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Showing posts from August, 2019

In praise of Reddit

I know they are an owned company and Chinese invested so what's going on in Hong Kong may have been slightly repressed by rerouting for some to a pro-Chinese r/Hong_Kong instead of r/hongkong, and there are problems that occur in society as well, like meanness and childishness. But I was reading through the various responses on r/ireland about whether Conor McGregor represents Ireland and there's such a fascinating range of opinions and discussion. I wondered if in America someone is either categorized as a pie eyed dreamy liberal or a bible thumping gun toting hypocrite. But that's not true. People have nuance, and can see all the wrinkles if they want to. When you choose not to see wrinkles, it's usually in service of battening the hatches for the storm. I love seeing pictures of baby animals and goats jumping. There are heartwarming stories and you can ask for compliments if you want to. You can ask for anything, though of course that doesn't mean you wil

Epistemology

I spent a month entertaining the idea that Shakespeare didn't write the plays attributed to him, that Edward de Vere was a better candidate. Further inspection led to getting rid of that idea, but so much is unknown about Shakespeare, and the crudeness of people who put forward the Stratford man, keeps the idea alive. So much is unknown about the body. Vaccines are a huge boon to public health, but it turns out it's not without complications. I don't think vaccines lead to autism, but they are made with animal parts, and the levels of elements, and the general unknown about why bad things happen to people, have led to a huge anti-vaccine movement. If you make an assumption and collect evidence, you can fill up you bad pretty quickly. Now having some perspective by going to medical school and working in medicine will help you to weigh the facts, but not everyone can do that. Certain professions guard the knowledge, and certain professions use experience to teach. We can

And yet the mysteries and cosmic awesomeness continue.

The internet is changing things. The prices of coffins has plummeted, as people were willing to undercut others to bring the price down to a more reasonable price. The music industry is in trouble, you can get music for free. OK Spotify will pay an artist based on their advertising. Artists can circumvent that by not putting their music online, and thus they are not heard. The Beatles were not there, and then they were. ACDC was not there, then they were. If you need instant gratification, you can pay, but otherwise wait or just listen to something else. Books are free now. You can get them from the library of course, you can save thousands that way and you don't have to figure out how to get rid of them, you just return them. You can get free content in many ways. There are a bazillion wannabe writers who give their books away ( scifi  books for example). Guttenberg also has books off copyright. Also libraries show you pictures of rare books. Movies are not free. Subscripti

dissembling rodeo clowns

The Republican reason for allowing policies that kill thousands of people, is that people are responsible for themselves, not government. People kill people with no help from gun manufacturers, or society in any important way. Then the riposte about mental health after gun shootings is a ironic comment because they don’t believe in the larger forces. They think you might. And it’s untrue about mental health and mass shootings. Domestic violence is more of a correlate, but that’s not an issue for them. They are about unblocking individual freedom, not trying to curb negatives. Trump’s playbook. Whatever accusation is made, just invert. Koch brothers developing political playbook to distract from their own malfeasance . So political discourse with a republican is just rodeo clowning. No wonder records of Republicans are retiring this year. Held accountable by the press? Fake news. Trumpian script flipping. One reason why Kamala Harris would be a good candidate. She would own

Vile din and dolphins

History of badness question

I read that Ireland hasn't recovered in terms of population from the Potato Famine. That got me thinking about the Jews and the Holocaust. I guess that's why I met a woman who had 12 children. Then I thought about the Native Americans. There was a Indian Termination Policy of the USA government. What's the smallest culture that was snuffed out the quickest? The one type of person that gets heavily oppressed and murdered that can't get snuffed out, is the transgender people. I don't believe in god but if you do, you have to ask why god would create someone in the wrong sex body. Doesn't seem all good or all powerful to me. Every year they stand at City Hall in NYC and read all the names of transgender people who were murdered. Some guys who don't understand their attraction and feel betrayed, resort to murder to resolve their feelings.