What the heck happened to Mental Floss?
The once-great website with thoughtful articles has become Buzzfeed Lite, with lists of worthless (and often wrong, from my brief perusal) trivia and a complete lack of worthwhile content.
Probably not going back. If that’s what it takes to make money on the web, we need to re-think this whole thing.
I’m always surprised when people – even people who seemingly should know better – are surprised when artists and entertainers steal/borrow ideas and moves from other artists and entertainers.
Michael Jackson didn’t invent the moonwalk? No!?!??! Tell me more!
Picasso didn’t invent cubism? OH MY GOD!
Bill Haley and the Comets didn’t invent rock and roll? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
All culture is “appropriation.” All art is evolutionary, and involves borrowing/stealing. Else, nothing gets made.
Damn, I wish people would read some history.
Switched back to Pale Moon x64 (went from Pale Moon to Waterfox to Firefox now to Pale Moon again) from regular Firefox. Too many compromises in Firefox even after extensive modding. (Yes, I know that Firefox code is Pale Moon.)
Might as well use something decent before it all gets taken away.
“Brother in the Morning Light”
Anyone can get me that Nord Elecro 3 Stephanie Lauren’s playing at the end, if they wanna.
I don’t actually like agreeing with Bill Maher because he is a misogynist ant-vaxer putz, but when a person’s right, they’re right. (Update: It was Sam Harris who said the below, not Maher. I misread.)
The crucial point of confusion is that we have been sold this meme of Islamophobia where every criticism of the doctrine of Islam gets conflated with bigotry towards Muslims as people. That is intellectually ridiculous.
The quote is from this really good column about how liberalism is so blinded by their inability to criticize other cultures.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I am politically and ideologically. I don’t like defining myself in such limiting terms, but a liberal I definitely am not. I’m obviously not a conservative, though – I support feminism, welfare, etc., so that moniker doesn’t really fit me at all and really never did.
I’m not sure what I am. Mostly, I care about evidence, truth and giving the most freedom to the largest number of people. Secular humanism is an ok term, but I am more militant than that philosophy allows.
I used to call myself a “militant liberal,” but I don’t really want to be associated with mainstream liberals at all at this point since like the conservatives, their entire philosophy is ideologically hollow and epistemologically bankrupt.
What no one ever suggests when debates like this come up – at least no one in a serious policy position – is that we should be working to reduce the human population.
The Left is of course and as usual full of cowards on this.
As a commenter points out reducing the human population to two billion would not exactly solve these problems but would make them much, much easier to work on.
I suspect the maximum long-term sustainable human population of the planet assuming any decent standard of living is ~500 million or so, but technology could probably improve that a bit.
Anyway, the best suggestion isn’t even mentionable in polite society. This and other reasons is why humanity long-term is doomed.
The Left would rather have us all huddling in tents starving to death at a population of 12 
billion rather than to tell or to force people to stop dispensing kids into the world like Pez, and the Right is no better. Actually, they are worse, because they only want white women to procreate.
Paul Ehrlich will turn out to be right, just right a little too early.
A population of 5 billion people on this planet is unsustainable, much less 11 or 12. It’s only wishful thinking to believe anything else.
I don’t do wishful thinking.
But I am glad I’ll be dead by 2070 or so. After that time, things on this planet are going to get really desperate.
That people who have kids aren’t putting every ounce of effort into fighting the future sort of mystifies me, though.