What separates BDSM (erotic) and abuse? Consent. By definition, consent cannot be implied. It’s explicit. The myth of implied consent exists solely to protect predatory individuals at the expense of abused victims.
Tag: future
A Call for Counterfactuals
Great actions are motivated by imagination. Grounded in logic, yes. But beyond the provable alone. If we can’t explore what might have been, and what might be, we have no reason to change.
Research the Past, Predict the Future
Past data can be a useful item in the toolkit. But the theories that explain it can’t automatically be applied to the future. The data is the effect, and what changes in the future are causes. Will yesterday’s causes hold tomorrow?
Ansel Adams Was Unschooled; How to Solve America’s Creativity Crisis
Ansel’s father recognized his son’s natural exuberance and determined that Ansel needed more freedom to thrive. When Ansel was 12, his father removed him from school and homeschooled him, granting him abundant freedom and opportunity to pursue his own interests and passions. At home, Ansel learned to play the piano, becoming a professional musician before devoting his life to photography.
Advice to My Children, and Everyone Else
I’ve given this entire learning experience some thought over the last few days, and the following stanza sums up my principles nicely: Don’t hurt people. Don’t take their stuff. Don’t ask permission. This is the advice I will be giving and reinforcing in my children as opportunity arises, and its advice I give to the rest of humanity. Let’s dig deeper.
Psychology Goes Toe-To-Toe With Totalitarianism in Carl Jung’s “The Undiscovered Self”
To most of us living in the 21st century, it’s easy to forget that weapons exist which could easily destroy life on the planet a few times over. Jung was not ignorant of that. What’s more, he was living through a time when that kind of warfare seemed likely. The world had just lived through the destruction of two world wars, the Russian Revolution, the rise of fascism and National Socialism, and the Holocaust. In 1957, it was not certain that Communism would not spread over the whole world.
Continuity
I have encountered two very interesting concepts recently. They are both implied by this observation from Henri-Louis Bergson: “The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.” So there is, according to Bergson, a continuity in the connectivity among past, present, and future.
Illegal If Invented Today – Cars, Danger, Trust, and Innovation
I was driving to work today when I realized how nonchalantly I was piloting my land-speeding hunk of aluminum. Cars are extraordinary, complex, and dangerous machines, but most of us can drive them comfortably and without much second thought. That’s extraordinary. Then I though “There’s no way these things would be allowed if they were invented today.”
Some Questions from the Edge of Immortality
The quest for immortality is as old as humankind, and we’ve publicly agonized over its implications since at least as far back as the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 200 years ago. As science seemingly moves us closer to the goal, especially if the finish line consists of transplanting brain functions from the body to a computer-generated reality, the questions become more important.
Walk Out and Don’t Go Back
Today, students across America will join in a national school walkout day to memorialize the 17 people tragically killed in the recent Parkland, Florida school shooting and to advocate for stricter gun control laws. But what if they don’t go back?