"[Nietzsche] knew that, when we knocked the slats out of the base of Western civilization by destroying this representation, this God ideal, we would destabilize and move back and forth violently between nihilism and the extremes of ideology." Jordan Peterson's Bible Lectures, May 17, 2018, I Introduction to the Idea of God.

This is not what Nietzsche knew, this is Peterson's mischaracterization of Nietzsche. What Nietzsche knew is that Christian ideals had been so entrenched into western culture that people would (as Christianity engineered) fall into Nihilism. The Nihilism was not the result of an inability to handle reality or construct more intelligent values (we have been doing this for hundreds of years), this Nihilism was the direct result, pre-programmed, cult reaction to having the error of Christianity ripped out of the brain. Peterson tries to make it sound like Nietzsche believed man needed the ideal of God! This is false. The culprit is not reality, but the negative indoctrination that Christianity has done to culture.

Do you mean Christian ideals or religious ideals because it seems the loss of religion in general would create the nihilism you speak of. I don’t know what Peterson believes, but Nietzsche believed society needed something as powerful as the belief in god, that why he offered the idea of the ubermensch. Perhaps Peterson believes it would serve the general population better having some Christian foundations. But to blame the effects of the lack of religion entirely on Christianity shows your blind spots. And to think the general population and philosophers need the same existential foundation isn’t the case.

I am against stupidity and ignorance, most especially when they come to occupy a place of authority.


Man, that is such a foolish thing to say. I’m not a religious person, and maybe my knowledge of history might help me understand this better, but you say that standing on the graves of your ancestors, have some respect. Christianity has been a force of good throughout history, everything done in its name hasn’t been good, but Christian scholars recognized this. Human nature is almost always the culprit.

“No, what I said is that time is a necessary condition for moving an object. A person cannot move an object unless time passes.”

“However, regardless of what one believes about what the passing of time really is, the passing of time is still a necessary condition for a person to move an object. And, it is obviously not something which the human will has control over. So no matter how free my will is, time still passes, and I cannot change that.”

“ So a massive object like the earth moving, is determined by the passing of time, to keep moving in the same way. But this is not to say that all things with mass, inertia, or momentum, are determined. My body has mass, and momentum, but I believe that my free will has the capacity to alter that momentum.”


That’s all fine and good, but I understand determinism as an exercise on the nature of causality, (and yeah I see how time/causality could be seen as splitting hairs) but space/time acts more as an arena for causality to operate. I don’t see much of a real world application for determinism other than a prerequisite for an expanding and contracting universe. It’s only use in philosophy, in my view, is to create self fulfilling proficiencies like “It doesn’t matter what I do, everything’s already determined”. Your use of it here obscures your point and made it hard for me to realize what you were actually saying. So yeah there are things in existence that are constants like time/space, weak/strong nuclear force, and last but not least a mothers love. But If you’re trying to separate these uncontrollable constants from controllable entropy in order to find true existence, it’s a noble goal but in truth we live separate conceptually but not actually from these things. If you set the separation from the universal constants aside your essentially describing stoicism. I also think pondering time excessively is not only bad for your mental health but also an exercise in futility.

“That misses the point entirely. Trump, and each and every individual who refuses to wear a mask in public is taking a risk with another's life.”

I completely understand your point. I was pointing out how drunk driving and wearing a mask are two completely different interactions. Isn’t the carina virus only transmitted through the air. So shouldn’t the person wearing the mask already be protected? They make masks that filter in going and out going air. So whatever you’re afraid of is covered. I think fearful people react to situations like this eagerly. Then they see other people who aren’t abiding by the tribes costumes, and it angers them. Stop watching the news so much and don’t let people around you go on and on about all the scary shit. This whole situation is fucked, focus more on what you control. Don’t fill your mind with so much anger braaa

You were arguing that a person moving an object in their room was actually time affecting matter and space (determinism). You used this to say that a person can’t be sure if they have the agency to proactively change their given situation. Then you said a person actually does have at least some control over certain things and can actually affect their situation. But If determinism is a reality, there is no free will. It’s not that it’s a grey area, it’s one or the other, determinism simply can’t exist with free actors.

“Therefore, we must separate things which are determined, and caused by the passing of time, from things which are caused by the human free will”

Do you mean things like weathering, chemical reactions, momentum? Or do you mean the framework of the human mind, as being the factor that’s determined? I fell like all animals already intuitively do this.

Therefore, we must separate things which are determined, and caused by the passing of time, from things which are caused by the human free will, in order to get a proper understanding of how we can actually change things, and thereby derive conclusions about what is possible for me to do, and what is impossible for me to do.

I think you’re balancing two mutually exclusive ideas.


I’m sure that if a drunk driving victim had the opportunity to wear a mask that protected them from getting hit by a car, they would do so.

We need to operate with some historical perspective. Look at contraction rates, death rates, demographics. The fear is the real killer, the hatred for trump is another