Monthly Archives: April 2024

Believing Anything

Posted on Tuesday 16 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

A long opinion piece by Dana Milbank at WaPo shows *how* Trump supporters will believe anything, without explaining (despite the headline) *why* they do; My thoughts about what has brought about the loss in consensus reality; And short items about … Continue reading →

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The poorly educated and the “cognishly umpired”

Posted on Monday 15 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

A Tom Gauld cartoon illustrating tribalism — “Our Blessed Homeland” vs. “Their Barbarous Wastes”; Anti-woke teachers in public schools; Abrahm Lustgarten on the American climate migration (which applies to the wider world, of course); More from John Gartner about Trump’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal history, Science, Tribalism | Comments Off on The poorly educated and the “cognishly umpired”

Slouching

Posted on Sunday 14 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Fascinating piece about a new book Slouch, about the curious preoccupation with posture, at least in America; Short items about Trump’s dumb attorneys; Christian rallies against the LGBTQs; why Trump’s “Christian Visibility Day” illustrates Christians’ persecution complex; and that traffic … Continue reading →

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The Dual-Process Theory of Morality, and Some Examples

Posted on Friday 12 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Today I finished reading this month’s big book (i.e. a substantial nonfiction book), Joshua Greene’s Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, an extremely interesting book for the way its central idea knits together many of … Continue reading →

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Obsolete Laws, Morality, and Beliefs

Posted on Thursday 11 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

The world is changing, and conservatives deny this by appealing to values of a simpler past. How Republicans are resorting to obsolete laws — the Comstock laws, the 1864 Alabama ruling — to enforce their morality upon everyone; How the … Continue reading →

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Daniel Dennett, Exploring the Universe, the Eclipse, and How so Many People have no idea what an eclipse is about

Posted on Wednesday 10 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Daniel Dennett’s four biggest ideas in philosophy; Why we spend money to explore the universe; Washington Post with images of the eclipse; And SF author CJ Cherryh on how so many ‘people on the street’ have no idea what makes … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Philosophy, Science | Comments Off on Daniel Dennett, Exploring the Universe, the Eclipse, and How so Many People have no idea what an eclipse is about

Jaime Green, THE POSSIBILITY OF LIFE

Posted on Tuesday 9 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Here is a book published about a year ago now that turns out to be very similar, thematically, to the more recent book by Adam Frank, The Little Book of Aliens, that I reviewed here in January. That book was … Continue reading →

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Eclipse Aftermath, and Politics

Posted on Monday 8 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

First of all, our street had a scheduled power outage this morning, from 9-12, so I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to see any of the TV coverage of the total eclipse crossing the eastern US today. There were … Continue reading →

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The Awe of the Solar Eclipse

Posted on Sunday 7 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Three items today. Addressing a piece that claims that the awe of the solar eclipse, tomorrow, will somehow unite humanity (I think not; it hasn’t before); Another appreciation of Daniel Kahneman, who explained how humans think, and established the idea … Continue reading →

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How Humanity is Hobbled by Tribalism

Posted on Saturday 6 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

I do have a general scheme in work, for which all of these items are supporting evidence. (And how this really does relate to science fiction.) A rogue GOP congressman who spouts unsupported conspiracy theories; How RFK Jr. supporters rationalize … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Morality, Politics, Religion | Comments Off on How Humanity is Hobbled by Tribalism