The Life and Opinions of Nathan Atlasforum, Gentleman (AMA)

[All Along The Watchtower]

On which issues have you become more of a Moderate Hero in recent years?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

On which issues have you become more of a Moderate Hero in recent years?

Two of the hottest-button issues today, abortion and Israel/Palestine, in different ways:

Abortion: I am about as genuinely convinced as can be that abortion is always a moral evil, but over the years I've gone from personally-opposed-but to conventionally "pro-life" to someone who's agnostic on the subject as a matter of legal theory and tends to oppose what non-Atlas-red states are doing on the issue because of how poorly designed and cruel all these policies are. I don't favor making it a state goal to actively expand access in places whose abortion laws are already lax, either. In both cases this moderate heroism comes from a recognition that Kantian norms simply aren't all there is to how someone in a difficult situation should be treated in practical terms; I'm older, I know more people who've actually had abortions than I used to, I've met and in some cases become friends with people who've done plenty of other repellent things that I don't think they should go to prison for--yet I retain all my old suspicions about what the maximalist pro-choice position implies about statecraft and law as moral undertakings.

Israel/Palestine: I am blackpilled on both of these countries' abilities to produce constructive, peace-minded, non-ethnoreligious-supremacist governments absent major changes in their material conditions or the mindsets of their populations or both. There are compelling reasons to assign more fault to either side--Palestine tends to be more intransigent about (increasingly sh**tty, which could be interpreted a number of ways) peace proposals and more liable to break ceasefires, Israel as the enormously more powerful party and one that supposedly holds itself to liberal-democratic norms on most things should also be held to higher standards, etc. We've all heard the arguments, and most of them make at least some sense, so I don't really see the point of attempting to identify good guys and bad guys beyond saying that my sheer knee-jerk emotional sympathies lie more with Israel.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Where would you draw the line between Upstate and Downstate NY?

You seem to have skipped this by mistake.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Where would you draw the line between Upstate and Downstate NY?

You seem to have skipped this by mistake.

Thanks for the reminder and sorry I still took a while to get to this.

I'd put a soft "someone from the City could be forgiven for thinking of this as Upstate" line at the northern boundaries of Westchester and Rockland Counties, a soft "someone from Watertown or Plattsburgh could be forgiven for thinking of this as Downstate" line maybe halfway between Albany and Kingston, and a hard "this actually is Upstate/this actually is Downstate" line around Poughkeepsie. The bulk of the Catskills would be on the Downstate side of the second line but the Upstate side of the first and third.

[emailking]

If you could invent anything you wanted and it would just work, what would you invent?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Opinion of this video?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If you could invent anything you wanted and it would just work, what would you invent?

A time machine so I can test my suspicion that there are both future times and past times I'd much prefer to 2hell24.

Opinion of this video?

so true bestie

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

この広告の考えは？

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

How is lyfe?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

How is lyfe?

And a follow-up: Ever read Book of the New Sun?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How is lyfe?

And a follow-up: Ever read Book of the New Sun?

1. Going okay. Currently on a solo road trip to DC to visit some friends/see the cherry blossoms/go to the Freer Gallery/shoot my shot with AOC (kidding. I follow her personal Instagram and she doesn't seem to be my type personality-wise); I'm poasting this from a hotel lobby computer in Wilkes-Barre. Got chewed out by my boss at work today, but nothing that was a huge deal; substantively and structurally my work is going well. Health is okay, although I've been in a depressive funk and some of my friends are getting concerned. I'm going to want to address that. My birthday is April 8 and I'll be driving as far up into Vermont as I can to see the eclipse.
2. Years and years and years ago. It's great. I should reread it one of these days.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Who's the last band/musical artist you've seen live and when?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Who's the last band/musical artist you've seen live and when?

Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera for my thirtieth birthday, slightly after this time last year. There's been stuff since then that I would have liked to have made it to, but I haven't been able to. If that doesn't count, Regina Spektor, a few weeks earlier than that.

ETA: I forgot I actually have been to community opera/musical productions a couple of times since then. John Frederick Lampe's The Dragon of Wantley "opera" (it's taking the piss; think Gilbert and Sullvian but a hundred and fifty years earlier) was the most recent, in December 2023.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Who's the last band/musical artist you've seen live and when?

Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera for my thirtieth birthday, slightly after this time last year. There's been stuff since then that I would have liked to have made it to, but I haven't been able to. If that doesn't count, Regina Spektor, a few weeks earlier than that.

ETA: I forgot I actually have been to community opera/musical productions a couple of times since then. John Frederick Lampe's The Dragon of Wantley "opera" (it's taking the piss; think Gilbert and Sullvian but a hundred and fifty years earlier) was the most recent, in December 2023.

Do you think you'd prefer the stuff my mom regularly goes to to what I go to? https://bismarckmandansymphony.org

Like she went to this last weekend, while I went to a punk show: https://bismarckmandansymphony.org/events/CelticCadences

She gets free tickets through her work, but I bet she'll keep going even after she retires.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Who's the last band/musical artist you've seen live and when?

Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera for my thirtieth birthday, slightly after this time last year. There's been stuff since then that I would have liked to have made it to, but I haven't been able to. If that doesn't count, Regina Spektor, a few weeks earlier than that.

ETA: I forgot I actually have been to community opera/musical productions a couple of times since then. John Frederick Lampe's The Dragon of Wantley "opera" (it's taking the piss; think Gilbert and Sullvian but a hundred and fifty years earlier) was the most recent, in December 2023.

Do you think you'd prefer the stuff my mom regularly goes to to what I go to? https://bismarckmandansymphony.org

Like she went to this last weekend, while I went to a punk show: https://bismarckmandansymphony.org/events/CelticCadences

She gets free tickets through her work, but I bet she'll keep going even after she retires.

There's probably a lot more overlap between her taste and mine than between yours and mine, yes, although the overlap between yours and mine isn't zero, and Celtic Cadences in particular looks a bit too kitschy for me.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Who's the last band/musical artist you've seen live and when?

Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera for my thirtieth birthday, slightly after this time last year. There's been stuff since then that I would have liked to have made it to, but I haven't been able to. If that doesn't count, Regina Spektor, a few weeks earlier than that.

ETA: I forgot I actually have been to community opera/musical productions a couple of times since then. John Frederick Lampe's The Dragon of Wantley "opera" (it's taking the piss; think Gilbert and Sullvian but a hundred and fifty years earlier) was the most recent, in December 2023.

Do you think you'd prefer the stuff my mom regularly goes to to what I go to? https://bismarckmandansymphony.org

Like she went to this last weekend, while I went to a punk show: https://bismarckmandansymphony.org/events/CelticCadences

She gets free tickets through her work, but I bet she'll keep going even after she retires.

There's probably a lot more overlap between her taste and mine than between yours and mine, yes, although the overlap between yours and mine isn't zero, and Celtic Cadences in particular looks a bit too kitschy for me.

On that note, opinion of this band that I saw Tuesday? (This was filmed less than a mile from me.)

Or for that matter, my favorite Furnace Fest song of last year?

(see 2:20 for the part that had a lot of people in tears, and some people doing that Pentecostal/charismatic hand raising thing.)

[Del Tachi]

Where would you draw the line between Upstate and Downstate NY?

You seem to have skipped this by mistake.

Thanks for the reminder and sorry I still took a while to get to this.

I'd put a soft "someone from the City could be forgiven for thinking of this as Upstate" line at the northern boundaries of Westchester and Rockland Counties, a soft "someone from Watertown or Plattsburgh could be forgiven for thinking of this as Downstate" line maybe halfway between Albany and Kingston, and a hard "this actually is Upstate/this actually is Downstate" line around Poughkeepsie. The bulk of the Catskills would be on the Downstate side of the second line but the Upstate side of the first and third.

Nonsense.  Upstate begins at 14th Street.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Where would you draw the line between Upstate and Downstate NY?

You seem to have skipped this by mistake.

Thanks for the reminder and sorry I still took a while to get to this.

I'd put a soft "someone from the City could be forgiven for thinking of this as Upstate" line at the northern boundaries of Westchester and Rockland Counties, a soft "someone from Watertown or Plattsburgh could be forgiven for thinking of this as Downstate" line maybe halfway between Albany and Kingston, and a hard "this actually is Upstate/this actually is Downstate" line around Poughkeepsie. The bulk of the Catskills would be on the Downstate side of the second line but the Upstate side of the first and third.

Nonsense.  Upstate begins at 14th Street.

ok pauline kael

While I'm returning to this topic, I will say that, although I generally dislike using highways for this purpose, I-84 is not a terrible demarcation line. There's even an argument to be made for I-287 from a City-biased standpoint, despite that being an even more restrictive definition of Upstate than the first of the ones I gave before; people do say things like "X [has/hasn't] been [north/south] of the Tappan Zee in [amount of time]" fairly often.

I'll try to get to some of the unanswered questions here soon; in the meantime, feel free to ask more.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

この広告の考えは？

ゴルフは、酷い社会悪ですよ。 それ以外に強い意見なし。

Who's the last band/musical artist you've seen live and when?

Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera for my thirtieth birthday, slightly after this time last year. There's been stuff since then that I would have liked to have made it to, but I haven't been able to. If that doesn't count, Regina Spektor, a few weeks earlier than that.

ETA: I forgot I actually have been to community opera/musical productions a couple of times since then. John Frederick Lampe's The Dragon of Wantley "opera" (it's taking the piss; think Gilbert and Sullvian but a hundred and fifty years earlier) was the most recent, in December 2023.

Do you think you'd prefer the stuff my mom regularly goes to to what I go to? https://bismarckmandansymphony.org

Like she went to this last weekend, while I went to a punk show: https://bismarckmandansymphony.org/events/CelticCadences

She gets free tickets through her work, but I bet she'll keep going even after she retires.

There's probably a lot more overlap between her taste and mine than between yours and mine, yes, although the overlap between yours and mine isn't zero, and Celtic Cadences in particular looks a bit too kitschy for me.

On that note, opinion of this band that I saw Tuesday? (This was filmed less than a mile from me.)

Or for that matter, my favorite Furnace Fest song of last year?

(see 2:20 for the part that had a lot of people in tears, and some people doing that Pentecostal/charismatic hand raising thing.)

You know, this isn't bad. I still wouldn't seek it out, but I think having known you for over a decade (!) is finally making me start to "get it" with some of this stuff.

[Battista Minola 1616]

I asked this elsewhere but you seem to have missed or forgotten about it, so I will repeat here where it's more likely to catch your attention: could you give me a detailed description of the forms that religious politics (especially religious conservatism) and social-theological disputes take in Buddhist societies?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I asked this elsewhere but you seem to have missed or forgotten about it, so I will repeat here where it's more likely to catch your attention: could you give me a detailed description of the forms that religious politics (especially religious conservatism) and social-theological disputes take in Buddhist societies?

This is a big enough question that it will take me a while to get to in full, but thanks for asking! I'm going to enjoy answering it.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

How is lyfe?

And a follow-up: Ever read Book of the New Sun?

1. Going okay. Currently on a solo road trip to DC to visit some friends/see the cherry blossoms/go to the Freer Gallery/shoot my shot with AOC (kidding. I follow her personal Instagram and she doesn't seem to be my type personality-wise); I'm poasting this from a hotel lobby computer in Wilkes-Barre. Got chewed out by my boss at work today, but nothing that was a huge deal; substantively and structurally my work is going well. Health is okay, although I've been in a depressive funk and some of my friends are getting concerned. I'm going to want to address that. My birthday is April 8 and I'll be driving as far up into Vermont as I can to see the eclipse.

Glad to hear it. How're you handling the approach of Death's icy claw?

2. Years and years and years ago. It's great. I should reread it one of these days.

I'm on  a second(?) reread and am finding that I'm becoming a bit captivated by Wolfe even if the only other work of his that I've read a good chunk of--The Wizard--I don't quite "get". The circularity in the narrative and time travel aspects of BotNS are completely lost on me and this leads to an unsatisfying ending, but the way Wolfe drops us into a wholly alien (and yet, it turns out, more familiar than we'd think at first glance) landscape with most relevant exposition hidden in passing references makes me endlessly fascinated by the world of the New Sun.

I was driving through the southwest the past few days (currently in Colorado) and have decided that it's time Leibowitz got a reread. (Talk about Catholic science fiction... I also need to reread the first few Dunes soon)

[F. Joe Haydn]

Is your humanism prior to your Christianity or is your Christianity prior to your humanism? Not in terms of time, necessarily, but in how you conceive of yourself as a person, which "comes first", ie forms the logical basis for the other? In other words, if you were to explain Life According to Nathan, would your humanism derive from Christianity, or your Christianity from humanism?

(That is, if you consider yourself a humanist at all. Based on your breadth of knowledge and the genuine decency you exude on here, I certainly would, and I find that a very imitable thing.)

Also, if you came out on the other side of the Agonies of Youth, that uncomfortable awareness of being young and lost and at sea that I feel so characterizes my life these days, do you recall a moment in your life when *it* all seemed to start making some sense? A moment when you began to Figure Things Out and such?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How is lyfe?

And a follow-up: Ever read Book of the New Sun?

1. Going okay. Currently on a solo road trip to DC to visit some friends/see the cherry blossoms/go to the Freer Gallery/shoot my shot with AOC (kidding. I follow her personal Instagram and she doesn't seem to be my type personality-wise); I'm poasting this from a hotel lobby computer in Wilkes-Barre. Got chewed out by my boss at work today, but nothing that was a huge deal; substantively and structurally my work is going well. Health is okay, although I've been in a depressive funk and some of my friends are getting concerned. I'm going to want to address that. My birthday is April 8 and I'll be driving as far up into Vermont as I can to see the eclipse.

Glad to hear it. How're you handling the approach of Death's icy claw?

You mean getting older? Fine so far. Thirty-one is really not actually old. I am a little bit worried about my career prospects, romantic prospects, and hairline, but none of that is that new.

2. Years and years and years ago. It's great. I should reread it one of these days.

I'm on  a second(?) reread and am finding that I'm becoming a bit captivated by Wolfe even if the only other work of his that I've read a good chunk of--The Wizard--I don't quite "get". The circularity in the narrative and time travel aspects of BotNS are completely lost on me and this leads to an unsatisfying ending, but the way Wolfe drops us into a wholly alien (and yet, it turns out, more familiar than we'd think at first glance) landscape with most relevant exposition hidden in passing references makes me endlessly fascinated by the world of the New Sun.

I was driving through the southwest the past few days (currently in Colorado) and have decided that it's time Leibowitz got a reread. (Talk about Catholic science fiction... I also need to reread the first few Dunes soon)

Since you asked this several weeks ago, have you gotten around to that Leibowitz reread yet? If so, what did you make of it?

Is your humanism prior to your Christianity or is your Christianity prior to your humanism? Not in terms of time, necessarily, but in how you conceive of yourself as a person, which "comes first", ie forms the logical basis for the other? In other words, if you were to explain Life According to Nathan, would your humanism derive from Christianity, or your Christianity from humanism?

(That is, if you consider yourself a humanist at all. Based on your breadth of knowledge and the genuine decency you exude on here, I certainly would, and I find that a very imitable thing.)

1. Thanks for the compliment!
2. My Christianity is prior to my humanism, assuming I understand what you mean by "humanism" properly, but I'm not altogether sure I see them as separate enough for that to matter.

Also, if you came out on the other side of the Agonies of Youth, that uncomfortable awareness of being young and lost and at sea that I feel so characterizes my life these days, do you recall a moment in your life when *it* all seemed to start making some sense? A moment when you began to Figure Things Out and such?

I'd say COVID was my impetus for doing a lot of that work; living with my parents but working full-time from home really helped me put into perspective the relative priorities I wanted to give work, family, friends, religious and civic commitments, personal projects, etc. going forward, and while I didn't figure everything out then, it made me a lot more confident in my ability to eventually. I was twenty-seven at that point and, as I said to Cath earlier in this post, I'm thirty-one now.

Still working on Battista's very good, very complicated question about Buddhist politics!

[All Along The Watchtower]

How has your understanding of the Divine changed over the course of your life?