Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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Meta
Monthly Archives: August 2024
Neopatriarchy, Tax Cuts, Conflict Entrepreneurs, and How the Nonreligious Might Save Humanity
Catching up on odds and ends today. The Right’s “neopatricarchy” is nothing but a prioritization of tribal morality — that nothing matters than having more children; Republicans are famous for bribing voters with tax cuts; now Democrats are doing it … Continue reading
Tara Westover: EDUCATED: A MEMOIR
And here’s a third memoir I read recently, inspired by that NYT list — though in this case, the book didn’t place on the final list, though it was nominated by a couple of the 500 contributors who revealed their … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Religion
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Things That Don’t Change
In particular, the reactions by conservatives to things that do change. Topics today: Illegals and the military; How poor poll results must be fake; The American struggle between reason and ignorance; How one small town is indeed deeply conservative; Considering … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Politics
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Ta-Nehisi Coates: BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME
Here is the next memoir I read, after Joan Didion’s, as inspired by that NYT list. This is a statement by a black intellectual to his 15-year-old son, about life as a black person and the struggles and dangers he … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Culture
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Preferred Relativism
A story about the right’s “50-year-plot” to wreck democracy, and attendant thoughts about how conservatives reject one kind of relativism, and embrace another; The credulousness of conservatives; Notes from the fringe: vaccines; rationalizing Hannibal Lecter; Democrats are wolves; wives afraid … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Morality, Science
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Nones, and Genre
Why did the rise of the “nones” begin in the 1990s? Thoughts about how science fiction is, or is not, a “genre”. Here’s an article I stumbled upon today, from 2019 in The Atlantic, by a writer I’ve see a … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Religion, science fiction
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Seculars, Human Nature, Abstraction
Some more abstract, intellectual topics for today. As the rise of ‘nones’ increases, what will society look like in a hundred years? How people are instinctively nice, more often than religions give them credit; An idea from S.I. Hayakawa about … Continue reading
Posted in Morality, Religion, Social Progress
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They’re Losing It
Trump and conservatives deny everything they don’t like by blaming “they” or the “Deep State”; And hurling words like “communist” without meaning; Why are we living in a future dominated by idiots?; Donald Trump doesn’t understand oceans; And the brother … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Lunacy, Politics
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Joan Didion, THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
Inspired by that NY Times list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, I read three short memoirs that I already had copies of in my library. Here’s the first. (These will be briefer ‘short takes’ compared to … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes
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Why Do You “Believe”? Who Do You Trust?
One item for today, about which I think is a key principle. NY Times, Zeynep Tufekci, 12 Aug 2024: The Problem Is Not A.I. It’s the Disbelief Created by Trump. This triggers off the recent news items about Trump’s skepticism … Continue reading
Posted in Epistemology, Politics
Comments Off on Why Do You “Believe”? Who Do You Trust?
