Notes About the Real World

Posted on Wednesday 23 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Let’s look at some non-political items today.

  • Three critical thinking tools used by Daniel Dennett;
  • Eight principles of lifelong learning from an astrophysicist;
  • Adam Lee on our solarpunk future — technology that exists now, but isn’t widely distributed;
  • Scientific American on commonalities in the world’s music;
  • And Elizabeth Kolbert on the threat of Greenland’s ice melting.
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Big Think, Kevin Dickinson, 23 Oct 2024: 3 brilliant critical thinking tools used by Daniel Dennett, subtitled “The late philosopher suggested adding a couple of “Occam’s heuristics” to your critical thinking toolbox.”

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It Has to Make Sense, Somehow

Posted on Tuesday 22 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Robert Reich wonders how this race can still be tied, and reflects on bullies;
  • With relevant items about Charlie Kirk, and Russian operatives, and a scamvangelist;
  • An extensive guide to Trump’s lifetime of scandals;
  • A video about the actual integrity of the voting system;
  • Paul Krugman on Trump’s take on the Civil War, rich people, and wokeism.
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Robert Reich, 22 Oct 2024: How the hell can the race be tied?, subtitled “Two weeks before an election in which America should be sending Trump home (and then to jail), he and Harris are in a statistical tie in the battleground states.”

Reich writes about dealing with bullies all his life (in part because he’s short), including (as an adult) Republicans.

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How Plagues Are Caused by the Tolerance of Left-Handed People

Posted on Monday 21 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Why are Gen Z men going back to church, and women leaving? It’s always about the search for meaning;
  • About friends and family who’ve been lost to MAGA madness;
  • Hurricanes are caused by being left-handed — er, by porn in schools;
  • How Republicans *want* to be able to spread misinformation;
  • Faking a former Walz student;
  • How Trump’s win would return the US to the world of the 1930s.

So hard to keep up. I think for today I’ll pass over Trump’s stunt at a McDonald’s, and his obsession with Arnold Palmer’s anatomy. You can Google them.

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Why would this be?

Slate, 11 Oct 2024, Jill Filipovic: Gen Z Men Are Going Back to Church. Why?, subtitled “Young men are increasingly more religious. Young women are leaving the church in droves. Their motivations might not be so different.”

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Factory Settings

Posted on Sunday 20 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The idea of “factory settings” as describing base human nature, and how some people can transcend them;
  • A woman wonders if religion is the only way to instill her child with “scaffolding for spirituality and morality” (answer: no);
  • Richard Dawkins reflects on the American electoral college system, and Jordan Peterson.
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I was struck by something in this op-ed today. (In today’s paper, it was posted a couple days ago.)

NY Times, Jamelle Bouie, 18 Oct 2024: There Is No Precedent for Something Like This in American History

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Good Questions, Interesting Answers

Posted on Friday 18 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • David Brooks wonders, Why isn’t she running away with this?
  • Adam Gopnik wonders why even his opponents don’t recognize the extent of Trump’s villainy;
  • Jill Filipovic wonders why NYT softens headlines about Trump;
  • David French wonders if Trump’s policies make any more sense than his tweets;
  • And items about Trump’s profanity-laden talk to the Catholics, MAGA’s bond, Trump’s dehumanizing language, and Musk misrepresenting Harris’s policies.

NY Times, David Brooks, 17 Oct 2024: Why the Heck Isn’t She Running Away With This?”

He wonders why the race is so tied, the polls immobile. And he wonders:

Why has politics been 50-50 for over a decade? We’ve had big shifts in the electorate, college-educated voters going left and non-college-educated voters going right. But still, the two parties are almost exactly evenly matched.

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What It Means to be Fascist

Posted on Thursday 17 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Robert Reich’s take in five points;
  • AlterNet’s John Stoer’s take;
  • How Trump can claim anything — now he’s the “father of IVF” — and his fans will believe him.

Robert Reich, 17 Oct 2024: Trump’s closing argument: full-throated fascism

Recalling Trump’s recent remarks about illegal aliens and the “enemy within” and how his political opponents are “evil,” Reich states:

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Out of Commission

Posted on Wednesday 16 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • More examples of Trump as the rambling, incoherent traitor;
  • How people trust Trump on the economy because he oversimplifies things, and conservatives don’t do complexity or nuance;
  • Thomas B. Edsall on Trump’s appeal to racists;
  • A Florida Republican who thinks her non-Christian opponent should be disqualified from office.

Could it ever happen that Trump’s supporters realize what a horrible mistake they’ve made when Trump begins rambling like this before the entire world?

Salon, Charles R. Davis, 16 Oct 2024: “His brain is completely out of commission”: Moderator repeatedly calls out Trump for rambling, subtitled “The 78-year-old Republican could not stay focused nor answer basic questions about tariffs and his economic agenda”

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Doomscrolling

Posted on Tuesday 15 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Is MAGA a disease like violence is? Depends on your terms, and ideals.
  • Items about Musk, Trump’s lie-industrial complex, and why Trump is doubling down on racism.
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Three weeks to the election, yada yada, polls tied, yada yada, what is half the country thinking??

This sounds about right.

Salon, Chauncey DeVega, 15 Oct 2024: “Brain flaws”: Understanding MAGA as an epidemic disease, subtitled “Epidemiologist Dr. Gary Slutkin: MAGA is a ‘dangerous and lethal syndrome’ of ‘Authoritarian Violence Disorder'”

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Education and Focus

Posted on Monday 14 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Education is now the best predictor for how someone will vote;
  • Why Trump’s supporters don’t believe his threats (they’re focused only on their particular concerns);
  • How Trump wants to lie in real-time without being fact-checked;
  • Paul Krugman suggests that Trump’s lies are a mishmash result of being unmoored in time.

Is this a surprise?

CNN, 14 Oct 2024: Why education level has become the best predictor for how someone will vote

There are many ways in which Americans are ‘divided’ — women v men, rural v urban, whites v voters of color — in ways that are reflected in their political preferences, but for whatever reason education now seems better than the others for predicting peoples’ votes.

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The Enemy Within

Posted on Sunday 13 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump is ready to use the military against his “enemies from within”;
  • What one immigrant thinks when he hears Trump speak;
  • How Republicans are sure there will be cheating, and migrants will vote. Counter: why not let the whole world vote on the US presidential election?
  • Gateway Pundit admits lying; a MAGA woman explains how Alexa is part of the government’s control of hurricanes; how Fox knows it’s lying about immigrants and disaster aid.

Anything genuinely new today?

Well, yes. Trump is ready to call out the military against his enemies, such as “radical left lunatics,” presumably meaning anyone who doesn’t vote for him.

CNN, 13 Oct 2024: Trump suggests using military against ‘enemy from within’ on Election Day

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