I like to listen to scientific lectures. Unfortunately, it’s becoming rare to be able to listen to an entire lecture without hearing an awkward jab at the anti-science mindset of the Republican Party. I don’t disagree, but it’s still the pot calling the kettle “black”.
Category: Blogs
The official Everything-Voluntary.com blog.
CPI Bias and Happiness
CPI Bias is alive and well, so we’re materially much better off than we think. “There is no Great Stagnation” – say it non-ironically, as you should. On reflection, however, there is a shocking implication. Happiness researchers – yes, even Justin Wolfers! – have almost uniformly found little effect of income on happiness. If official statistics understate real income growth, what should we conclude?
Planned Retrogression
I have been teaching computer literacy since the last millennium (since 1997 in layman’s terms), and I am amazed at the volume of innovation that we have seen in those 2+ decades. I am amazed in two ways: 1) at the progress, and 2) at the lack of progress. I will not belabor you with a discussion of the progress, since it is all around you. But I will try to explain my contention that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Trump and Netanyahu: “Mutual Defense” or Just Mutual Political Back-Scratching?
On September 14, US president Donald Trump tweeted (of course) the suggestion of a US-Israel “Mutual Defense Treaty,” citing a call with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hopefully there’s less going on here than meets the eye: The tweet may just be another mutual publicity back-scratch of the type Trump and Netanyahu frequently exchange when they find themselves in political pickles. And Netanyahu is likely in the biggest such pickle of his career.
Buddhist Anarchism and Nonviolent Communication
Here are some pieces that I wrote up for two episodes of the Anarchy Bang podcast. One episode was about buddhist anarchism and the other episode was about Nonviolent Communication & anarchism.
Don’t Underestimate the Resilience and Resourcefulness of the Homeless
You can say (people do say) many things about homeless people. But a fact that is under-appreciated is just how resilient and resourceful they often are.
Election 2020: Time to Stop Pretending and Start Over
“I know what’s broken. I know how to fix it,” US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) assured us as she applied for the job of running nearly every aspect of our lives. The other candidates, and most if not all recent presidents, display the same symptoms of — there’s really no other term for it — narcissistic megalomania.
Why so Many College Students Are In Mental Distress—And What Parents Can Do about It
More supervision and less autonomy, combined with social media influences, could be making college students more prone to anxiety and depression.
Dueling Mental Constructs
Rights, as I have pointed out, are a (human) mental construct. As are ethics, liberty, freedom, and so many other ideas. However, those who use this fact as an excuse to violate people forget that they are usually relying on another mental construct: the State (what most people mean when they use the word “government”). You can’t justify allowing your mental construct to crush and enslave people by saying their rights are nothing but a mental construct.
The Problem with “Here I Stand, I Can Do No Other”
“Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.” According to some tellings, this is how Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther responded to demands that he recant positions which the established Church of his time considered heretical.