To be clear, though the idea is structurally near identical (he’s conflated the loser and sociopath layers to some degree but out of disinterest in the distinction rather than unawareness), we draw very different conclusions from roughly the same phenomenology.
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In particular, he is sensitive to the perils of the sociopath/inner ring layer, but not to its upside — what we’d call red-pill knowledge (general matrix sense, not mra). He thinks inner ring aspiration is entirely about simply wanting to be in the inner ring, not knowing more.
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He is also a little too quick to present the craftsman/clueless state as some sort of blessed innocence state. Which is understandable for a Christian perspective. Do the right thing, let Jesus provide executive cover or something.
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In practice, there are of course downsides to being the algorithmic robot that clueless/craftsman implies. The big one being you’re co-opted into sociopath crimes whether you want to or not. You may not be interested in the inner ring but the inner ring is interested in you.
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If I were to tldr this in a Christian way it would probably be: “Don’t eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but recognize it for what it is. Stay in the Garden of Eden even after realizing there’s a world beyond. Nothing good comes of leaving it.”
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Lewis was born in 1898 so was 46 when he delivered this commencement speech, same as me now. But the maturity and compactness of the formulation suggests he probably thought it through in his mid thirties like I did. So like 1934-35 when Hitler and Stalin were on the rise.
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Which would explain his biases. I thought it through 2008-09... peak GFC but otherwise a pleasant late-neoliberal zeitgeist with no obvious big villains or dark clouds looming. That explains my biases. If I were thinking it through more recently I’d have landed darker too.
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In case it isn’t obvious, Lewis’ version is *much* darker and more pessimistic about human nature than mine. He’s essentially advising you to skip an entire large zone of the human condition that plays out in inner rings out of fear of moral corruption.
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My advice is to learn the game and how to play it. Don’t get addicted to it, but don’t sit it out either. It’s a kind of acting dead/waldenponding. Especially if fetishizing “craft” as an embodiment of “good” is the alternative. Inner rings are part of life.
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Replying to @vgr
Do you have a sense of how your advice might have been different had you written it in 1944?
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Not really. But being religious makes him much more different than being from another era.
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Replying to @vgr
Not so sure, but then I'm "religious." Also not a unique insight of mine of a case for Jesus as sociopath in your sense. Might also have asked Lewis his thoughts on parable of the clever steward (Luke 16) and being innocent as doves, wise as serpents (Matt 10:16).
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Replying to @AndyCatsimanes @vgr
Yeah, I think you’d have to see both Jesus and Paul as sociopaths here. It’s aesthetically jarring, when compared to the “simple craftsman” aesthetic. I think Lewis may be right on motivations, but is painting in a very particular way.
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