So is the “pagan” moniker a way of dating the work to before the rise of Christianity with the Roman Empire?
Very commonly yes.
Readit Newstourmalinetaco commented on Title of work deciphered in sealed Herculaneum scroll via digital unwrapping finebooksmagazine.com/fin... · Posted by u/namanyayg
I pray to Jesus that you find happiness in the Lord, for I can see you are suffering my child.
To be honest, adding the word "pagan" just seem needlessly divisive. When I read about the past, nobody is going out of their way to point out that it's Pagan.
Do you believe that Goy/Goyim is similarly divisive? Or Kafir? And I’m not sure what books you’re reading, Pagan vs Christian Rome is a common distinction if the context hasn’t already made it obvious (such as here).
> America, which is the center of world power and culture.
Yeah, ok. So an explicitly parochial prespective. This isn't compelling from a disinterested, objective perspective.
> Warrior god cults, like that of Mithras, didn't have a strong role in the overall state and direction of the empire. They weren't major players and it is actually perfectly fine for terminology and understanding to focus on those.
just like Christianity in 79AD Herculaneum
You know what else isn’t a compelling argument? This arduous attempt to argue that Christianity, the largest religion in the world and the very one that was adopted by Rome, is somehow inconsequential to the framing of what came before it. There is no logical argument that can be made to separate the two, for experts in the field will continue to use the term Pagan to refer to Pagan Rome no matter how much it hurts your feelings. It is simply the most objective and efficient method of separating it from the other. Unless of course you know of a better method that the historians do not? I’m sure they’d love to hear it.
The relevant context is the context in which it existed--that of a Roman library in pre-Christian Rome, making it a Roman library with no context of paganism. If it were a collection specifically of pagan writings assembled and maintained after Rome's widespread conversion to Christianity, then the pagan aspect would be meaningful, as it describes the relevance of that library to the society in which it existed.
To call it a "pagan" library now fails to describe it in the context of what it was at the time as well as what it is today, and instead is needlessly and aimlessly anchoring the perspective to the Christian world. It would be as if I described the library as being a Goy library--sure, I can, and wouldn't be technically wrong, but it's a meaningless distinction, and one that's more concerned about expressing the speaker's context than the subject's context, and the speaker is not relevant.
It’s not a meaningless distinction, as it cements it rather firmly in a broad era within a specific context of thought, unlike referring to it as a Goy library. If you refer to it as a Goy library, that both brings it within a Judeo-Christian context and completely loses all meaning. However referring to it as Pagan you now are more informed of the era and schools of thought employed at the time.
tourmalinetaco commented on Librarians are dangerous bradmontague.substack.com... · Posted by u/mooreds
> After all, my library could be run by Scientologists attempting to propagandize children, or Soviet-era
I admitted it was a leap and you're absolutely free to clarify what you meant instead of pointing out some ridiculous edge cases without explaining yourself.
> Regardless of what material it is, yes, anyone who propagandizes children really is "dangerous", and not in the fake patronizing way that the the author of the article means it either.
I don't see how having books with queer characters is propaganda but having books with straight characters isn't. I'm queer and I don't go around insisting that people ban Christian books from the children's section even though I think those values aren't great.
Why would you assume lgbt materials are synonymous with breaking the rules of this site? It’s obvious they don’t, and realistically the website has rather sparse rules, so what could both break the site and be considered integral to your movement?
tourmalinetaco commented on Librarians are dangerous bradmontague.substack.com... · Posted by u/mooreds
Because they're dancing around specific complaints and this line, for example,
> were I to give a factual description of the childrens and teens sections, I would get banned by dang.
reeks of "I don't want LGBTQ representation in my library" or similar.
If I'm wrong, so be it. But the commenter isn't helping their own case.
Dang has no problem with lgbt representation, so that couldn’t be the problem. So what could be rampant in the children/teen sections that is banned from this site but is simultaneously synonymous in your mind to the lgb movement?
tourmalinetaco commented on Librarians are dangerous bradmontague.substack.com... · Posted by u/mooreds
Well, you don't need to think too hard about this when sites like archive.org are in legal danger, and the dream of Google Books is dead. I had not considered the "everything on the Internet is AI/SEO slop now" - that's a good point too: even if the stuff exists online, it's often almost impossible to find.
A few months ago I half-remembered a quote from a famous philosopher. Google and Bing returned only the vaguest, most useless search results - basically assuming I didn't actually want the quote, but general information about the philosopher. So then I turned to ChatGPT, which asserted that no such quote existed, but here were ones "like it" (they weren't.) Finally I skimmed through all the books I had until I located it.
If you had a digital twin of your home library and used a program such as Docfd[0] I think you would have had a much easier time.
Yeah its called "don't use android at all", its called hypocrisy when you still use android without the google service
same with IOS, I bet a lot people desire IOS on non iphone device but that not going to happen soon because Apple profit is from iphone sales
same with youtube, people dont like watching ads but youtube bussiness model is not going to survive without ads (who going to spend money if people can upload unlimited video on it for free???)
google benefit from android development cost because they can generating revenue because people can get use google service
its called BUSSINESS, there is no evil in doing bussiness. dont talk me about being right or evil when we talking at HN when most people want to create unlimited subscription for their service
It’s not hypocrisy to remove the cancer from my phone, tumors like Google Services exist to be removed. I use an Adblock, I download all the videos I like to personal storage after watching them on YouTube via a shared Indivious frontend me and my friends use (meaning Google takes the data hit twice), and I always fill up my GDrives. This way I can slowly do my part in removing evil from this world.
There is absolutely evil in doing business, unless you view things such as slavery as A-OK. And trust me, I fucking hate subscriptions and view those who fall to forcing them onto their users as less than scum. They are just as evil as Google or Apple are.
tourmalinetaco commented on Bikes in the age of tariffs renehersecycles.com/bikes... · Posted by u/bobchadwick
Could you apply your hypothetical? What countries are you talking about? How do you balance the benefits and the costs? If you wanted to improve human rights, what would be the best strategy?
Do you think Trump and the GOP are doing it because of labor rights?
China, for one, has state-enforced labor of Uyghurs and other minorities: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/against-their-will-the-sit...
And, while Mexico is trying to limit forced labor, they’re still one of our bigger exporters of forced labor: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-la...
So it’s hardly a hypothetical. As for balancing benefits and costs, slave labor intrinsically weakens the value of labor to any country that imports, so ideally the US would tariff goods that are labor intensive from countries that practice slave labor. In general, taking China off of the UN Human Rights Council would be a good show (for what little the UN does), and countries that oppose slavery should tariff the countries that do it as well. I don’t want a blood diamond on my wife‘s finger, why would I want a blood apple in my mouth?
As for Trump, I believe he does so in part, not from an ethics perspective however. I imagine he views slave labor as undercutting US labor value, just as illegal immigration does, and that it plays some part in wrestling manufacturing away from China.