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Loved the live-cast. I am slow to the party, but once I realized I had been duped by knowledge institution, I tried to develop a set of heuristic principles that would lower my chances of getting duped. Science is the best way, but we don’t have time to treat most things scientifically, we need shortcuts. In case it’s useful to someone else, it’s copied below. Even better, help me out and add to it or correct it where needed. Cheers!!

- [ ] Understand the source of money, the agenda, and who gains from a particular narrative or perspective. Public sources are better; consider institutional capture and audience capture.

- [ ] Use of Logical fallacies, especially ad hominem (a form of dehumanizing and hate). Drawing upon emotion, especially fear and hate

- [ ] Use of logical fallacies and appeal to authority.

- [ ] Use of tribal language / tribal thinking, use of black/white thinking or Hegelian dialectic.

- [ ] Steel-manning opposing hypothesis (instead of straw-manning).

- [ ] Consider that any given hypothesis is formed from imperfect/incomplete knowledge. Consider if the hypothesis was given with an estimate of confidence. Consider if multiple hypotheses were formed to explain the evidence, each with a probability of being correct. Consider evidence of updating the hypothesis to incorporate new information. Admit to insufficient knowledge when appropriate and/or low confidence

- [ ] Evaluate the track record of accurate reporting, interpretation, and analysis over time.

- [ ] Admit errors publicly and amend errors over time.

- [ ] Cover topics holistically to gauge sins of omission. Watch behaviour over time - look for patterns. Look for curiosity to explain missing pieces of a narrative, asking all the relevant questions.

- [ ] Citing evidence accurately.

- [ ] Sudden wall-to-wall coverage - unanimous message across media space and use of the same words since this is not how information naturally normally disseminates in a population of independent thinkers.

- [ ] look for if/then equals because (credit to Duke report for this one!)

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If we can get more people to do this, we could win! We are all born, asking the question why, we just have to get back to that point… Oops, I said "just" #MyBad

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This is graet amount of work you do, i appreciate it. Thanks for such a nice story telling! Cheers from Poland

PS that venetian stories opened my eyes and was just on time after i was searching phenecia and their baal and warshiping analogoes to ouer times

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there are too many rabbit holes, dug by the purveyors of epistemological warfare.

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Thanks. A thought provoking video. On the bible translation question, I happen to be currently reading Joseph P Farrell’s book “The Financial Viper’s of Venice “ and at one point he is discussing the various bible translations of original sin (Romans 5:12) from the Greek and the ramifications of these and says “ It should also be noted that the King James alone of all English translations achieves a translation rending most of the subtleties of the underlying Greek text, whereas other translations opt to translate only one meaning, and the simplest one at that.”

He compares the Latin Vulgate translation with the King James and expresses the view that the Latin instilled a corporate sense of man’s shared guilt in original sin as opposed to the King James which doesn’t. That Adam sinned was his individual sin and doesn’t logically imply that every subsequent human is born into original sin. Sin is a choice we make individually and the idea that because of our nature we are born into sin is a “get out of jail card” to cover our failings.

You could view this as an appeal to authority from an expert who is trying to create a particular narrative with his logos. Logos is the tool for dialectical thinking. Good translation v bad translation.

My own opinion is that I find his reasoning persuasive and his use of metaphor and analogy (logos again!) useful in applying historical context to the present day.

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Perhaps this is the Pickering hermeneutic! (Or is this old news at Cambridge?)

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Actually I was just using the proposition that Farrell cites in his book that the Vulgate is not following his understanding of Greek translation. He doesn’t say that the King James is correct either- just that it made a better attempt. He doesn’t give his version I assume because these are the two versions that have been widely accepted in theology so concentrates on their differences.

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all the more reason to look at the Greek, and try to puzzle it out ourselves… I like Farrell, but he did go to Oxford, i've read both of those books in that series, and even tried to figure out the symbolic logic of his "metaphor "hypothesis… I'm not sure that I get it still, but I try… That said try this: https://chatgpt.com/share/67509279-696c-8003-a0e0-7e23144e9afc

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I have added a bit to the ChatGPT conversation but I’ve no idea whether it’s saved so I’ll add it here.

Question:In the literal translation should ἐφ’ ᾧ not refer back to death?

Answer:You’re correct in observing that ἐφ’ ᾧ could be understood as referring back to θάνατος (death) in the literal translation. The phrase ἐφ’ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον can indeed be read as “because of which all sinned” or “through which all sinned,” with the “which” referring to death, rather than implying a direct connection to Adam’s sin.

In this case, the literal translation would more precisely read as:

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because of which all sinned.”

This understanding highlights that death, entering through sin, is the means through which all people sin, which aligns with the view that death is an agent of the propagation of sin. This interpretation would differ from the theological understandings in the Vulgate or King James versions, which place a greater emphasis on the concept of inherited sin.

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