- Pete Hegseth delights in violence;
- How Scott Adams was mislead by innumeracy into conspiracy theories;
- How conservatives resent a politician telling them to act more like Jesus;
- Examples of lunacy from JMG;
- Nihilism and the meaning of life.
Today, back to items seen on the web today. (More Facebook soon.)
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As I’ve noted. There’s a certain conservative meanness in this world.
The Atlantic, Missy Ryan, 2 Feb 2026: Pete Hegseth Delights in Violence, subtitled “His first year at the Pentagon has been marked by uncomplicated celebrations of death.”
Even before Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had declared Alex Pretti a domestic terrorist, Pete Hegseth was online trashing his home state. Hegseth, who grew up north of Minneapolis, took to social media in the hours after masked immigration agents shot the ICU nurse with a stark calculation: “ICE > MN.”
“We have your back 100%. You are SAVING the country,” the Pentagon chief told immigration agents in an X post. “Shame on the leadership of Minnesota—and the lunatics in the street.” Hegseth didn’t define the we. He and fellow Cabinet members? The 1.3 million service members he commands? The troops he put on standby for potential deployment to Minneapolis? He hasn’t said. But if there was any doubt about how Hegseth would wield military might if troops were sent to check unrest or dissent in U.S. cities, there’s your answer.
Remember, he’s the one who changed “defense” to “war.”
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It’s been decades since I’ve paid attention to Dilbert, let alone Scott Adams, but this piece is pertinent to the issues I do pay attention to.
Skeptical Inquirer, Benjamin Radford, 30 Jan 2026: Dilbert Dilemma: The Tragic Innumeracy of Scott Adams
Cartoonist Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert that skewered and satirized corporate America and office workers around the world, died earlier this month. In reading the obituary of Adams in The New York Times, a recurring theme in Adams’s life jumped out at me: how innumeracy and a lack of critical thinking played a role in the scandals that tarnished his reputation and ended his lucrative cartooning career. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that Adams was stupid or that his comics weren’t (at least occasionally) funny. Instead, that he—like most people—fell for bogus statistics and arguments that could have been avoided with a bit of critical thinking.
With the prominent example of his Holocaust denial, and examples of dicey polling.
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And this stands out. As I’ve noted again and again, the behavior of modern conservatives seems at odds with the ideas they claim to venerate: from the Constitution, from Jesus.
Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, 2 Feb 2026: Republicans are panicking because James Talarico wants people to act more like Jesus, subtitled “The Texas Democrat’s faith-based critique of Christian Nationalism is something the GOP doesn’t know how to fight”
This is how you know Republicans are doing everything in their power to avoid facing James Talarico in the upcoming U.S. Senate election in Texas: They’re trying to attack him for saying Jesus was a good guy.
The 36-year-old Texas State House member, progressive Christian, and seminarian is currently one of the frontrunners in the Democratic primary—polling suggests he’s currently in a “dead heat” against outspoken Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett heading into the March 3 primary—and that means Republicans are doing everything they can to sway the primary race in favor of Crockett, whom they believe is less electable statewide. (For similar reasons, Democrats are trying to push Christian Nationalist and scandal-prone attorney general Ken Paxton to the top of the Republican ticket.)
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Examples of lunacy from JMG:
- Nicki Minaj: “Demoncrats Sacrifice Babies To Satan”.
- Trump: “Republicans Ought To Nationalize The Voting”.
- Pastor Bad Wig: All My Prophecies Have Come True.
No they don’t. Another prediction coming true. You don’t say.
The last item has notes and links to the many predictions Lance Wallnau claims that have *not* come true. Why does anyone believe this guy?
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Well, because people need a story to believe in, a story that validates their existence, and provides “meaning.” Whatever that means.
The Big Think Interview, (2 Feb 2026), Alex O’Connor: What nihilism acknowledges that other philosophies don’t, subtitled “The thing that the nihilist recognizes is that the values he or she holds are not grounded in anything other than their own preferences.”
Overview:
Most people go through their lives with perfectly good reasons for what they do, and almost no reason to question these reasons. What happens when we ask why ordinary actions feel self-justifying, and what happens when that chain of “becauses” finally runs out? Alex O’Connor explores.
I’ve listened to part of this, and there’s a transcript. Years ago I linked a Veritasium video by Derek Muller, on the “beauty of nihilism” — in this post. See there for quotes. The gist is that all of our religions and other explanations of “meaning” are made up; they’re projections of human values onto an enormous universe that is mostly inimical to life. To let those stories go is a liberation.
The consensus among current thinkers (including the writers of three books I just recently read) is that evolution and life are inherent in the structure of the universe, and humans can be a part of that by extending the struggle against entropy, by learning, gathering information, growing and fighting off the eventual end as long as we can. But there’s no “meaning” to life, in the sense of worshiping a creator, a relationship that’s too much like slaves worshiping their masters.
I’ll quote the opening lines of the interview.
Most people instinctively think that there is some kind of meaning to life. They just sort of assume that it’s there in the same way that if you ask them, “Why are you getting out of bed to go to work? Why are you doing that to make money? Why to provide for my family? Why to bring up my children healthily? Why because I want my children to be healthy? Why? What do you mean why?” For some people, they just don’t recognize the question. They’re just like, “What are you talking about?” For other people, they hear that and they go, “Gosh, you know what? Fair enough, I actually don’t know.” The nihilist is someone who sort of takes a bird’s eye view of it and realizes that it’s all a little bit meaningless. It is nicer to think that you are here for some kind of reason that’s written into the rules of the universe than that it all is just a happy or unhappy accident.
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There are many meanings of life. Conservatives would merely perpetuate the species in deference to a creator. (What was that creator doing through all eternity before he created humans, some 6000 years ago, as the believers think? Maybe running his experiment over and over again?) Others understand the structure of the universe, how it is expanding, how pockets of complexity confound entropy and create new knowledge, new information. So: the meaning of life is to try to understand what’s really going on, and not be content with the stories of the previous generation. And it’s to transmit that knowledge and your experiences to the next generation. Make the next generation, whether your own children or culture in general, better than your own. Leave the world a better place. I think that’s the best we can do.
