Monthly Archives: September 2024

About Bureaucracy and the Real World

Posted on Monday 9 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

How bureaucracy is evidence of the complexity of the real world, and the only way to solve global problems; Notes from the fringe: How Tennessee prevents people voting; Trump’s niece on Trump’s dementia; USA Today about covering Trump’s dementia; Candace … Continue reading →

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How Beliefs Prevail over Evidence and Reality

Posted on Sunday 8 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Democrats have fixed the economy, but many people don’t “believe” it; CBS News’ Ted Koppel visits a Wisconsin State Fair; The crowd cheers Trump’s latest word salad; How conservatives actually hate American values; And how the mainstream press in America … Continue reading →

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Cheating and Lying

Posted on Saturday 7 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

To me, all of these undermine the Conservative project as a legitimate intellectual discourse. How new local news sources are not what they appear to be; Epoch Times; my rule of thumb about reliable news sources; How the Heritage Foundation … Continue reading →

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Plot Armor

Posted on Friday 6 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Beginning with this unusual topic. Not about Trump per se; more a general principle of story-telling. And faith. OnlySky, Dale McGowan, 6 Sep 2024: For the Trump faithful, it comes down to plot armor, subtitled “It’s no surprise that Trump … Continue reading →

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Alternative Political Realities

Posted on Thursday 5 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

I continue to find examples like these fascinating. I know they are extreme examples, and not representative of conservatives in general. But that these claims and attitudes still exist, and are widely circulated, suggests to me that, in the big … Continue reading →

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Essays by Harari and Chiang

Posted on Wednesday 4 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Both about technology, about AI. The Sapiens author has a new book out next week: Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. This is an excerpt. NY Times, Yuval Noah Harari, 4 Sep 2024: … Continue reading →

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Borders and the Fringe

Posted on Tuesday 3 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

A speculation by Adam Lee about what will happen when we give up national borders; Items from the fringe about Trump’s three rules; Musk’s preference for high status males; Christian nonsense about evolution; simply lying about the Arlington story; and … Continue reading →

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Cory Doctorow on Marshmallow Longtermism

Posted on Monday 2 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

I read Cory Doctorow’s latest column for Locus Magazine last week, when I browsed through my advance PDF copy of the September issue. It’s a fascinating piece that considers the difference between the political left and the political right in … Continue reading →

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Lukianoff & Haidt, THE CODDLING OF THE AMERICAN MIND

Posted on Sunday 1 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a book that was published six years ago this month, and which I read one year ago last month. Subtitle: “How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure” (Penguin Press, Sept. 2018, 338pp, including … Continue reading →

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