In this episode, Malcolm and Simone discuss the difference between prophets and messiahs, and the role of the elect in our understanding of our religious beliefs. They discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each view, and how they differ from the other.
00:00:00.000Prophets are individuals like Jesus or something like that who received special revelation and their revelation is made apparent to us both through their predictive capacity of future events and through the spread and efficacy of their message and improving an individual's quality of life.
00:00:18.960The elect are different from prophets. The elect are individuals who have a plan for their lives, like this is what I plan to do to have this outcome on the world population.
00:00:30.000This plan needs to, one, have been accurately executed, so they do need to have the impact that they had planned on having, and two, be in line with the will of the agents of providence.
00:00:42.880So it basically means that they are using you as a vessel to bring about the future that must come to pass.
00:00:50.340From the martyrdom of man, persons with feeble and untrained intellects may live according to their conscience, but the conscience itself will be defective.
00:00:59.440To cultivate the intellect is therefore a religious duty.
00:01:05.020Hello, Simone. It is wonderful to be here with you today.
00:01:07.380We recently released an episode on our religious beliefs that primarily ended up focusing on the concept of where we think, like, truth comes from.
00:01:16.100Like, how you can determine if an individual is a prophet, and how you can determine if an individual is being, and the will of God.
00:01:27.080Like, how do you determine what the will of God is?
00:01:29.940And it went into, and in our case, what we think God is, just so people are broadly aware, is we think that God is our distant, distant, distant descendants, humanity's distant descendants.
00:01:43.440That in a million years, if humans are still around, whatever we have become in that time is closer to what today we would conceive of a god than what we today would conceive of as a human, and that they don't relate to time in the way we relate to time.
00:01:59.020So it's sort of this self-manifesting entity that reveals aspects of itself to people throughout our civilization's development.
00:02:10.080However, when it's explaining itself to earlier iterations of people with less technology and less philosophical sophistication, it had to use simpler explanations.
00:02:20.740But we left that video with a cliffhanger, which was the concept of the elect.
00:02:29.080And it's something that we can dig into a lot on this video, because it's a pretty important concept to our religious framework.
00:02:36.620And the gist of it is that not everyone's life matters equally.
00:02:41.820God does not care about everyone equally.
00:02:44.360The agents of providence, we would call them, do not, not everyone is equally important in their design, and some people are holistically unimportant in their design.
00:02:55.380Do you want to go over your thoughts on this, Simone?
00:02:58.480Yeah, well, I would say there's a larger, I guess, bifurcation of religious and metaphysical philosophies that everyone has to make a call on this, and each is kind of an asshole for different reasons.
00:03:14.360So there's one group that believes in limited atonement, which is really what we're describing here, that some people are saved or some people are important and others aren't, and not all people are equal.
00:03:25.560And that's not necessarily something that we're happy about.
00:03:29.340And the upsides to this view, or I would say the virtues of this view, the nice things, are that you're not going to see a lot of forcible conversions with these religions.
00:03:40.240And we're not the only ones who hold this view.
00:03:41.980There are lots of people who also, Calvinists hold this view, Jewish people hold this view, lots of groups, right?
00:03:54.400They're a lot less domineering because it's just not practical.
00:03:57.480But then on the, like, on the downside or the vice end, you know, they're just also like, ah, those people are lost or going to hell or unimportant or whatever, right?
00:04:05.240Like, they're somehow lesser or, you know, not saved or whatever.
00:04:09.560And that kind of sucks because, I mean, in a, like, very PC, everyone's happy world, everyone goes to heaven, everything's good, it's great.
00:04:18.240Then there are religions and cultural views that believe that everyone can be saved.
00:04:24.080Obviously, the virtue there is that everyone can go to heaven.
00:04:44.240This means then that if you have, like, two groups that hold this view, like Catholics and Muslims, for example, both kind of, I think, if I understand correctly, hold this view.
00:04:54.640Not all Catholics and all Muslims hold this view.
00:04:57.640Like, or, like, really heavy proselytizing ones.
00:04:59.940Both would believe, well, the other group is going to go to hell if they don't convert to the correct religious view and the correct practices.
00:05:07.540So it is their imperative to, through force or through convincing, the convincing part is the nice way to do it.
00:05:15.780The force way is the not nice way to do it.
00:05:20.520You kind of see, I would say, a secular version of this can be seen with antinatalism.
00:05:24.540Antinatalism, where there are coercive antinatalists who would just like to forcibly sterilize or, like, literally kill everyone without their consent.
00:05:35.260And then there's the antinatalists, like Lawrence Anton and his cohort who we've spoken with and met with a person who would, who never want to coerce anyone, who only want to convince people.
00:05:55.060I think you've drunk the Kool-Aid a little here.
00:05:56.940I think that these groups historically typically don't try to coerce people when they're in the minority.
00:06:03.040But when they gain control of governments, they almost always attempt to coerce people.
00:06:07.720Well, but what we can say, though, is that, like, they're trying to do the right thing.
00:06:11.520They're trying to do the right thing, but they don't—they're not just trying to do the right thing.
00:06:14.980Like, if they have control of a governing system, they have a moral mandate often to use that governing system to coerce people to follow their faith.
00:06:23.620Yeah, because otherwise you know that you can save someone and you're letting them go to hell.
00:08:33.460So, these future entities will, the future that they're trying to bring about.
00:08:36.940So, it basically means that they are using you as a vessel to bring about the future that must come to pass.
00:08:43.820Now, this gets more interesting because what this means is it means even if I end up having a big impact on history,
00:08:51.900if it wasn't the impact that I intended to have, then I am not a tool of the agents of providence.
00:08:58.920I am more just like a tool that was used to carry out wider events in the world, potentially on their behalf.
00:09:05.200But it wasn't what I wanted to have happen.
00:09:09.420An example here could be someone like Hitler.
00:09:11.580Like, things definitely didn't turn out the way that he wanted to.
00:09:14.520And yet, it would be crazy to say that he's not one of the most influential people in world history and will not be remembered as one of the most important in terms of how he changed the path of history.
00:09:25.020Right. Like, a lot of history pivoted around him.
00:09:29.860But this actually comes to another thing that it means to be among the elect because there are various degrees of the elect, right?
00:09:36.380And this is the impact that you have needs to be a differential impact.
00:09:42.020That means if you do what somebody else would have done had you not existed.
00:09:47.720This – earlier in my career, I had this managerial position open up at Google, and I was – I had an offer from them, and I was waiting and waiting and waiting.
00:09:54.840And they had accepted me, but they hadn't employed me to a department.
00:09:58.620And I ended up at one point having to choose, do I go work for this VC firm in Korea, the young firm, or do I end up going to Google?
00:10:04.860And I asked my wife about this, and she goes, Malcolm, if you don't take that job at Google, they will replace you with somebody equally competent as you.
00:10:11.380And you will have no real power to change the direction of the company or the direction of your product.
00:10:17.260Yeah, like even if you did get in there and even if you did make heterodox views, you wouldn't be able to get them through given the way that their decision-making worked at the level that you've been hired.
00:10:26.280Yeah. And so this – like if you're a politician and you're just surfing a sentimental wave, you are very unlikely to be among the elect.
00:10:33.920You need to be surfing a wave that you created, and had you not been here, somebody else wouldn't have created.
00:10:40.020So this is an example of like if Hitler hadn't done what he did, I think it's pretty unlikely anyone else would have done something that insane.
00:10:47.100Well, here's another – like in terms of modern examples, and this is really more relevant to an American audience, but there's a United States senator named John Fetterman who is not exactly in our political camp, but he shows signs of what we would say is someone who's elect.
00:11:02.420Why? Because recently he's done a lot of things that run counter to his party's view.
00:11:07.120He's not towing the line. He's doing stuff that's getting him in trouble with his party.
00:11:10.480It's going to make his life harder as a politician, but he is standing for his principles.
00:11:18.060Can you talk about what those things are?
00:11:20.340Oh, for example, like he refused in a pro-Israel protest slash parade to support Palestine slash Hamas.
00:11:28.300I do believe it's important that we call it what it was. You know, they systematically used rape as part of their war, and they terrorized and brutalized Israeli women, and especially young girls, and raped them.
00:11:41.960And then after that, they actually would shoot them in the back of their head.
00:11:44.560And I have a 12-year-old daughter, and those are the kinds of victims, you know, here in October 7th.
00:11:50.780And we've got to call it out, and we have to acknowledge that.
00:11:54.020And if – why you wouldn't want to protest that versus attacking a Jewish restaurant, it's part of the point that I made on Twitter.
00:12:01.120But I also believe that Israel has the right, and they actually should, destroy Hamas, because Hamas is an anathema to peace and a true two-state solution.
00:12:10.840And there's been some other things he's done where he, like, really is just standing for what he believes in a way that hurts him and runs counter to his party.
00:12:28.120And here's the other thing, is when you go back and you look at other people who hold similar views of, like, the elect and not the elect, Puritans in the early colonies,
00:12:35.460there are these hilarious diaries that, for example, are covered in Albion's Seed, which, of course, we're obsessed with as a book,
00:12:42.600where, like, people are – you know, one day they're so sure in their journal, like, I'm definitely among the elect.
00:12:54.500Even at your dying moment, you have no idea if you're among the elect or not.
00:12:58.680You don't know if you're, like, a sapon or, like, the real deal.
00:13:02.000And we cannot know when judging other people whether they're elect.
00:13:05.460And that's another, like, sort of tenet of Calvinism.
00:13:07.740It's not like – you know, you can't assume that someone who's lived the most wretched, terrible life, worst criminal ever, they could still be among the elect.
00:13:17.640We are – it is basically up to God to decide.
00:13:22.320And you don't know within your own lifetime because you don't know the impact of the things that you did.
00:13:27.580And so to give an example of a better politician that I was mentioning earlier would be Trump.
00:13:32.760The wave of political sentiment that Trump caused – I mean, he basically caused a total political realignment in our country that almost certainly would not have happened had he not run.
00:13:42.580Now, we don't know if that alignment was of the will of the future police or if he was just sort of an NPC setting things up for somebody else.
00:13:51.440So to Simone's point, right, so then there's this different category, which is just being a good person and living a good life.
00:13:58.940And what this means is that you have lived in accordance with your conscience, and that conscience is a well-informed conscience, and you attempted as best you could to make an important impact that led to humanity becoming a diverse and flourishing interstellar human empire one day, right?
00:14:23.860You know, there's a quote here that is from Wynwood Reads, The Martyrdom of Man, a book that I quoted a lot, and Simone does not like me quoting too much, so I'll keep it short.
00:14:31.520But persons with feeble and untrained intellects may live according to their conscience, but the conscience itself will be defective.
00:14:39.700To cultivate the intellect is therefore a religious duty.
00:14:43.540Yeah, and I think that that's really true.
00:14:45.320You can live in accordance with your conscience, but if that conscience is not a trained conscience, it is very easy to live a bad life, and a life that ends up moving civilization in a direction that was counter to your goals.
00:15:00.400And this is another thing about this concept of the elect that really, you know, comes from what Simone is saying, is we cannot judge.
00:15:07.480We can judge people, you know, hundreds of years ago if they were likely among the elect or not among the elect, but we cannot judge people in our current time, our peers, very accurately if they are among the elect or not among the elect.
00:15:20.080And we certainly can't determine for ourselves, and I think there are a lot of people out there who are so sure that they're on the righteous path.
00:15:25.680One thing that I like about this limited atonement, and, you know, whether you're elect or not, you'll never know, is that it really forces self-scrutiny, and it forces, like, a huge amount of, like, self-consciousness and self-doubt, which I think is ultimately extremely helpful.
00:15:44.860You have to constantly sharpen yourself.
00:15:46.620You have to constantly hold yourself accountable.
00:15:48.960And when you don't know, I don't know, I feel like it's a better tool for that.
00:15:54.380Yeah, another thing I'd point out here is that the agents of providence, they will sometimes use people, even to have a big impact on history, that are either meant to signal something to the elect or that are meant to strengthen the elect.
00:16:11.940So many times when it feels like something evil has happened in the world, you know, I'm thinking potentially recent events, these events were not an accident by the agents of providence.
00:16:25.420These events were meant to sharpen a certain other group or guide a certain other group away from tragedy.
00:16:32.080And I think that this is a really interesting thing, and it really helps in my daily life.
00:16:38.100Because if I am among the elect, what this means is that when something bad happens to me, when I think something bad has happened to me, I should investigate that thing for what I was meant to learn from it or where it was meant to steer me or what it was meant to teach me.
00:16:54.440Nothing bad really ever happens to someone among the elect.
00:16:58.000Everything that happens to them was meant to guide them towards a specific pathway.
00:17:03.820And if you are trying to determine if you are among the elect or not among the elect, that is the one source that you can use for evidence, which is when bad things happen to you, they are a sign that you are supposed to learn something from those things, and you can begin to draw information from them.
00:17:24.300And this can happen to a person much further in their life.
00:17:26.600Like being an elect isn't something that's just like always obvious to a person.
00:17:29.460It may be that like just everything is going wrong in a person's life, and then one day they're like, oh, I needed all that to happen to me so I could do this thing now that I know is the righteous thing to do.
00:17:49.620Often things that you think are bad happen and ultimately are one of the best things that could ever happen to you.
00:17:55.360Like we thought it was devastating at first when we discovered that I was like basically infertile and we can't have kids naturally because that was like a huge blow to us.
00:18:03.340But then we realized given the size of the family that we want to have, we would not have been able to have that size of a family, realistically speaking, if we conceive naturally.
00:18:13.840So it was it was in the end for the best, but we would never, I think, have had the mental fortitude or strength to choose to do that because it is so expensive and, you know, pretty difficult to go through IVF.
00:18:31.780You know, this is this is absolutely true.
00:18:33.940And it is and this in terms of just like mental health is also really like people might think it's really bad.
00:18:40.700Like you're always questioning the things in your life.
00:18:42.900You're always questioning whether or not you're among the elect.
00:18:45.140The belief that you are righteous is one of the most dangerous beliefs imaginable because it can lead people to commit atrocities with no introspection.
00:18:54.200And it's it's incredibly important to constantly question whether you are doing the right thing.
00:19:01.260And I think people who believe that they are righteous are among the most dangerous people because they're not going to question what they're doing.
00:19:07.700Right. I think that you're absolutely right about this.
00:19:10.240I think that constantly questioning whether or not you are actually on the right side of history is important.
00:19:15.580And and so many people just don't do that and to look for signs as to whether or not you are on the right side of history or not and be willing to change your path.
00:19:24.940Yeah. Well, as you as you begin in the pragmatist guide to life, you have a whole chapter that is titled, I think, would you be would you have been a Nazi?
00:19:34.880And it was those people who didn't question, who just kind of went along with things, who assumed that, of course, they were doing the right thing, who allow those atrocities to happen.
00:19:44.440And it can be incredibly hard to question, especially when you might be questioning behavior that differs from what mainstream society is doing.
00:19:52.560But still, I think that, yeah, I guess that's another that's another virtue in the basket of the limited atonement camp that I do quite like.
00:20:02.220This is another thing that's that's really I mean, so I mean, I'd say if we're wording the elect in a different word that I love a quote from the, you know, the movie we use all the time in this is being among the elect.
00:20:14.440It means that you have the courage to make the safety and prosperity of the human race, your personal responsibility.
00:20:21.520A citizen has the courage to make the safety of the human race, their personal responsibility starship troopers, boys and girls.
00:20:50.000So another thing that and I do have to amend something I said here before, where I was like, you can't tell who's among the elect and who's not within your own lifetime.
00:20:58.040You can't tell among the people who are trying.
00:21:00.780You you can definitely so I can never say this person's definitely among the elect.
00:21:04.440It's pretty there is a very large group of humans on the planet that I can tell are definitely not among the elect.
00:21:10.620Oh, pretty much anyone who's living for personal vanity.
00:21:13.420Anyone who hasn't really thought about why they're doing what they're doing and is just going with societal trends.
00:21:18.840Anyone who, you know, if somebody walks out there and they're dripping in jewelry and they're, you know, striving to be accepted by the public, they are almost.
00:21:30.160First off, and this is also something that like people way more thoughtful about this have thought about, who pioneered like the points of Calvinism.
00:21:38.380And part of this, one of the key points is you cannot know and also people who you think lived a deplorable lives that were not, to your view, in alignment with the important values can still be among the elect.
00:21:51.140I would argue, for example, there are people in your life who lived lives extremely not value aligned with yours, who nevertheless shaped you into the person that you became.
00:22:02.080And part of what they did care about was in making you a great person and making your brother a great person.
00:22:08.620Both of you are incredible people who I think are definitely working to create a humanity in which a future in which humanity flourishes.
00:22:19.180So I would argue that these people who you would probably, per that definition that you just gave, you know, hedonic, dripping in expensive jewelry, really focused on having a good time, like they still matter a great deal because they also cared about producing great sons and they did.