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Boo. Those people you're spending time with, this "family" or "irl friends" you allude to... they are merely the best set of a very physically-limited set of people you can know. Online though, you can spend time with anyone!

Daniel Wigton 9mo ago

I don't actually have irl friends, but I do have a wife and six children under 12. I met my wife online so I appreciate the modern ability to widen horizons. Also having moved a great distance to marry, I am glad I can use technology to keep in contact with my parents, nine siblings, and some subset of my 34 cousins.

I also think e-commerce is a good, as are news, information, limited entertainment, and interesting conversations with like-minded but far-flung individuals.

I merely question what the balance should be. I get a dopamine hit from merely unlocking my phone. I hate that. I should be using technology to do useful things, not merely to feed an addiction. My tech-wired brain will take any excuse, so time away helps me figure out what is actually indispensable.

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Daniel Wigton 9mo ago

I feel I should clarify that it is the six children only who are under 12. Anyone else can be safely assumed to be at least twice that age.

YODL 9mo ago

Thanks for the much needdd clarification 👀

I should pay attention for the dopamine hit of unlocking phone. Is it really there for me as well? Yeah, a lil bit. Definitely on days when I am more engaged here i get pulled away from accomplishing longer term goals. But I do get all the things you listed, often finding interesting topics to think about or explore.

Trade offs I guess...

Well, as long as you don't go for good, I shant complain

YODL 9mo ago

This note has still got me questioning things...

Daniel Wigton 9mo ago

The more questions you ask the more answers you will find!

At least that is the hope. There certainly those that ask without seeking. The main thing is to lack confidence. Once we become confident in the answers we have we no longer seek to find better.

YODL 9mo ago

Dang, that reminds me of my more youthful mindset. Always had a healthy doubt I'd work to overcome, ad inf. Don't think I'm too set in my ways just yet. Especially lately, got that spark back baby

Daniel Wigton 9mo ago

Note that questioning =/= lack of trust. For instance. I remain Catholic because for every question I ask it and every answer I find it is there before me. Thus I can trust it even while I question it.

But man does the Adam and Eve problem have me confused. I am supposed to believe that at some point we had a pair of first parents that sinned. When was that? Were they the only members of the species at the time? If not what happened to everyone else? Maybe they still exist in an alternate reality, sinless and happy.

Maybe Adam and Eve weren't the only humans but they were the only ones with a rational soul and they screwed it up?

YODL 9mo ago

Aha, so you do allow for some metaphor in your understanding. Thought you might be from the more strict school for some reason.

Good point, and good question. I'm not religious, as I think you know, but I think about what truth that story might be getting across. Fundamentally disagree that desire for knowledge is flawed.

Daniel Wigton 9mo ago

I don't think the message is that the desire for knowledge is flawed. I think the message is that not trusting God to share knowledge with us is flawed.

He specifically made us to be like himself. But we were all, "we'll figure it out ourselves thanks" but due to the limitations on epistemology we can't (or Kant). So God, knowing that life apart from Him was going to be a literal hell, cut us off from the tree of life, giving us a chance, through death to trust him again. The invitation to Godhood still exists.

YODL 9mo ago

Hmm, not a bad answer. I got nothin'. You win this round Wigton.

Oh and cool that y'all get to believe evolution. Rejecting that has always seemed wild to me.

Daniel Wigton 9mo ago

The Catholic Church is very open to metaphor. I get to believe in evolution and stuff!