Category Archives: Culture

Links and Comments: Optimists; Bible; Children

Posted on Sunday 7 January 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Time Magazine’s current issue is called “The Optimists,” and is edited by Bill Gates. Steven Pinker has a piece: Why We Refuse to See the Bright Side, Even Though We Should According to the latest data, people are living longer … Continue reading →

Posted in Children, Culture, Human Progress, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Optimists; Bible; Children

Link and Comments: Fractured Reality

Posted on Monday 20 November 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

The cultural theme of this second decade of the 21st century seems to be the fracturing of consensus cultural norms, even of consensus reality, especially in the US. I’ve observed this in tandem with reading about advances in psychology, over … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Psychology, Religion | Comments Off on Link and Comments: Fractured Reality

Links and Comments: Conservative Susceptibility to Lies; Contempt for Science; Existential Threats

Posted on Monday 13 November 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

» Slate: Why Are Conservatives More Susceptible to Believing Lies?. Subtitle: “An interplay between how all humans think and how conservatives tend to act might actually explain a lot about our current moment.” Longish article about how conservatives are more … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Species Reset | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Conservative Susceptibility to Lies; Contempt for Science; Existential Threats

Links and Comments: An Abortion Thought-Experiment, and Conservative Thinking

Posted on Monday 23 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Salon: The Twitter thought experiment that exposes “pro-life” hypocrisy. Subtitle: “Comedian and sci-fi writer Patrick Tomlinson on the dangerous question that abortion foes refuse to answer” Last Monday, a tweetstorm eviscerating abortion foes went viral. Science fiction writer and comedian … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture | Comments Off on Links and Comments: An Abortion Thought-Experiment, and Conservative Thinking

Links and Comments: Tribalism, Zero-Sum Politics, Trump, Gut Reactions, Weather Forecasting

Posted on Friday 22 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

First, Andrew Sullivan has an essay in New York magazine, America Wasn’t Built for Humans, subtitled, “Tribalism was an urge our Founding Fathers assumed we could overcome. And so it has become our greatest vulnerability.” He wonders how American has … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Lunacy, Provisional Conclusions | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Tribalism, Zero-Sum Politics, Trump, Gut Reactions, Weather Forecasting

Links and Comments: Reactions to Art; the Eclipse; Christianity and PKD

Posted on Saturday 16 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Saved from Facebook… A post by Adam-Troy Castro: Noted in a thread: Somebody (I forget who) told the story of leaving A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE as one of two teenage couples, being absolutely gobsmacked by it, and listening to his … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Movies, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Reactions to Art; the Eclipse; Christianity and PKD

Pinker: Better Angels: Passages and Outline from the Preface

Posted on Wednesday 6 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

This is Steven Pinker’s big 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, that takes a long-range view of human history to show that the human condition, over millennia and especially in recent centuries and decades, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Evolution, Human Progress, Humanism, Steven Pinker | Comments Off on Pinker: Better Angels: Passages and Outline from the Preface

Links and Comments: Trump’s anti-intellectualism; ‘religious liberty’

Posted on Monday 31 July 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Salon, Conor Lynch: Draining the swamp — of brainpower: Trump’s corrupt administration is fueled by anti-intellectualism. Subtitle: “Trump got elected by attacking ‘elites.’ But he didn’t mean rich people — only those with education and expertise” Well of course. Only in … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Trump’s anti-intellectualism; ‘religious liberty’

Links and Comments: Rules to Escape Trump’s Moral Rot; Escaping New Atheism(?); Optimistic Nihilism

Posted on Monday 31 July 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

William Saletan, at Slate, takes inspiration from John McCain’s recent speech, during last week’s health care debate: Words to Live By. Subtitle: “McCain’s speech gives us a map for escaping the moral rot of Trumpism.” He says, “To escape the … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Culture, Meaning | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Rules to Escape Trump’s Moral Rot; Escaping New Atheism(?); Optimistic Nihilism

Curious Play

Posted on Monday 24 July 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

On Saturday we saw the play “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”, on its US National Tour leg just ending here in San Francisco, with a different cast than the Broadway version, or any previous version, but … Continue reading →

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