The world is, fundamentally, *about* God. All we call pleasure is some creature being given the privilege of showing us some aspect of God's goodness for us to enjoy. What we call "doing good deeds" is being given the privilege of being God's creative love to another creature.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 18, 2024
A single anecdote, if true, can disprove a theory supported by a billion data points.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) November 10, 2025
(When the theory says the anecdote can't happen.)
own (@ctlansdown) August 18, 2024Enjoyment can be in the abstract but execution must be in detail.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) November 7, 2025
The day you stop being grateful is the day you start being miserable.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) November 6, 2025
The problem with naive RETVRN movements is that you're just trying to go back to what got us here.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) November 8, 2025
The problem with naive progressive movements is that you have no idea where you're going.
A proof that God doesn't exist from a guy who evidently does not believe in wind or gravity. pic.twitter.com/HRa8ujU6ZV
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) October 28, 2025
It's really curious how many philosophical implications cleaning has.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) October 26, 2025
Cleaning is intrinsically temporary, so it points to the temporary nature of good in this world.
Cleaning is an admission that we are physical and as such a rejection of magic.
There's a curious duality that emerges when a child microwaves a mac-n-cheese cup with no water it and it burns:
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) October 24, 2025
The acrid smoke clings so well to the microwave you can't remove it but at the same time continually comes off so that the air is perpetually contaminated.
Many people want lies to be true.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) October 24, 2025
This is a big part of why so many people fall for scams.
It's not *that* hard to know more than your doctor about your medical condition because you only need to research one condition but the doctor needs to know a thousand. One month of research is probably more than they have since 1000 months is 83 years.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) October 13, 2025
Being a saint would be so much easier if it was enough to speak the truth and you didn't need to live it, too.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 24, 2025
(because internet: this was inspired by my own failings.)
I really feel like I deserve some kind of medal for doing squat day even though I'm sick and my back hurts.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 23, 2025
But all I'm going to get are stronger muscles.
Sometimes life is fair, which feels very unfair.
One of the great things about the current age is that it's so easy to look up primary sources.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 21, 2025
So, for those who are wondering about the $100,000 H-1B Visa thing, here's the actual text of the proclamation: https://t.co/vnXmOgHL6M
A problem with being a free speech "absolutist" is that, in this unqualified sense, it would mean that perjury (in court) can't be a crime.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 21, 2025
Also, that fraud can't be a crime.
(because internet: I say this as someone who is very pro-free-speech)
It is helpful that the phrase "scientific consensus" has entered common usage because it is helpful when people who form their opinions on the basis of social pressure rather than by evaluating evidence self-identify.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 19, 2025
"I'm hanging in the balance
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 19, 2025
of a perfect finished plan
like every sparrow fallen,
like every grain of sand."
(Bob Dylan, Every Grain of Sand)
Has a better lyric for a song ever been written?
A major tension in parenting is that you need to take care of your children and at the same time teach them how to not need you.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 18, 2025
When a demon prompts a man to an evil deed it desires the evil itself but it's also planting a seed, that it may harvest the wrath of those affected by the evil deed.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 13, 2025
You be faithful to God.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 11, 2025
He put us in the time and place he did because of the details of our life - the particular people we come in contact with - not because of the general circumstances. We are all given the material we need to be saints, even if by being martyrs.
Maybe the reason you're where and when you are is to care for a particular tree. Adam and Eve were made to tend trees, after all.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 11, 2025
And if a tree is lower than us, we're lower than the angels, who carry us messages. And lower still than God himself, who died on a cross for us.
Reminder: informal fallacies are valid arguments whose premises are often not true - in the experience of whoever called them a fallacy.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 10, 2025
Since no one who calls things informal fallacies ever cites the authority who named them informal fallacies, they can all be considered "appeal to authority fallacies" if you're into that kind of thing. https://t.co/kBqWa9ZA5W
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 10, 2025
Now might be a good time to remember that the wise man waits for the full, unedited video before coming to conclusions.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 9, 2025
Editors always have a purpose to their edits.
A surprising number of people would rather feel guilty than grateful.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 9, 2025
When you look at all the effects of insulin at high doses, you can reasonably describe it as "getting rid of carbohydrates as fast as possible".
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 8, 2025
This leads some people to conclude "we need to constantly eat carbs because they disappear so fast".
There are movies that are better than they have any right to be. I think the movie that might have the biggest such discrepancy is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 7, 2025
A movie with guys in rubber suits that lives up to that title and takes it all seriously has a negative right to be…
A problem with fiction that depicts the afterlife as just like this life, but more, which isn't universalist, is that it necessarily frames damnation as people who are capable of full repentance but missed an arbitrary deadline so now it doesn't count.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 6, 2025
Be wary of comparative relative statistics cited for infrequent events.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 5, 2025
The phrase "all things in moderation" reminds me of a line from G. K. Chesterton:
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 4, 2025
"Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true."
I wonder if anyone has suggested that thicker bones is just calcium in vs calcium out - if you eat more calcium than you excrete, your bones get thicker (and stronger). Eat less calcium than you excrete and you get osteopenia.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 4, 2025
Evolution will, of course, take care of this: the descendants of people who don't have children in a modern environment won't be in the population and the descendants of people who do have children in a modern environment will be the population. (It may be a rough transition.) https://t.co/azzK4ev4Ve
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 4, 2025
There are people so terrified of not being able to make good decisions that are hard that they'd rather make bad decisions that are hard than good decisions which are easy.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 4, 2025
Let's be real: cardio is worse than the torment nexus from the classic SciFi novel Don't Invent The Torment Nexus.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 29, 2025
It really sucks that you have to do it anyway. https://t.co/x5HOpYTmz1
For those who haven't studied statistics at the collegiate level: this is a trick question.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 3, 2025
There is no p-value because you've measured the entire population. https://t.co/QhgB5eFgjE
I just saw an ad (on Instagram) for a titanium cutting board.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) September 1, 2025
How does someone fail to understand the purpose of a cutting board that badly?
Someone who loves sharpening knives more than cooking, I guess?
I checked and this is actually true. It started in 1933 with Executive Order 6102 (there's a Wikipedia page for it).
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 31, 2025
I didn't think my opinion of FDR was too high, and yet, it turns out it was. https://t.co/WmRaXtB6gJ
Glory to God in the highest. pic.twitter.com/6HtSov7zw3
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 30, 2025
If you track your weight daily (first thing in the morning) you can see muscle edema in the day after a big workout. (Especially deadlift day!)
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 30, 2025
It really underscores how the workout is just a stimulus and it's healing from it that makes you stronger.
Apropos of nothing, here's a reminder of one of the all time great tweets: https://t.co/jdPLU20Wgd
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 30, 2025
Remember that the evil people telling us to stop praying, being human, have the potential to be great saints.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 28, 2025
Pray for them.
There needs to be a polite way to ask, in an email, "if you were to try to put the contents of this meeting that you are asking for into an email, what would that email be?"
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 26, 2025
When taking up a fitness routine, sometimes you need to ignore the advice of people who know a lot more than you because a bad plan you can keep up is better than a good plan you can't, and only you know you.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 26, 2025
But most of the time you should listen to them.
As one of the laziest of the sons of men, trust me when I say: I completely get wishing to have been born in a world where we don't need to struggle to be happy.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 24, 2025
But God didn't see fit to put us in that world, and he's a lot wiser than us, so maybe it's not worth worrying about.
Reminder:
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 23, 2025
Not every day is a good day, and that's OK. They don't all have to be.
One of the keys to understanding healthy marriages is that in one, the man and woman both love each other. They want to help each other in *a manner fitting to the people and the circumstances*. https://t.co/tJ8DwsV5dk
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 21, 2025
There's a communication gap because she doesn't mean these words the way a man would mean them.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 21, 2025
Women want connection & communication, not a lack of self control. They want to know what you're feeling, not deal with it for you.
(In the video, you see him regain composure.) https://t.co/FrmpdbHKLl
Reminder that we also do not have any direct empirical evidence that the laws of nature were the same yesterday as they are today. https://t.co/pFQT2DNzFK
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 21, 2025
There are two big problems with loving to travel:
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 20, 2025
1. LARPing as a 19th century noble with many servants suggests you dislike your station in life.
2. It suggests you aren't good at enjoying where you are / making home enjoyable since you love to get away from it.
A lot of people confuse not-judging with judging people to be good; not-condemning with approving.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 16, 2025
Some think the latter is better but it's actually worse.
The only thing more painful than people condemning you for your sin is people praising you for your sin.
Brothers and sisters, I beseech you:
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 17, 2025
Do not be the crop of an engagement farmer.
If you walk to the grocery store with a backpack, you walk home with a weight vest.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 15, 2025
People love abstractions far too much.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 15, 2025
This is most noticeable in people who never consciously think about abstractions.
It's weird how little many people know about history that they think that sexual harassment being tolerated is traditional and not an innovation of the (late) 1960s.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 14, 2025
I've seen a lot more people ask how to build a high-trust society, which is a stupid question, than how to build a high-trustworthiness society, which is an incredibly important question.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 13, 2025
(To get a high-trust society, build a high-trustworthiness society and wait a bit.)
The context for this is that the practice of science, as it is commonly done now, is first and foremost the securing of funding. The ability to get grants is the most important skill a scientist can have in academia. https://t.co/PyC1w08qaO
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 10, 2025
The quality of a lot of dietary discourse:
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 10, 2025
"If you don't turn your car on and push it around you will get fantastic fuel efficiency. What? Don't you believe in physics and math????"
I don't think people talk nearly often enough about how carbs in excess of what we can store - and if you regularly eat carbs your storage is already mostly full - get turned into saturated fat by the liver and transported in the blood via LDL.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 7, 2025
People only get better at things they do.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 4, 2025
The modern college experience, in its ideal form, consists of taking out enormous loans in order to LARP as a rich person on extended holiday.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) August 2, 2025
I wonder how psychologically destructive this is to people by giving them false expectations of what life should be like.
The programming adage, "never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence" is not about programmers mostly being well-intentioned.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 25, 2025
It's that programming is extremely difficult and therefore incompetence is very common.
It's fun to think of the body's initial resistance to adapting to exercise like a parent telling a child they can have something:
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 24, 2025
"Look, we can make more blood and build more capillaries, but that costs a lot of Calories, so are you really going to keep using it if we do?"
There are two ways to not be stressed out: have little stress or be able to deal with a lot of stress.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 22, 2025
A feeling of accomplishment helps you deal with a lot of stress.
Running away from stress often doesn't work, and doesn't make you feel like you accomplished anything, either.
I think that we miss something in modern discussions when we talk about aspiring to be the "servant of God" rather than the "slave of God."
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 21, 2025
Granted, many would be misled by the word, "slave," too.
But even so, I think it's good for us moderns to contemplate.
A general rule of thumb I use for current events, btw: if there are obvious questions for which I do not have any obvious answers, it's a very good time to suspend judgement and wait for more information.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 18, 2025
"If the world was extremely different my bad decisions would have been good decisions" isn't as good a defense as some people think it is.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 18, 2025
In one sense, "be very lucky" is the most accurate advice you can give.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 17, 2025
It's also the most useless advice you can give.
But a lot of the advice you get that's actionable at least does you some good even if you're only a little lucky. https://t.co/JBPkiTXhwP
The phrase "ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies" is interesting.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 12, 2025
It is the straight forward meaning that it honestly warns of dishonesty, which is interesting, but it is very interesting that it has the effect of rendering future lies harmless, which is honest.
It is a very strange realization to make that there are people who do not want to be grateful. Who in fact reject gratitude as somehow bad or beneath them.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 9, 2025
But it helps to make sense of how Hell can be an active choice.
What Libertarians and other socially-liberal-fiscally-conservative people miss is that "thou shalt not steal" is not, and cannot be, the first commandment.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 7, 2025
And in no possible world can it be the *only* commandment.
Middle age is an awesome and very enjoyable time of life...
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 5, 2025
...if you didn't waste your youth.
Being willing to fail is a completely necessary but utterly insufficient condition for succeeding.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 3, 2025
The nature of the world is to be temporary—we are given to take part in creation, building eternity up bit-by-bit—but we long for things that last because we have the intuition that we're meant for eternity.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) July 1, 2025
Mistaking that relationship leads to many errors.
They Might Be Giants were wrong when they said that you can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) June 30, 2025
However, it is a very bad idea.
The devil wasn't kidding.
To cut through the hype about AI and figure out what it's actually good for, think of it as a search engine over its training data. But it can find relationships between words, not just strings of words.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) June 7, 2025
The combinatorics of that are where the phenomenal power comes from.
Incidentally, this is one reason why the saints and martyrs are so important to Christianity. https://t.co/3pbNVL8btf
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) June 7, 2025
While a certain degree of platonic idealism should always be encouraged, there are people who need to learn that real Communism is the Communism that's been tried and fake Communism is the one that only exists in people's imaginations.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) June 7, 2025
One of the great ironies of lifting weights to build strength is that, long term, to make "number go up" you have to frequently choose "number go down".
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) May 20, 2025
If you push yourself like a robot, you'll build muscle like a robot.
(robots don't build muscle.)
It's probably a good rule of thumb to be wary of people calling out sinners rather than sins.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) May 16, 2025
The socially corrosive aspects of democracy are under-appreciated.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) May 7, 2025
That nice vegetarian who would never dream of telling you you can't eat meat wouldvote for someone who will ban meat.
(because internet: I'm not advocating for an alternative system, only that we should try to…
This has multiple causes but one is, I think, how complaining is one of the dominant forms of communication on the internet.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) May 3, 2025
Complaining discourages action.
Hence the old advice to say nothing if you have nothing nice to say. https://t.co/dOtnwfLxTb
There are people who want so fervently to be good that they're willing to try to force everyone else to do it for them.
— Christopher Lansdown (@ctlansdown) April 24, 2025
