Desperately Seeking Ethics and Reason
An autistic Vulcan's quest for sense in a senseless world
Desperately Seeking Ethics and Reason
An autistic Vulcan's quest for sense in a senseless world
Linkdump
The Real Concentration of Wealth
Friday 25 May 2007 at 12:59 am I think I've been completely misunderstanding the whole socialist "concentration of wealth" paradigm until now.... (more)Guidelines for Naturalistic Child-Rearing
Wednesday 23 May 2007 at 12:32 am A freethought group discussion prompted me to create this:- Do not raise them in suburbs in crowded subdivisions, where visibility only extends to the back fence, the only soil they know is what's covered by lawn, and the only wildlife they encounter are ants, spiders, bees, the family slave-pets, and captive animals in zoos.
- Get their hands in the dirt; teach them an enduring respect for how living things grow and function and diversify, and an awe at the complexity and false appearance of order that arises from the chaos of evolution and change.
- Teach them that the laws of the jungle, social and economic and otherwise, are not ethical, that Nature is uncaring and "chaotic neutral" and not ethical, and that they should aspire to respect and treat other living things and each other better than does Nature itself (this is my restatement of the Golden Rule).
- Teach them to respect and desire to protect and contribute to The Great Process (of the human anthill) as much as they desire to serve their own selfish needs (a corollary to the Golden Rule: don't disrespect The Process).
- Expose them to all contrary arguments of every issue, rather than indoctrinating them with the one you believe to be correct: you might be wrong, and in excluding the alternatives from your children you deny them the chance to transcend you (and all of us).
- Teach them to always question and analyze everything, and that no authority, no amount of tenure, is exempt from that skepticism and analysis.
Corporate evil: Nordic Track 'spins' freewheels
Tuesday 22 May 2007 at 3:11 pm From the Nordic Track Web site, regarding their new and allegedly cutting-edge AudioRider 400 recumbent exercise machine (emphasis added):Freewheel Technology: This convenience feature allows you to instantly stop or start your exercise, without having to slow down in between.What the hell?! "Technology"? "Convenience feature"? Do they honestly believe that their customers are so stupid that they won't realize that this describes the very un-cutting-edge freewheels that have been a part of bicycles for over half a century? What if indeed their customers are that stupid, is it ethical of Nordic Track to abuse ignorance or stupidity in this fashion?
I will never do business with a company that resorts to such sleazy trickery, mis-framing, and mis-education in an attempt to sell more product, and neither should you.
Ann Coulter's own words are the best sword an atheist could desire
Friday 18 May 2007 at 1:50 pmOn Wednesday, Ann Coulter wrote an article that, in general, seems to be the Religious Right's inevitable reaction to Christopher Hitchens' vitriolic condemnation of Reverend Jerry Falwell (some of Hitchens' remarks, such as his use of the adjective "toad", were offensive even to me, but that's another issue). In the first paragraph of her article, Coulter writes: "Separately, no man [than Falwell] better illustrates my warning that it doesn't pay to be nice to liberals."
That sentence perfectly illustrates my own sentiment in contrast:
| Separately, no woman (than Coulter) better illustrates my warning that it doesn't pay to be nice to Christians. |
News flash: Hair loss in humans might not be irreversible!
Thursday 17 May 2007 at 12:49 am According to BBC News, reporting on an article in the journal Nature, a team of (no doubt all male) geeks at the University of Pennsylvania believes they may have discovered a mechanism that could be used to grow new hair follicles! Woo hoo! Here I've been shaving all these years, trying to finish the job I thought Nature (the Mother, not the journal) started, and I need not have? I look forward to some day squandering money on hair tonic and barbers!An example how NOT to do Internet 'research'
Wednesday 16 May 2007 at 12:29 pmSome smartass blogger named Didier Stevens, got a bright idea to deliberately create a Google ad inviting people to have their computers infected with a virus. When, lo and behold, 409 of 260,000 people actually clicked on the ad, he's offering that as implicit evidence that those 409 people were gullible stupid people of the sort that create viral/worm/trojan epidemics for the rest of us.
Nothing could be farther from the truth: he doesn't know anything about those 409 people.
(more)Do First Amendment rights trump all other rights?
Monday 07 May 2007 at 09:50 amI was involved in an anti-war protest and demonstration on Saturday, which ultimately marched to and ended in front of a local Congresswoman's home. There was singing and shouting and gong-banging that I wouldn't have appreciated if I had been one of Congresswoman Matsui's neighbors; I left the demonstration prematurely because of it. I subsequently had a long debate with the organizer about it, but he is defiant and adamant that their political agenda and First Amendment rights superceded any rights that Matsui's neighbors had to privacy and peace and quiet in their homes.
(more)
