I think the straight link is out of date. People need to be able to mouse over a link, or see a preview or content summary, because there’s tons of stuff out there on the net and it’s all shouting for our attention. Barack Obama’s Teleprompter’s Blog Our president uses his teleprompter more than any [...]
Posts from ‘March, 2009’
No-culture is still culture that wants to destroy other cultures
If we have categories “A” and “not A,” is there a grey area? The soldier testified that the “clear” message of literature distributed to troops by the rabbinate was: “We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight [...]
The freedom-order cycle
Let me make a hypothesis here: if you want to be an ueber-tyrant, the best way is to get your citizens involved in some drama unrelated to the actual question of how you will rule the nation. For example, you can set up a government that makes rules, and then rule through media opinion; or [...]
How to game democracy
Why screw around with voting machines when you can sympathizers at an unethical paper to slander your candidate? The photos were published in the run-up to Saturday’s election in the state of Queensland, in which the right-wing politician failed to win a seat. She said she believed the photographs may have been a factor. “I [...]
The nanny state makes its own disasters
Running away from a problem, it caters to the mentality of those who perpetuate that problem, norming us all to their level of stupidity: The Department of Health labelled the campaign: “Condom confidence boosts sex appeal”. The £5.2 million publicity drive tells women in their late teens and early 20s that men are attracted to [...]
Why listening to the crowd is stupid
Point 1: People don’t know what they want Time and again, psychological studies have found that we overestimate how happy we will be after winning a prize, starting a new relationship or taking revenge against those who have wronged us. We also overrate our disappointment at bad test results, disability or failure to progress at [...]
Depression: a lack of goal
Modern societies tend to produce two kinds of people: oblivious fools, or obliviots, who fail to notice failure and just blunder on like drunken gourmands; and depressed smarter people, who realize that the long-term prognosis for such stupid decisions is awful, but simultaneously note that everyone else is an obliviot, therefore there’s little chance of [...]
Fallout of the nation-state
We don’t like to recognize small ethnicities. We’d rather lump them in with the geographic and political influences we think should manage them. That, in turn, causes them to detest us. Greece has blocked the NATO and EU ambitions of Macedonia for the past 18 years over a bizarre name dispute. The ongoing controversy threatens [...]
Why the world fears the dying West
From travel guru Rick Steves: When I came home after the most learning 12 days of travel I’ve ever had in my life, I realized this is a proud nation of 70 million people. They are loving parents, motivated by fear for their kids’ future and the culture they want to raise their kids in. [...]
Apropos comment on a news blog
Not only this paper but most media are reporting stuff that is so immaterial to what is impacting our lives, it’s no wonder society is so dumbed down. It’s more about entertaining us than reporting the truth. OCR Well, duh — it’s a business.