Category Archives: Politics

How Rugged Individualists Cannot Solve Global Problems

A note about my trip tomorrow to Austin; How Mike Johnson characterizes Republicans as “rugged individualists,” yet who can still not get along to solve actual problems; How Trump’s policies would increase inflation, and his fans haven’t noticed; More about … Continue reading

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Tribal Notes

Latest examples of tribal thinking, as many of my posts over the past months and years have compiled, clarified by my reading of Joshua Greene’s book and many others. Short items about indoctrination in Florida schools (“get them while they’re … Continue reading

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Believing Anything

A long opinion piece by Dana Milbank at WaPo shows *how* Trump supporters will believe anything, without explaining (despite the headline) *why* they do; My thoughts about what has brought about the loss in consensus reality; And short items about … Continue reading

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The Dual-Process Theory of Morality, and Some Examples

Today I finished reading this month’s big book (i.e. a substantial nonfiction book), Joshua Greene’s Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, an extremely interesting book for the way its central idea knits together many of … Continue reading

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Obsolete Laws, Morality, and Beliefs

The world is changing, and conservatives deny this by appealing to values of a simpler past. How Republicans are resorting to obsolete laws — the Comstock laws, the 1864 Alabama ruling — to enforce their morality upon everyone; How the … Continue reading

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Eclipse Aftermath, and Politics

First of all, our street had a scheduled power outage this morning, from 9-12, so I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to see any of the TV coverage of the total eclipse crossing the eastern US today. There were … Continue reading

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How Humanity is Hobbled by Tribalism

I do have a general scheme in work, for which all of these items are supporting evidence. (And how this really does relate to science fiction.) A rogue GOP congressman who spouts unsupported conspiracy theories; How RFK Jr. supporters rationalize … Continue reading

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Imagine Prioritizing Truth Over Being Right

Here’s an amazing notion: there are some people who would rather find the truth, than be right. These are the scientists — some of them, anyway. This concerns Daniel Kahneman, whose death I noted a week ago here. NY Times, … Continue reading

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It’s Time for Another Round of… Stupid? Or Cynical?

Stupid or Cynical: Republican/Christian conservatives respond to the coincidence of Easter and Trans Recognition Day; Some MAGA claims are just delusional, example from Steve Bannon; Robert Reich on Trump’s 5-step fascist plan; And how conservatives reject the idea of lab-grown … Continue reading

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Mirror Realities

Can’t resist another round of political links this afternoon, about the Alice in Wonderland, mirror-universe that conservatives and Trump-supporters apparently live in. In which they, and those of us living in the real objective world, believe the other is the … Continue reading

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