Category Archives: Epistemology

Watching Movies in Theaters; UBI; Reality; Why Everyone Thinks They’re Losing; and Epistemology

Items today: How watching movies in certain theaters (AMC) is a bloated experience; Why UBI studies are not making traction into political policy; A New Yorker graphic essay about how reality might exist only because we’re observing it; E.J. Dionne … Continue reading

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Real Conspiracy Theories and Fake Crises

Benjamin Bradford at CFI about how conspiracy theorists shrug about real conspiracy theories; Big Think on conspiracy theories about places claimed not to exist; Robert Reich on the fake crises Republicans use to distract from real problems. CFI, Benjamin Bradford, … Continue reading

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The Deep State, or, Jonathan Rauch, THE CONSTITUTION OF KNOWLEDGE, part 3

I’ve said the last two posts that I would quote the passages of Rauch’s book in which he describes what he considers to be the components of the “reality-based community.” And how it struck me that some of these components … Continue reading

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Jonathan Rauch, THE CONSTITUTION OF KNOWLEDGE, part 2

Yesterday I gave a general overview of this book, and made a few specific comments. Today I’m going to read through my notes again, and highlight some more specific comments, and maybe quotes. Like this summary, at the end. The … Continue reading

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Jonathan Rauch, THE CONSTITUTION OF KNOWLEDGE, part 1

Subtitled: “A Defense of Truth”. Brookings, 2021. 266pp of text, plus notes and index, total 305pp. This is one of two books I’ve read recently, following the Lee McIntyre book that I posted about two days ago, that dovetail in … Continue reading

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Do These People Ever Go Outside and Look Around?

Paul Krugman asks why the Right hates America; Like Mike Johnson, Rick Santorum is skeptical of democracy (when results don’t go his way); Adam Lee on the allure of tribalism. Paul Krugman responds to the Damon Linker piece that I … Continue reading

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Lee McIntyre, ON DISINFORMATION

Subtitled: “How to Fight For Truth and Protect Democracy.” The MIT Press, 2023. I’m behind on writing up my recent reading here on this blog, so let me resume with this very short little book, small in size and just … Continue reading

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Conservative Epistemology

The core belief that explains extremism on the right; Peter Wehner on how Republicans have chosen nihilism; My wondering what the deep explanation is for what’s happened on the right; Short items about GOP tax cheats, Trump’s latest outrageous lies, … Continue reading

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More About Things People Believe That Aren’t True

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” —Mark Twain Jonathan V. Last about how most voters are “disconnected from reality”; How Google’s Pixel phone could destroy … Continue reading

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Disconnects from Reality

The economy is doing great and yet conservatives deny it; Heather Cox Richardson contrasts worldviews, one leading to our economy, the other to mass shootings; More about House Speaker Mike Johnson: hate for LGBTQ+ people; allegiance with “debunked faux-historian” David … Continue reading

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