Category Archives: Politics

Evidence

20 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by in Cherry Picking, Conspiracy Theories, Critical Thinking, Gun Control, Politics

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In one of the more spectacularly fatuous recent displays of why formal public debates are a complete waste of time, Ken Ham (creationist promoter of Kentucky’s financial albatross “Noah’s Arc” theme park) and Bill Nye (“The Science Guy”) “debated” the question of evolution versus creationism. Now, for there to be a debate, there first has to be something TO debate and, in this instance of course, there was not. While there are many scientific issues of deep perplexity still to be found in the theory of evolution, there is no reasoned question as to the FACT of evolution. Creationism, on the other hand, lacks even the abstract possibility of scientific – or even logical – content; not even amounting to a fabulous “just so story,” creationism is nothing but childish hand-waving, and it is incapable of being anything other than such hand-waving. (Detailed scientific texts on evolution can be downloaded for free from the National Academies Press HERE.)Ham-Nye-debate-in-a-nutshell

Still, one of the stand-out moments of this exercise in wasted time, which thoroughly demonstrates why the entire exercise was a waste of time, came at the end, when Ken Ham and Bill Nye were both asked what would suffice to lead them to change their mind regarding their position. Ham’s reply was an immediate and unqualified, “Nothing.” Nye, on the other hand, responded almost as instantly, saying, “Evidence.” Ham perfectly exemplifies the pointlessness of “debating” with people such as himself; there is no discussion to be had with the willfully impenetrable. Nevertheless, current events have me thinking once again about the role of evidence and denial in our society today. So this seems like a good opportunity to return to the subject, albeit in contexts other than that of creationism. Continue reading →

Too-Late Trolls

01 Monday May 2017

Posted by in Climate Change, Denialism History, Politics, scientific controversy

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There’s a phenomenon I’ve been noticing on social media for a while now, in those sections focusing on climate change, AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming), and the infantile, ideological denial thereof. The latter, the denialists, come in a variety of flavors. There are the Galactically Stupid, who insist AGW is not really happening. Press these willfully delusional intellectual children even a little bit, and they are all forced to fall back on some kind of conspiracy theory or other, since that is the only way they can dismiss the overwhelming scientific evidence proving them wrong. Yes, that’s right:

Tens of thousands of scientists, publishing of thousands of research papers, on hundreds of independent lines of evidence, in dozens of independent scientific venues, have collectively joined in an insidiously impenetrable conspiracy to foist upon the world a demagogic lie whose sole purpose is to destroy capitalism. Meanwhile, a few well-paid heroes of the proletariat struggle desperately to save the innocent fossil fuel industry from this terrible onslaught.Sad Troll

Like I said, “ Galactically Stupid”. But this IS where they have to go, given the overwhelming volume of evidence establishing the reality of AGW. Continue reading →

False Flag

05 Sunday Feb 2017

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Logic, Politics, Violence

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A “false flag” attack is a premeditated form of deception in which some disaster with a high number of casualties is inflicted upon a community, evidently by outsiders, but in reality by the community’s own leaders in order to fabricate the impression of immediate threat and danger within the community, so that the leaders may act with impunity by taking aggressive – and typically extra-legal – actions. This then establishes the leaders’ power, with the willing consent of those over whom they actually intend to exploit this power. If you are a movie buff, the “St. Mary’s virus” biological attack from the movie V for Vendetta, is an example of a false flag attack raised to the nth degree. Claims of “real” (note the scare quotes) false flag attacks are standard twaddle with childish conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones and blathering histrionics of his “Infowars” website. Lest there be any lingering ambiguity, I do not hold much truck with such infantilism. People who have taught the subject know that such conspiracy theory drivel is used as comedy relief in Critical Thinking courses. Such material is swallowed with great credulity by a large number of authoritarian minded people, especially on the extreme right-wing of the political spectrum.

squirrel

But we are seeing a perfectly analogous move gaining traction on the political left, and it is worth our time to squash it before it gains any traction. Multiple peaceful protests have recently either been preceded by, or occurred in parallel with, violent actions that had no relationship to the original protest. One increasingly sees these violent behaviors decried as the work of “paid provocateurs.” There are more than a few problems with these accusations, not the least of which being that they come without even the tiniest scintilla of evidence to back up the accusation. And these accusations will often be made by the self-same people who will brush aside Alex Jones’s fatuous nonsense with a roll of the eyes and a sweep of the hand, all the while as they are doing the exact same thing as Jones: making hysterical, baseless accusations and assuming that the volume with which they make the accusations carries probative weight. Continue reading →

Reason as Revolutionary

20 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Ignorance, Inquiry, Intelligence, Logic, Politics, Relativism, Trump

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So now this appears to be happening: several users out in the Twitter-verse apparently are crowing about the repeal of Obamacare while defiantly bragging about keeping their insurance through the ACA. Again, to all appearances, these people are real. Meanwhile, racist Trump designee for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, questions whether women and LGBTQ people face any serious discrimination in the world. Examples could readily be multiplied. This is because fascism is a movement that does not center on any sort of intellectual framework, while its appeal is to persons of an authoritarian mindset that rigidly compartmentalizes concepts and experiences so that genuine intelligence can never get a foothold on the person’s thinking. Under such circumstances, exercising reason – genuine reason – becomes itself a revolutionary act.revolution

But beyond that quip, what more can be said about the matter? Isn’t that a bit like dismissing Trump’s followers as being stupid? Even if this was true, would it really be an effective approach to dealing with the current consolidation of power by the fascists? In response, I would encourage people to read the above linked posts on the authoritarian mindset, but I’ll have a few more words to say about the nature of genuine intelligence below the fold. But mostly I want to think about the revolutionary aspects of reason around the topics of memory, logic, and leadership. Continue reading →

If You Didn’t Read It, Don’t Quote It

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Authoritarians, Critical Thinking, Politics, Relativism

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I mentioned in a previous blog post how commonplace it was for people to misquote Emerson’s quip about “foolish consistency.” I got to thinking about that, as well as other (and more gross) forms of “lying by editing” – the cut-and-paste method of taking words out of context and making it appear that the person is saying the opposite of what they actually said. Right-wing ideologues with their authoritarian mind-set are especially prominent these days at such thinly disguised efforts at bald-faced lying, in no small part because their base, having abandoned any pretense at rational thought or even basic decency, will swallow any lie that is spoon fed to them, on no other account than that the spoon comes from the sources they’ve decided to believe without question, upon which they will swallow those lies without even a first, much less a second thought.pants-on-fire

Thus, the professional liar James O’Keefe fabricated a story that destroyed the organization ACORN with a highly edited tape that grossly misrepresented an interview with one of the group’s employees. But once the tape was made public, the facts no longer mattered: a lie will go halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on. The same vicious stunt was attempted against Planned Parenthood, but the hoax was uncovered with greater speed (spurred, perhaps, by the fraudulent accusations against ACORN). But there are lesser lies floating around out there which, while never as “compelling” as a video – people are more likely to react emotionally to videos, whereas reading activates more cognitive processes – they are nevertheless worth addressing. The habit (and it IS a habit) of dealing skeptically and intelligently with little lies, translates into something of a prophylactic against the really big lies. So let us look at a few of the lesser canards that are floating around in the great “out there.” Continue reading →

Turn The Page

12 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by in Climate Change, Iran, Nuclear Deal, Politics, Trump

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If you were living in a dark age, would you know it? If you were a cavalryman under the command of the ancestral Artorius Castus (disputedly the bloodline of the historical “King Arthur”, assuming such a person ever even existed) would you have known that yours was a dark age? Echoing Patrick Stewart’s line from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The Best of Both Worlds, part 1” (S3.e26):

I wonder if the Emperor Honorius, watching the Visigoths coming over the seventh hill truly realized that the Roman empire was about to fall? This is … just another page in history, isn’t it? Will this be the end of our civilization? Turn the page.

(H/t to Jane Schneider over at “The Zoo” for reminding me of this scene.)

With each and every twitter storm from the Butthurt-Baby Elect, our fearless leader demonstrates that he possesses neither the intelligence nor the emotional stability to manage a $10.00 stamp collection, much less that one nation with the largest economy, and largest military, in the world. But it is not just that our economy and military is “bigger” than “anyone else’s” in the world – gawd, what comes next? Shall we unzip our trousers and start comparing genital sizes? (Or hand sizes … ? I might not be Michael Jordan, but this last one is generally not a competition you want to get into with me.) Rather, they are big in a way that “big” has never been seen before. Continue reading →

Dis

29 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Donald Trump, Fascism, Hillary Clinton, Politics

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And my dark conductor broke
Silence at my side and spoke,
Saying, “You conjecture well:
Yonder is the gate of hell.”
– A.E. Housman, “Hellgate”

white_house_dcIt is discouraging, but unsurprising, to read how many people are telling us that, while the ascendancy of the narcissistic sociopath Donald Trump to the White House is a disappointment, we shouldn’t overstate how bad things will get. This is, of course, simply another demonstration of Herstein’s First Law, “never underestimate human capacity for denial.” Trump’s overt fascism is transparent, as is his racism, bigotry, greed, criminality, not to mention the emotional stability a spoiled three year old. But we won’t speak of such things, because we are too busy with the process of “normalizing” the inexcusable, and pretending that unsupported allegations, innuendos, and wild-eyed conspiracy theories against Clinton count more than the irrefutable facts that absolutely damn Trump. It is just another election, a bit disappointing for those of us who are not White Supremacists, neo-Nazis, or otherwise completely devoid of the possibilities of either intelligence or decency, but nothing to really worry about … Continue reading →

A Few Resources

14 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by in Authoritarians, Donald Trump, Education, Inquiry, Martin Luther King, Politics

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I am, with certain notable constraints, a book collector. Those constraints are worth noting here: since I have no space to store masses of wood pulp, those books have to be electronic in form, and since I have little disposable money, those books have to be free. In light of the looming political catastrophe facing us not only in the United States, but sadly across much of the world, it occurred to me that many of those books have become horrifyingly more relevant. With that in mind, it occurred to me that I ought to share what I’ve collected for any and all who might be interested. I will update this post as I discover new things, and list the date of the most recent update just above the foldeugene-debs

This in no way pretends to be a comprehensive list, merely a list of things I’ve variously stumbled upon and, on rarer occasions, went out looking for. I’ve not added anything that might be considered “classical” political theory (i.e., part of the “canon” in a philosophy class) as these can be readily found at places like Project Gutenberg. Nor have I included anything that might be viewed as socialist polemics since, once again, this can be readily found at places like the Marxists Internet Archive.

Updated: January 4th, 2017, the Indivisible guide book. Update is at the bottom.

Continue reading →

All Honorable Men

11 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Donald Trump, Politics

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And so it has come to pass, that the single least qualified individual in the history of this nation to ever run for President has actually won the office via Electoral (NOT popular) vote: a racist, misogynist, narcissistic sociopath, a self-confessed serial sexual predator, a bald-faced fascist, with no grasp of history, science, geopolitics, economics, or even business (beyond filing for bankruptcy and manipulating tax law.) But we are told we must be patient of our neighbors and family who voted for this despicable swine because they (the family and neighbors, not the swine) are, after all, “all honorable men.”i

honorable-menBullshit.

Continue reading →

Arrow’s Paradox of Voting

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Fascism, Logic, Politics

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Kenneth Arrow is a well known economist, logician, statistician, and political theorist. While his scholarly contributions are numerous, his best known was his first, published as a part of his dissertation. This is the above titled “paradox of voting,” which is also referred to has his “impossibility theorem.” This latter is evidently the technically correct title. However, I learned about it as the paradox of voting, and that’s the title I’ll stick with here. For one thing, calling it his “paradox of voting” makes it more clear at the outset what the theorem is about, and suggests what is really at stake. Details of the impossibility theorem are readily found for no more effort than looking, so my intention here is to provide a non-technical gloss of the topic. Still, enough of what I say here is about basic logic (and not merely political screed) that I am satisfied that this topic falls within my basic parameters for this blog.

Kenneth Arrow

Kenneth Arrow

The stakes here could scarcely be any higher, as they effect the very foundation of our nominally democratic system. Because of how our voting and electoral system is set up, we have a “winner take all” format that can (and often enough, does) allow a person to be elected even thought that person did not receive a majority of the votes. Once you have more than two candidates (or more than two parties) involved in any particular election, it is no longer possible to representatively distribute preferences in the election. This is the somewhat fancy way of saying things. The simpler way of saying it is that the more widely detested candidate can win. Continue reading →