missing inside us. I don’t know if the mainstream religions have the answer to that though. Maybe we will never know, maybe we only get to know when we pass away.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@BraddrofliT @Nicoledso Such a good idea but unlikely to happen.

[Five Starrrr @FStarrrr]

@LozzaFox Is this really where we are at? Absolutely inexcusable.