It’s still important that we don’t normalize this. Just to start this off properly, they are correct this time: You should stay at home. You should keep about ten feet away from other people. You should minimize your contact with…
Hey America: Shut It All Down
A message from Italy: take this one seriously. Very seriously. It’s not often that I talk about something here where the solution is: extremely obvious widely agreed on by experts immediately doable by everyone (Usually, it’s the second one where…
No More Charity: Let’s All Do It Together
I’m not gonna go this far, but I’ll get close. You’d think I’d be all-in for charity. Helping the poor; doing good deeds; not having the government involved. Totally in my wheelhouse, all of that. But there’s a problem with…
Long Overdue: Get The Government Out Of Marriage
When Prop. 8 was current news here in California, I found the whole thing very confusing. Why is the government involved in marriage anyway? Fine; of course. People have been getting married for, like, ever and laws have been hung…
Saying It Isn’t So: There Are No “Other Ways Of Knowing”
Contrary to what seems to be a common belief these days, we do actually have an entire discipline for evaluating “ways of knowing”. It’s called “epistemology”. And it distinguishes between “belief” and “knowledge”. “Knowledge” is “justified true belief”. Meaning a…
Voice Assistants: Big Sister Is Watching You
Well, mostly just listening at this point. But don’t get cocky. I’m no fan of the Internet of Things, or “cloud” services (as should be obvious from Escrow: Keep The “Cloud” Honest). But voice assistant devices bring them to a…
Public Infrastructure: Should be Owned By The Public
That may seem obvious; it’s in the words, after all. But it’s really not that way at all. A helluva a lot of the “public” infrastructure of the United States is actually private property. For example, I live in Northern…
He’s Repressing Me: Freedom Of Conscience In An Age Of Anti-Discrimination Laws
Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Fine; I’ve got that out of my system. We can start the actual post now. Anti-discrimination laws are … problematic. By definition, they are an attempt to force citizens to behave…
Get It Right: “Extreme” Does Not Mean “Wrong”
The word “extreme” seems to have dropped quite a ways since the ’90’s, when that was exactly what every advertisement was selling. Maybe it’s the Boomers? But I doubt that Boomer reaction to Mentos-fueled Gen Xers has much to do…
It’s Complicated: Not Everything Bad Is Racist
Folks who are really bothered by a particular issue, and focus on it to the exclusion of everything else, are really hard to talk to. Try talking to a Marxist about anything without them attributing it to economic class. OK,…