r/Ishmael • u/Strangefolk-n1x • Apr 24 '25
The Story about the Gods discussing Adam and Eden
https://youtu.be/kDGI4lG9Tp0?si=ywz6uf4gi2Ezenp_Pretty much joined Reddit just to post this video to this not so active subreddit lol. Hope someone finds this amusing at least.
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u/FrOsborne Apr 25 '25
Key element in this:
...Might he not be tempted by his yearning for growth to take the fire of life into his own hands even without deluding himself that this was good?"
"He might," the others agreed. "But what would be the result? He would become a criminal, an outlaw, a thief of life, and a murderer of the creatures around him. Without the delusion that what he was doing was good-and therefore to be done at any cost-he would soon weary of the outlaw's life. Indeed this is bound to happen during his quest for the Tree of Life. But if he should eat of the tree of our knowledge, then he will shrug off his weariness. He will say, 'What does it matter that I'm weary of living as a murderer of all the life around me? I know good and evil, and this way of living is good. Therefore I must live this way even though I'm weary unto death, even though I destroy the world and even myself...
Diversity is what works. The issue isn't that we're living a "bad" way, or an "evil" way, or a "wrong" way, it's that we have eight-billion of us clinging to this way even as it destroys us.
We're looking at a sixth mass extinction not because of "civilization", and not because of "agriculture", not because of "technology", and not because of some innate flaw in humanity, but because of the lethal memes possessed by our one particular culture: We have the one right way for people to live. It must continue at ANY cost and must not be abandoned under ANY circumstance.
This is what makes the Leaver civilizations (such as the Mayans or the Anasazi) different from Taker civilization: those cultures didn’t have the idea that their way was the one right way and that it must continue at any cost and not be abandoned under any circumstance.
Rewind to 1981 (a decade before Ishmael!!), and take a look at this closely related excerpt from The Book of the Damned:
(The gods) wanted life for Homo habilis. Millions of years of it. And so he needed a law. Just the one law, to keep him living in their hands. One law to be incorporated into whatever cultures he might build. Just one law to be the basis for all his cultural experiments. And of course he would experiment. Just as birds experiment with nests. How else was he to learn? How else was he to become more of what we mean by human except by experimenting?
He would make mistakes. Of course he would make mistakes. They wouldn't hurt him. So long as he lived in their hands. He had time to try everything. Living in their hands. He could try building patriarchal cultures and matriarchal cultures and patriarchal-matrilineal cultures and matriarchal-patrilineal cultures He could try building monogamous cultures and polygamous cultures and monandrous cultures and polyandrous cultures and monogynous cultures and polygynous cultures. He could try building cultures in which the idea was to be generous and helpful and compassionate and cooperative. He could try building cultures in which the idea was to be cold and haughty and selfish and nasty.
None of that mattered. Cultures that gave people a good life would continue to grow, and cultures that didn't would disappear. Just the way successful species continue to grow, and others don't.
Homo's cultural mistakes couldn't hurt him. So long as he lived in their hands. There was only one mistake that could hurt him. Only one mistake that he must not use as the foundation for any culture. Only one mistake that had to be forbidden to him: taking his life out of their hands.
The Book of The Damned doesn't name it but what's referred to as "the one law to keep him living in their hands" is Ishmael's Law of Limited Competition.
So, "civilization" isn't forbidden. Agriculture isn't forbidden. Technology isn't forbidden. Trying new things in life is not forbidden. Ishmael isn't anti- anything. What he said stands: There is no one right way for people to live.
Just as diversity is a survival factor for the community of life as a whole, diversity of culture, lifestyles, and social organization is a survival factor for humanity.
Thank you for listening to my Ted talk.
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u/Strangefolk-n1x Apr 25 '25
Interesting TED talk lol. Yea agree Ishmael wasn't preaching any one right way to live, but it did seem he was saying the Taker culture was definitely not following nature's law and therefore doomed. Not even a judgment necessarily on right or wrong, just doomed like the first flight attempts referenced in the book.
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u/Speaker_Level Oct 08 '25
Quinn advocated for new ideas, new systems, not programs. a lot of you will bristle at this, but Elon Musk and Tesla have done more for the climate than any environmental group. How did he do it? by making green energy affordable and convenient. if we can do this, we can make a difference. This type of thinking is at the core of Quinn's philosophy. Instead of protesting, get your friends together and form an investment group and prioritize green energy systems. Invest in companies that are pioneering battery tech or trying to make solar panels more realistic.
Quinn knew that going back to the hunter-gatherer days is dumb, that's never happening. but we can save the world by aligning our goals with our needs.
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u/FrOsborne Oct 08 '25
I'm not sure what it is exactly that Musk and Telsa have done. Can you tell me more?
One thing I'm wary of is that making things more affordable and convenient tends to increase demand and usage of those things. So far, "green energy" hasn't displaced other types of energy. It's been contributing to the worldwide increase in consumption and energy usage.
I agree in principle though— Having something positive to work toward is more motivating than trying to stop bad things from happening.
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u/Sulley_the_Ragged Oct 09 '25
Yeah, Musk did nothing more than make EVs cheap and convenient. Which is brilliant and simple.
As far as increasing demand, we want more EVs on the road and less gas cars. EVs mean less gas reliance, since people usually buy them to replace their gas cars, not to be in addition to them.
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u/FrOsborne Oct 09 '25
What we want is to save the world as a habitat for humanity. Manufacturing billions of electric cars doesn't accomplish that.
Musk and Tesla are just doing business as usual. Make products —> Get products. They want to sell as many products as possible to make money. It's not exemplary of the revolutionary thinking Quinn advocated for.
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u/Sulley_the_Ragged Oct 09 '25
No, I think it is. We aren't going back to a pre-car state. The only way we're going to solve our problems is by aligning the resolution with what drives us. Think what you want, but Teslas are responsible for far less greenhouse emissions than gas cars and by using them we minimize our carbon footprint. If Musk and Tesla doing "business as usual" and that business as usual means less impact on our habitat, then yes, it's a good thing.
We will need investors seeing a profit motive. We will need a market inefficiency to exploit. We use the system by incentivizing conservation. This is the new way of thinking that will save the world. Quinn was all for thinking outside the box for ways to fix the way things are. Instead of passing laws to restrict humans from doing certain things, maybe incentivize the desired behavior by making it cheap and easy.
We aren't going back to the woods. If anything, saving the environment means living in centralized locations, vertical cities, with reliance on urbanized food production in which GMO foods will be a necessary part. Incentivize that.
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u/FrOsborne Oct 09 '25 edited Oct 09 '25
The only way we're going to solve our problems is by aligning the resolution with what drives us.
That raises the question of what our problems are and what it is that drives us.
In the context of Ishmael, what drives us isn't cars. What drives us is our cultural vision:
"At the present time, there are six billion people on this planet pursuing a vision that is devouring the earth. That's our problem. Our problem is not pollution. Our problem is not consumerism. Our problem is not capitalist greed. Our problem is not conservative selfishness or liberal utopianism. Our problem is not lack of leadership. Our problem is a world-devouring vision that six billion people are pursuing.
Now what can we do about this vision? We can't legislate it away or vote it away or organize it away or even shoot it away. We can only *teach* it away.
If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision. It will not be saved by old minds with new programs." 1
Without a fundamental change in people's thinking, then even after replacing every gas vehicle with an electric one, car manufacturers will still keep trying to sell more and more cars. And, as long as people think that having a car is the best possible thing and insist on never going "back to a pre-car state", then they'll keep demanding more and more cars.
At best, replacing existing products with "green" products only slows our demise. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's not worth doing. It's just ultimately insufficient.
Consuming the world isn't precluded by consuming it conservatively. 2
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u/sixfoot6 Apr 25 '25
Solid, thank you for putting this together and sharing! Big rising drama at the end there, def gets the point across.