Feb 23

A Real Humedinger

Bringing Humean reasoning into the modern age, the discoveries of quantum mechanics and the ideas inherent in superposition (even if that is a poor name for the true concept) only strengthen Hume’s case that there is no way to demonstrate causality — that causality is not a thing we can reasonably discuss.

Yes, the problem of induction is not new, and I am not breaking any new ground here. However, it is striking that we base all of science and much of the modern world on something with such shaky foundations.

Yes, it works, but there are more questions than answers.

Or, to quote Kate Miller-Heidke:

I climbed a Jacob’s Ladder
I fell down holy stairs
I found Siddartha’s temple
No answer anywhere

Feb 22

Aged

When people critique relationships with age differences, I suspect they’re concerned not about the effects of the patriarchy, but about young women expressing agency.

Yep, nailed it! Liberal prudish concern about age differences (as long as both are above the age of majority) is 99.5% concern about expressed female agency and 0.5% about harm protection. Also, most liberals, especially American ones, are very, very prudish indeed.

I have no idea about anything that happens on that show, but there’s also an element — mostly from women, I might add — of competition protection.

Strangely, it’s not just worry about younger women, though that is certainly a lot of it. When I was dating a woman considerably older than me in the 1990s, I got a whole ration of shit from women about how terrible that was. So did a friend of mine was who was doing the same thing.

There’s a seven year difference between me and my partner, but I look much younger than I am, so most people don’t notice. But even that I suspect would be out of bounds if most people were able to detect it without examining our driver’s licenses.

America is the most prudish of the Western countries, by a country mile.

Feb 22

The Kids are Indeed Alright

I’d support Emma González for president over Trump, Hillary Clinton, or Obama any day. And I don’t mean when she’s 35. I mean, tomorrow. Or her over any of the bullshit artists that either party will run in 2020.

Natural leader. Too bad her realizing her calling had to involve 17 of her classmates being slaughtered needlessly.

If we make it that far, when people like her are starting to be in charge, things will change. If.

Feb 21

CRP

Web crapplications are so fucking terrible and slow.

It amazes me that people accept this, but then again, all the world loves horrible smartphones.

Feb 21

Only

Only people who’ve never been in traumatic and life-threatening situations fervently insist that humor doesn’t occur there.

I’ve been in numerous situations where life and limb were not assured and I can tell you, humor still happened. It diffuses tension and conveys that everyone is in this mess together.

One time back when I was a paratrooper we were about to jump into high winds (very dangerous!) with non-steerable chutes. Just before the jump, a colleague of mine commented, “If I die, make sure my pants are still on!”

What he was joking about was that when you jump in high winds, you can get dragged so hard that your pants get torn off. Luckily, the winds weren’t quite as high as expected, so we were ok that day.

I’ve got dozens of stories (mostly from the army) of similar gallows humor that people tell me “doesn’t happen.”

But it actually is rather constant.

Feb 19

Colony

Wow, this is a much, much better show than I expected and that it had to be.

I’d say it’s the most underrated show on TV in the past few years.

I wasn’t expecting much at all. I thought it’d be standard alien invasion fare. Perhaps worse. But it’s so much more than that. For a start, it’s morally complex. Someone has read their history of Vichy France, obviously. In occupied France, the resistance was seen as getting innocent people killed unnecessarily. Most people weren’t members and disdained their actions. The same in this show; the “resistance” is seen as a bunch of malcontents with no hope of affecting any sort of change against the implacable and vast power of the occupation force. Rather, they get themselves killed and then the entire community punished.

Also, the “aliens” are never seen. They never appear (at least so far). All the actions and all the insults against dignity and freedom are committed by fellow humans.

I am not sure it’s a great show. Yet. But it’s a damn good show with quality writing, well-drawn and complex characters, and moral ambiguity, but not of the gooey, boring, unrealistic “prestige TV” brand so beloved by overeducated liberals.

Highly recommended.

Feb 18

Distillation

Distilling a lot of things I’ve been thinking about, I think the main problem I have with modern feminism is that I want to treat women as equals and peers, but the exhortation of feminism as currently practiced is that you cannot and should not do this.

That’s why I have issues with it, and with people like Amanda Marcotte. It is that simple.

Feb 18

Drops and Buckets

Oh, Democrats and Liberals are such damned idiots. And I used “damned” rather than “damn” specifically and intentionally, because they are damned to repeat past mistakes and lose more elections.

So instead of acknowledging pre-existing divisions, instead of reforming, instead of attempting to give people what they actually want and would help them, they will instead blame all polarization and partisan disagreement on “Russian meddling” and call it a day.

What a ridiculous and miserable bunch of useless fuckwits promoting utter blatherskite.

Even if Russian meddling did occur (and I am sure some did), it is a tiny, insubstantial drop in the bucket and is no way causative.

The Dems, though, would prefer to blame Russians and BernieBros rather than risk making any substantive changes.

Predictable, alas.