My Cosmic Threesome
Getting Sam Harris and Nassim Taleb into My Procrustean Bed
No one fucks like Sam Harris or Nassim Taleb.
(Mindfucks. What did you think we were talking about?)
For years I’ve dreamed of getting them both at once. Sam, Neddy, Taleb. My cosmic threesome. An existential sandwich and I’m the meat.
I want the greatest mindfuck of all time. My aspirational epitaph is, “Received the best mindfuck in history. Top that.” Sam and Taleb could get me onto the shortlist of humans remembered by a classic epitaph, a single, powerful, immortality-impersonating one-liner. The ultimate closing joke. Then, for the rest of my days, I could really push my mental envelope, and any discoveries I make are still covered by my earned epitaph. My aspirational informational atom bomb unary obit.
(If you’re wondering why Richard Dawkins wasn’t on the list, it’s because he’s hung, like, a horse and frankly I just can’t handle that. Too painful.)
((He’s a taxidermist and hangs dead animals, like a horse, or deer, or something, I don’t know. It hurts me to imagine. What did you think we were talking about?))
But really, what is the Internet? How in the world did you end up reading this right now? It’s hard for most people to define The Internet, because they struggle to process its real (simple) definition.
The Internet is whatever we make of it.
That’s the Internet.
What we should make of it is — a simple portal that increases an individual human’s probability of flourishing. (PoF)
One way to do that is to make everyone aware that she doesn’t need to be alone. Ever again. Now, if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t go running off into the woods draped in a red hood toting a delicious meal. The Internet wolves are insatiable, and more numerous than ever before in the history of stories (which isn’t all that long, really.) You’ll get eaten alive, and your little grandma too!
With the right education, a person can follow the path to satisfying Internet companionship. I am blazing one such path as you read. The secret is to find a community of people who share your most specific fantasies you’ve ever imagined. This is my doggy-style whistle. (Whistle in the style of a dog whistle. What did you think we were talking about?)
This injection of artificial ink into your consciousness is a clarion call to all the ladies who also masturbate to Sam Harris’ bedtime meditations (What did you think the Waking Up app was for?) or Taleb’s rambling BloombergTV interviews. I’m looking for you, my fellow 50ish-year-olds-who-thank-Goop-for-helping-discover-orgasms-which-by-the-way-get-even-better-when-contemplating-existential-philosophy.
If you and I are wired the same, then you also dream of pressing your lips against the tense foreheads of Sam Harris and Nassim Taleb. At the same time.
So imagine my surprise to learn that they hate each other. How can someone fantasize about a threesome in which two participants are pouty and juvenile.
What happens when two lifetime members of Smartestguyintheroom Club find themselves in the same room? Well, obviously, they short circuit. Their programming doesn’t allow them to process the other’s membership card barcode. They go haywire and start… name calling.
Taleb’s name-calling is always delicious. Let’s face it. He serves Künefe-insults generously and never runs out. People attack him for more and more servings. Stop people or you shall get sick!
His most moist and sugary attacks on Sam refer to him as a… “reporter.” It’s hard to hear, I know.
Sam is mainly offended by proxy. Sam dislikes the dishes Taleb serves Sam’s friend, Steven Pinker. (In Pinker and Taleb’s defense, Taleb’s System 1 is greatly offended by Pinker’s hair game and soft dance moves. Pinker, let the record show, is not a taxidermist.)
Sam once insulted Taleb by labelling Taleb’s defense of religion as a “word salad.” I think Sam just lacks imagination.
Well, as I tossed in bed, imagining all kinds of salad tossing with Sam and Taleb (My Cosmic Threesome Fantasy always ends with us at Panera. What did you think we were talking about?)
Taleb wins. That’s the short of it. Enough of this foreplay. (Never enough foreplay. Not possible.) Let’s just break down Taleb’s victory.
Sam is a scientist and a philosopher. By now those two disciplines should have taught him to imagine the explanations for religion that would convince him he is wrong about religion.
Taleb dismisses Sam because Sam refuses to imagine such scenarios. That, after all, is what true scientists do. Sam, therefore, is merely a reporter, who should study more math.
I will imagine for Sam. I’ll make the first move. He is in unfamiliar territory and nervous. Here is the idea I believe most possible. (Yes, yes. apologies Sammites, but we exist because we have the ability to believe first and test second. Someone must believe a hypothesis into existence. Give it life! Animate it! It is impossible to test something that no one believes is possible. You will never have the right details to test if someone does not first believe the details possible. Utilize your God-Like Powers of Creation and Believe all the things you Imagine You Most Want to Believe, then test them all.)
Religion makes it easy to get started at this. Young. Our minimally-connected, fresh, young brains require an ideal to imagine. A starter belief upon which we shall build our own beliefs. Given the child’s simple understanding of reality, she is allowed to partake in what matters most — existence. Don’t die like a common animal, a single, short-lived wave in the endless ocean. Believe in something higher. Aim to rise above it all.
And rise we do. Diagoras asked, “Where were the pictures of those who prayed, then drowned?” I’m borrowing from MC Dia-g to ask you this, “Where are the pictures of those who were raised in religion and grew to escape its dogma? That process is what makes our brains grow and society flourish.”
The true impact of religion on the newly born effectively can’t be measured. It is possible, however, that our brains require an ideal in order to get kickstarted thinking. The ideal is a key, and it unlocks the processing power of our minds. The ideal must penetrate deeper than all of our greatest fears. We are all afraid to acknowledge our true place in the world, animals that build the best shelter (so far) and understand how to plant seeds, that’s all we are. Animals. We poop a lot, have sex a lot, then die. Always. Our animal brothers and sisters are just as inconsequential in the scheme of things as we are. Who wants to think about that?? Because it hits you pretty fast and hard when you’re a new human, life beginning in a dying world.
What if we weren’t mortal, what if we were special? What if this new life were simple to manage.
Religion is a technology we don’t yet understand only because we still don’t recognize it as technology. Hypnosis is technology. Alcohol is technology. Yes, Religion, Hypnosis, Alcohol, have many things in common. One — they’re all tech.
Like alcohol, a technology that continues to help our society thrive, while on the surface appearing to do more harm than good (sound familiar, Sam?). Sure, those of us who have boozed would be better off stopping for good, but should we take it away from those who have never imbibed? What if it shakes their minds up a little? And what do you put in its place? Are you ready to go with the new technology that helps people celebrate and mourn at higher levels than life’s random circumstances have heaped upon them?
Humans cannot be deprived of religion. If we take creation myths away from children’s fresh young brains, they will be delayed in wrestling with the larger questions in life. They will be more impressionable and manipulatable. They must learn, at the earliest age, how to contemplate infinity and acknowledge the abyss and carry on. They must learn how to believe and test and carry on.
Religion is a technology we don’t yet understand. It would be foolish to put an end to this mysterious feature of humanity before trying everything we can to understand its positive influence on the millions exposed to it, who abandoned it, but benefitted from the exposure, and on children, whose brains it might be kickstarting in a direction that keeps us alive (while YouTube Kids might be a direction that puts us in a ditch or over a cliff.)
Yes, Gods have come and go. Yes, they can’t all be true. But, what if they’re all just exactly the same thing, and we humans are lost in bad translations of details important to some monk at some point in time?
As my new friends reading this would agree. Sometimes, the existential foreplay can ruin the mood.
I believe I’m over it.