Conservative Politics and the Flaws of Human Nature

Posted on Wednesday 19 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How linguistic anthropology and narrative psychology explain the appeal of Trump and other right-wing authoritarians;
  • Why that everyone, not just conservatives, is pessimistic about the world, despite the evidence, is more evidence of how human nature, shaped in humanity’s ancestral past, cannot accurately apprehend the realities of the modern world;
  • How Republicans think that applying the scientific method is evidence of conspiracy.

Salon, Chauncey DeVega, 18 Jul 2023: “Train and socialize”: Expert on linguistic anthropology explains how Trump is warping MAGA minds, subtitled “The implications stretch far beyond Donald Trump — and are ominous for American society”

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Dictatorship and the Rejection of Democracy

Posted on Tuesday 18 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Reactions to yesterday’s NYT piece about Republican plans to make Trump a dictator, abandoning the Founding Father’s idea of a democracy with a balance of powers;
  • Climate change as precisely a subject that *should* be politicized, if politics is anything other than enforcing ideology on others.

Several people covered yesterday’s NYT story about the ambitions of Trump and his team should he win back the presidency, using language far blunter than I did, but which I’m using now in today’s title.

Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American, 17 Jul 2023:
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They’re Telling Us Who They Are, and What They Will Do

Posted on Monday 17 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Maya Angelou: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” (source and source)

  • How Trump and his acolytes are openly planning to set up an authoritarian government, should he rewin the Presidency;
  • Similarly, Republicans in Ohio and Alabama are defying the will of the voters, and the decisions of the Supreme Court, when those results don’t go their own way;
  • How the fringe conservatives are Nazis and racist conspiracy theorists;
  • How “Creation Care” is the evangelical substitute for rational response to climate change, and how homeschooling mothers still dissemble to their children.

Today’s examples are how they’re telling who they are, yet again.

Front page of today’s New York Times: Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025, subtitled “The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.”

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The Current State of the World

Posted on Sunday 16 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Two items about the current state of the world: the economy is good; climate change is getting worse, and how conservatives won’t believe either;
  • How Big Oil is more concerned with profits than with long-term consequences;
  • How the Mission: Impossible series, especially the TV series of the 1960s, promoted the plausibility of deep state conspiracies.

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About Immigration

Posted on Saturday 15 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • My own ancestors were immigrants, of course, in the 1800s, just like most of the US population; and recalling “Irish Need Not Apply”;
  • NYT’s David Leonhardt about the global immigration backlash, without wondering why these migrations are happening;
  • Paul Krugman on how immigrants are saving the economy;
  • And how immigrants into NY City are benefiting the economy, despite politicians’ scare tactics that appeal to tribal mentality;
  • How this plays into human survival, a race between Savannah morality and the global mentality needed to solve global problems.
  • And “Seven Years” by Natalie Merchant.

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As I’ve written in my pages on this site about my Family History, Continue reading →

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Truth or Consequences

Posted on Friday 14 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Why Republicans would want to defund the IRS, the DOJ, and the FBI;
  • Cory Doctorow’s quick take on this theme in his latest novel;
  • A new book about fearmongering;
  • How conspiracy theories are driven by profit, not truth or honesty or consequences.

Republicans want to defund the IRS and the DOJ and the FBI, and prevent the government from trying to control disinformation on social media. Why would they be doing all these things?

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Consciousness and Choices

Posted on Thursday 13 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The problem of consciousness, and the resolution to a 25-year-old debate, via Vox and NYT’s Carl Zimmer;
  • The paradox of choice, in supermarkets and everywhere else, in our abundant, materialistic world.

Vox, Oshan Jarow, 30 Jun 2023: Why scientists haven’t cracked consciousness, subtitled “The science of consciousness still has no theory.”

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Tenth Anniversary

Posted on Wednesday 12 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Today is the tenth anniversary of this blog.

It was originally called “Views from Medina Road,” from where we lived in Woodland Hills (a suburb of Los Angeles) at the time, with the view of the San Fernando Valley, and the snow-topped San Gabriel Mountains in the distance.

Here’s the first post. All it said was “This is the initial post on my new blog, a sequel to the Locus Online editorial blog Views from Medina Road.”

Unfortunately that link, at locusmag.com, doesn’t work; but since then I moved that entire blog my own domain, markrkelly.com, here.

It’s odd that there was an almost four-month gap between the two. In July 2013 I had been laid off from my industry job of 30 years for about eight months, since November 2012, and then spent the early part of 2013 getting sfadb.com up and running smoothly.

Later, moving to Oakland in January 2015, it was easy enough to change the blog title, and header photo.

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For today, another run through of recent items in the news and commentariat. Continue reading →

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Some Sciency Bits

Posted on Tuesday 11 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Richard Dawkins on the ancestral language of DNA;
  • How humans have interpreted fossils throughout history;
  • Recalling the scientifically inaccurate and intellectually hostile movie Armageddon, from 1998;
  • How an article about a refinement to our understanding of human evolution overstates its case;
  • And as a lagniappe, Natalie Merchant, who has a new album out; and recalling “San Andreas Fault.”

Richard Dawkins, too, has a blog on Substack, which has become a refuge for those writers unable to find a home on traditional sites, or perhaps because they can make direct money through Substack subscriptions. You don’t have to subscribe to see most of the posts, but apparently you get extra things if you subscribe. (I haven’t subscribed to any yet; I don’t mind doing so, but I suspect the costs would quickly add up.)

Currently I’m already following the religious skeptic Hemant Mehta (https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/), who went there after Patheos.com disbanded its “nonreligious” blogs (apparently because the religious were offended by their existence); the historian Heather Cox Richardson (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/), and the economist Robert Reich (https://robertreich.substack.com/) there, and perhaps others. I need to reorganize my bookmarks.

Dawkins’ Substack is called “The Poetry of Reality”.

Richard Dawkins, Substack, 30 Jun 2023: Two Ancestral Languages

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Follow-up Links on Current Themes

Posted on Monday 10 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Let’s catch up on links from the past couple weeks that I haven’t already used, beginning with some follow-ons to topics already covered.

  • Climate Change: Scientists have reached the “I told you so” moment;
  • The DeSantis video: Republicans are now openly hostile toward gays and transgender people;
  • How the US religious right is promoting anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry around the world;
  • How the Supreme Court has elevated Christian Religion above civil laws;
  • Robert Reich on why people don’t appreciate the improving economy;
  • And the resultant harassment of scientists, by conspiracy theorists who don’t want to hear facts that contradict their beliefs.
  • And thoughts about whether humanity will survive.

CNN, 8 Jul 2023: Global heat in ‘uncharted territory’ as scientists warn 2023 could be the hottest year on record

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