Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Marshall Brain has died

wral.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 176 posts

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#101

Post by slfnflctd »

WorkerBee28474 wrote: post #77
slfnflctd wrote: post #54

A gut punch for me. He was influential in many ways, as multiple comments here have already attested-- in particular the 'Manna' story that has been mentioned several times, which definitely knocked my socks off. Since no one else has brought it up yet, I want to say that one of his websites, "Why Won't God Heal Amputees" ( https://whywontgodhealamputees.com/ ) was very important in my world. It may not exactly be th…

> It may not exactly be the most highbrow philosophical or theological treatise you've ever encountered It's worse than that, it's bad theology on a topic that has been discussed for millennia.

I've studied a fair amount theology, it was my original college major. I am aware of this.

The most salient point he made as far as I'm concerned is that there are very specific claims made throughout the Bible and other Christian literature about what exactly prayer does-- and there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that many if not most of those particular claims are false.

I am not opposed to people praying, and in fact wholeheartedly support it in many cases. What I am opposed to is making unreasonable assertions about what is happening when someone prays, and what kinds of results are to be expected.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#103

Post by amelius »

slfnflctd wrote: post #54

A gut punch for me. He was influential in many ways, as multiple comments here have already attested-- in particular the 'Manna' story that has been mentioned several times, which definitely knocked my socks off. Since no one else has brought it up yet, I want to say that one of his websites, "Why Won't God Heal Amputees" ( https://whywontgodhealamputees.com/ ) was very important in my world. It may not exactly be th…

Interesting website. But there's one rationalization missing, imho: that God alters the timeline. That is, amputees are in fact healed in response to prayer, but nobody knows about it because God goes back in time and ensures the amputation never happened in the first place.

Disclaimer: I didn't read the entire website yet.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#104

Post by nashashmi »

skulk wrote: post #76
nashashmi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously someone who has come to atheism is not going to speak well of prayer. The guy ends each section with more questions than answers. And each of those questions comes from a highly confused state about what religion is, about what prayer is, about what God is. And maybe even what your purpose is. In the words of the Bible, “ the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light…

> And each of those questions comes from a highly confused state about what religion is, about what prayer is, about what God is. No need for goalpost moving. The holy book claims that God answers prayers. This is, in fact, a lie. Some people aren't yet fully convinced of this, and reading the website helps them along. (see uncle comments)

I think you overlook that holy book says “only” God answers prayers. And pray to God for he will answer. The answer doesn’t necessarily have to be the answer you think is correct.

A leg amputated is a leg lost and the journey of a test and struggle that begins next. That’s an answer. Not a lie.

Once again, the writer doesn’t understand God, prayer, religion, and the purpose of man. And he cannot make sense out of this paradigm. So he falls further into misguidance, like a schoolboy who misses the primary instructions only to reject the class entirely.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#106

Post by nashashmi »

nyc_data_geek wrote: post #67
slfnflctd wrote: post #54

A gut punch for me. He was influential in many ways, as multiple comments here have already attested-- in particular the 'Manna' story that has been mentioned several times, which definitely knocked my socks off. Since no one else has brought it up yet, I want to say that one of his websites, "Why Won't God Heal Amputees" ( https://whywontgodhealamputees.com/ ) was very important in my world. It may not exactly be th…

No higher power ever wrote anything though. That's all human writing, human promises, human propaganda.

Has any book itself claimed to be written or orated by a higher power?

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#107

Post by spiritplumber »

ben_w wrote: post #92
simpaticoder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cool story, quite impactful on my thinking, although I will caution that the dystopia is better conceived than the utopia, mainly because the later requires inventing fantasy technology while the former does not. Indeed it's not clear at all what forces might destabalize the dystopia, since the power structures are immortal and self-replicating, and physics and biology (at least) prevents the utopia from existin…

> In fact I would love to read a sequel where the dystopia wins and AI-empowered oligarchs and human wage slaves create generation ships to nearby stars and eventually setup fast food restaurants in every corner of the galaxy. The dystopian part was only enabled (within the story) by the fact that humans were utterly unnecessary to the rich. None had any jobs, because the AI could do all for less… so why would the ol…

You've described the Terran Accord from "Human Domestication Guide".

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#108

Post by darepublic »

vineyardmike wrote: post #55
darepublic wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible if we believe human nature to be sufficiently malleable. Why can't we all just get along. Perhaps the mountains that need to be moved for such a thing are as daunting as some of the physical laws we try to hurdle instead

There are nations and societies very different from the United States. In the United States, we can see the distrust in our neighbors play out politically, contrasted with other societies trust. You can even see it play out across various states and regions. Perhaps they’re not mountains imposed by human nature, but our perception of society. Other nations have socialized healthcare, where anyone can be treated. Othe…

> Other nations have socialized healthcare, where anyone can be treated. Other nations have calm safe and clean public transit. Other nation’s redistribute wealth and provide strong safety nets. Other nations don’t have mass violence. Other nations guarantee retirement and pensions. Other nations trust their governments.

I feel like this is very much in flux, and not a constant anywhere. And it's something that is contested over continually. In some places there have been generations of rising quality of life, but not everywhere, all at once.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#109

Post by thr0waway001 »

Oh man. Sad to hear that. I remember in the early '2000s before Wikipedia printing out those tutorials to read before I'd take these long bus rides out of town to work at the meat (slaughter) plant. I was trying to educate myself so I would not have to work at the meat plant for long. That job kinda sucked but at least it got my mind straight. I was debating whether or not to save up for college. Working there for a year let me save up and to convince me that I'd rather go to school to try to not work a blue collar job.

I read a few of those How Stuff Works articles printed on paper at the public library on those long hour bus rides. They'd keep my spirits up.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#110

Post by cblum »

monocasa wrote: post #6

I'm going to use this time to drop the Marshall Brain work that had the biggest impact on me, and is some of the most prescient speculative fiction I've read. Manna: Two Views of Humanity’s Future He contracts two societies. One is a dystopia where AI very, very similar to today's ML models is integrated into society as a replacement for the middle class, removing social mobility as well as acting as a panopticon low…

I’ve read it all recently and I felt like the later described utopia was also a kind of dystopia, very Brave New World like (or at least the seed for a BNW-like dystopia). I kept waiting for a twist in the story, where the main character would realize that both worlds were terrible, but it never came.
Post reply on HN