Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Instinct Can Be Fought: TOS #24: “A Taste of Armageddon”

Posted on 14 August 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

The Enterprise attempts to initiate diplomatic relations with a planet conducting a computer war with its neighbor, a war in which theoretical causalities voluntarily go to die in disintegration chambers. This is one of Trek’s best ethical conundrums, a contact … Continue reading →

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Linkdump: May to June 2017

Posted on 6 June 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

I’m far behind on posting “Links and Comments”, and think I should try to do so daily. For now, I’m catching up on everything I’ve copied to my notepad documents for blog use, listing them in reverse chrono order, with … Continue reading →

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Accumulated Links I Don’t Have Time to Comment On In Detail

Posted on 25 May 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate: Donald Trump Doesn’t Share America’s Values. The Transcript of His Call to the Philippine President Proves It. \\ The Blaze (which I never look at but I saw via a relative’s Fb post): Fake academic paper published in liberal … Continue reading →

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March for Science

Posted on 21 April 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve never marched for any cause — it’s not my style — but I think tomorrow’s “March for Science” is as worthy as anything could be, despite the inevitable casting of science as some sort of partisan issue. It’s the … Continue reading →

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E.O. Wilson on the Ephemerality of Life

Posted on 15 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

In discussing the human advantage of long-term memory [in the book I’ll post notes about shortly], enabling us to plan and imagine possible futures, he reflects that, with every death, an entire library of experience is lost. He recalls his … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Reason; Christian victimhood; dead progressives; dystopias; Republican blondes; the fight for reason; fake history

Posted on 21 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

From an Elizabeth Kolbert essay in next weekend’s New York Times Magazine: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds, subtitled “New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason.” One way to look at science is as a system … Continue reading →

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Zuckerberg and Harari

Posted on 18 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Mark Zuckerberg’s new Facebook manifesto has been much in the news lately; Vox’s Ezra Klein characterizes it as Mark Zuckerberg’s theory of human history. “History is the story of how we’ve learned to come together in ever greater numbers,” Zuckerberg … Continue reading →

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Max Tegmark: Our Universe Has Finally Awoken

Posted on 18 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Every year the editor and agent John Brockman, who specializes in works by scientists, hosts an annual question at Edge.org, soliciting hundreds of brief essay responses, and then publishing them in a book. The responses are also posted on the … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Science, Abortion, Trump v Reality

Posted on 27 January 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a great statement by Neil deGrasse Tyson: What Science Is and How and Why It Works The scientific method can be summarized in one sentence, which is all about objectivity: “Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into … Continue reading →

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Not a Facebook post about Trump

Posted on 20 January 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

I am not watching the inaugural this morning. I can’t bear it. I’ve even stopped watching most TV news, in the last week or two. For decades, I have watched the Today Show every morning, on NBC, for at least … Continue reading →

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