Einstein’s Rules; Arranging Books; Who Owns the Moon

Posted on Wednesday 17 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Today let’s do three substantial topics, and push items about politics and religion to the end. To the fringe.

  • Einstein’s 7 rules for a better life;
  • A peculiar Guardian article about arranging “curated” books;
  • Adam Lee on religious taboos and who owns the Moon;
  • Fringe items about those who would revive the climate of driving those who get outed to commit suicide; how Republicans claim they’re not sexist but are disinclined to vote for women; how Trump is God’s will but Biden isn’t.

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Big Think, Ethan Siegel, 16 Jan 2024: Einstein’s 7 rules for a better life, subtitled “The most celebrated genius in human history didn’t just revolutionize physics, but taught many valuable lessons about living a better life.”

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Orion, and Tribal Politics

Posted on Tuesday 16 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • What Orion would look like if we had better eyes;
  • The Iowa landslide for Trump reveals evangelicals for who they really are; The country needs a dictator; Sobbing woman begs Trump to save her;
  • Conspiracy-monger set the fires himself;
  • Nikki Haley denies that the US has ever been racist;
  • Liars and better liars.
  • And why humans don’t need to understand reality, or truth.

What Orion would look like if we had better eyes.

Astronomy Picture of the Day: The Orion You Can Almost See

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After Science and Democracy, Perhaps the World is Regressing to a Mean

Posted on Monday 15 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Latest examples of Republican values: letting migrants in Texas drown; and how Trump wants his followers in Iowa to vote even if it costs them their lives;
  • How Trump voters prefer a strongman, never mind democracy and law and order; and how this may be a regression to the mean, in world history;
  • How Trump’s “lost cause” is a kind of gangster cult; and yet, despite the evidence of human psychology, writers keep dreaming of rationalist, democratic utopias.

Latest on Republican values.

Joe.My.God, 14 Jan 2024, from The Texas Tribune: Texas State Troopers “Physically Barred” Border Patrol Agents Trying To Rescue Drowning Migrant Children

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Yesterday Heather Cox Richardson expanded upon this: January 13, 2024

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Readings: Carl Sagan; Maggie Jackson

Posted on Sunday 14 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • A 1987 Carl Sagan lecture, just published in 2022, about the protocols of science and government and the need to acknowledge uncertainty;
  • A NYT opinion piece by Maggie Jackson about uncertainty and how to manage it;
  • R.E.M.’s “Leave”

Quillette, Steven Pinker and Harvey Silverglate, 1 Jul 2022: Science and Civil Liberties: The Lost ACLU Lecture of Carl Sagan, subtitled “Around 1987, Sagan gave an uncannily prescient lecture to the Illinois state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.”

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At the Edge of the Continent

Posted on Saturday 13 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Today my partner and I finished setting up my chic new curved widescreen monitor (a Christmas present), replacing the two standard-sized monitors I was using before. This new monitor (technically a “gaming” monitor) shows roughly the equivalent of three of the standard-sized monitors. It took several tries to hook up, using various cables ending in various kinds of ports; one of the two cables that came with the monitor simply didn’t work, and the other used plugs I didn’t have ports for on my relatively new laptop. Finally we found a suitable HDMI cable that works. Everything is working I think I still need to raise the monitor a bit, so top of screen is eye-level. It’s *heavy*.

Back to assorted posts on current events and politics.

  • Trump dreams of economic disaster since he doesn’t actually care about Americans, only his chances to win the next election, and this aligns with modern conservatives’ notions about Jesus and the Bible;
  • Short items about weather control and assassinations, false history and cults;
  • And R.E.M.’s song “I Remember California”.

Whose side are Republicans on? Not that of ordinary Americans; apparently only themselves.

NY Times, Paul Krugman, 11 Jan 2024: Trump Dreams of Economic Disaster

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Backing Into Philosophy: Stipulations

Posted on Friday 12 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

I do have another batch of links about current events, but I’ll save them for this weekend and instead spend tonight’s blog post jotting down thoughts about philosophy. I mentioned back on Jan 6th that one of my resolutions for this year is to systematically read a history of philosophy, after having only dipped into many of its subtopics over the years.

I wondered in that post what the bridge might have been between humanity’s earliest, intuitive, “Savannah morality” thinking, as I’ve described many times, and the first things that might be called philosophy. And then floated the idea that many individual wise men have surely been present throughout history, some of whose thoughts are lost to time, others of which we venerate, even if they were never systematized into any kind of “philosophy,” in the sense of their being principles of explanation or instruction meant to apply beyond the writer’s own experience.

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Take Another Trip Around the Sun

Posted on Thursday 11 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Let’s try to drill through accumulated links, if only briefly, and then move on to other things. Among many items, these themes:

  • Republicans and “God gave us Trump” and America’s “collective pathology”;
  • Adam Lee on the idea that conspiracy theorists are trying (but failing) to do skepticism;
  • Why people split the world into good and evil;
  • Jennifer Rubin on how real conservatives used to think;
  • And another R.E.M. song: “Around the Sun”.

Salon, Chauncey DeVega, 11 Jan 2024: Experts on why so many Republicans accept that “God gave us Trump”, subtitled “How Donald Trump has evolved into a Messianic figure among the white religious right”

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A Dream of Oceans, and Sunken Cities

Posted on Wednesday 10 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Still enamored by R.E.M., which is why I’ve chosen another of their lyrics for today’s post title.

Today: more items about trying to understand the modern world.

  • How false information might be the top global risk in 2024;
  • An example of conservative trolling from Aaron Rodgers;
  • Items about the Trump/MAGA mindset, including “God Made Trump” and how Republicans “Openly Insult Women Nearly Killed by Abortion Bans”;
  • And in complete contrast, R.E.M.’s “The Lifting”

OnlySky, M L Clark, 10 Jan 2024: Is false information our top global risk in 2024?

Overview:
If we can’t manage our mis- and disinformation crisis better, how can we ever hope to tackle our environmental, political, and economic issues well?

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Now is Greater Than the Whole of the Past

Posted on Tuesday 9 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Three items about how conservatives resist solving problems if those solutions would benefit the Democrats;
  • A survey of readers, books they’ve read, books they own, and some of my own statistics;
  • And R.E.M.’s song “She Just Wants to Be” which includes this post’s title.

To begin, three items today that suggest an underlying theme.

Media Matters, 8 Jan 2024: Laura Ingraham demands Republicans reject deal for government funding to deny Joe Biden “a victory lap”

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Philosophy of Government, and other matters

Posted on Monday 8 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How that DeSantis/Newsom debate revealed “the space between red and blue states”;
  • Short items about folding paper to reach the Moon (the answer is 42), and Christian ideas about good and evil, beating up gay children, and Trump as God’s gift to mankind.

I have a bunch of links from the past couple weeks and even before that I can post quickly, but in looking for something more substantial that I can quote from to begin the post…. Let’s try this.

I’ve posted a couple items recently about the stark difference between how conservatives/Republicans and liberals/Democrats would run the government. (I’ll insert links here shortly.) Here’s another, a link collected back on 3 Dec, which I’ve not seemed to have used yet. It’s about the “debate” between Newsom and DeSantis, back at the end of November.

The Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein, 3 Dec 2023: What the DeSantis and Newsom Debate Really Revealed, subtitled “The space between red and blue states”

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