Obsolete Laws, Morality, and Beliefs

Posted on Thursday 11 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

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 Vatican’s latest statement doesn’t amplify dignity, it only exhibits the same base morality of tribal thinking that lacks any empirical basis;
  • And a piece by Brian Karen about Donald Trump that quotes Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall.” With a comment about Three-Body Problem.

This mentality has always been with us; it’s part of base human nature.

LGBTQNation, Dr. Warren J. Blumenfelt, 11 Apr 2024: The archaic Comstock laws were named for a man who also fueled the US obsession with book banning, subtitled “Anthony Comstock destroyed 15 tons of books during his 1800s quest for a “pure” nation, which also included banning abortion medications through the mail.”

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Daniel Dennett, Exploring the Universe, the Eclipse, and How so Many People have no idea what an eclipse is about

Posted on Wednesday 10 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Daniel Dennett’s four biggest ideas in philosophy;
  • Why we spend money to explore the universe;
  • Washington Post with images of the eclipse;
  • And SF author CJ Cherryh on how so many ‘people on the street’ have no idea what makes a solar eclipse.

Let’s move back into the world of rationality and reason and reality, mostly. Starting with another piece about the late Daniel Dennett. [Edit 19 Apr 2024: He died today, actually; why did I think he had died back on the 10th?]

Big Think, The 4 biggest ideas in philosophy, with legend Daniel Dennett, subtitled ““Forget about essences.” Philosopher Daniel Dennett on how modern-day philosophers should be more collaborative with scientists if they want to make revolutionary developments in their fields.”

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Jaime Green, THE POSSIBILITY OF LIFE

Posted on Tuesday 9 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Here is a book published about a year ago now that turns out to be very similar, thematically, to the more recent book by Adam Frank, The Little Book of Aliens, that I reviewed here in January. That book was published last October, six months after Green’s. Frank’s book had blurbs by Kim Stanley Robinson, Carlo Rovelli, Martin Rees, and Marcelo Gleiser (and one other); Green’s book has blurbs from Jeff VanderMeer, Ed Yong, Chuck Wendig, and a couple others.

Subtitled: “Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos” (Hanover Square Press, April 2023, 304pp, including 28p of bibliography and index)

The themes are similar: speculations about the likelihood (Frank) or nature of (Green) life in the universe, in particular intelligent life that humans might contact and interact with. While Frank focused on SETI, and discussed UFOs and UAPs, Green takes a broader chronological view, moving from the origin of life, then of planets, of animals, of people, of technology, and then of possible contact. Those are the subjects of her six chapters.

What distinguishes Green is her interest in and knowledge of science fiction, with some long passages about particular works. Many are to pop TV shows and movies, yet a significant few are to SF novels and even short stories. Here’s a summary, including her SF references.

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Eclipse Aftermath, and Politics

Posted on Monday 8 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

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 in fact a whole bunch of PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) trucks and vans on our street first thing this morning. Our power went off at exactly 9am. But they finished by 10:30am, and our power came back on, and so by then we were able to turn on the TV and see the eclipse coverage in the east: Texas, Arkansas, Ohio. Nice to see, but we saw the 2017 total eclipse in person, in Oregon.

Starting today with a couple substantive essays, then another list of what the crazies are up to.

NY Times, Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner, 8 Apr 2024: There Is a Way Out of MAGA Domination

The gist here: principled Republicans should form a sort of party-in-exile, and work to depose the MAGAs. The essay opens by reminding us how many such people there are.

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The Awe of the Solar Eclipse

Posted on Sunday 7 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Three items today.

  • Addressing a piece that claims that the awe of the solar eclipse, tomorrow, will somehow unite humanity (I think not; it hasn’t before);
  • Another appreciation of Daniel Kahneman, who explained how humans think, and established the idea of “cognitive biases”;
  • And looking back to a song by Split Enz, the predecessor group of Crowded House and soloist Neil Finn.

*

Here’s an article that wonders if tomorrow’s solar eclipse will somehow be a united force among all humanity. My initial reaction is: of course not. Has it happened after previous eclipses? No. At the same time, the awe is there for people opening to experience it.

Caption: “In-camera multiple exposure of the solar eclipse as seen in Salem, Ore., on Aug. 21, 2017. (Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)”

LA Times, 7 Apr 2024: These scientists think an ‘awe’-some eclipse could help unite Americans in troubled times

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How Humanity is Hobbled by Tribalism

Posted on Saturday 6 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

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 their political choices;
  • And a host of items demonstrating conservative/tribal thinking: how some want to execute gays; how Trump spreads the lie about Easter; how the current economy under Biden is stronger than that of other developed nations and they refuse to acknowledge it; how Republican claims that crime has skyrocketed under Biden are simply not true; how Trump lied about speaking the family of a victim of an illegal immigrant; Roseanne Barr’s latest crackpot comments; an Arizona Republican condemns non-Christians and LGBTQ people to eternal damnation; others about Satan’s religion of the leftism, how Democrats will cheat in elections, how praying in tongues will stop witch attacks; … and more.
  • With, in the background, my gelling conclusions about morality, which takes into account, and understands, the conservative view. But concludes it’s simply not appropriate in the modern, global, multicultural, world. It’s become counter-productive. (Aside from simply being wrong on many counts.)

They just make stuff up, to twist reality into conforming with their preferred worldview.

NYT, 4 Apr 2024: G.O.P. Congressman’s Wild Claim: F.B.I. Entrapped Jan. 6 Rioters, subtitled “More than three years after the attack on Congress, a Republican subcommittee chairman offered a series of baseless and disproved claims about it, reflecting an effort on the right to falsify what occurred.”

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Conspiracy Theories: Solar Eclipse Edition

Posted on Friday 5 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Salon on how solar eclipses are a breeding ground for conspiracy theories;
  • Rolling Stone on how the far right is subject to conspiracy theories;
  • Free Inquiry on why solar eclipses are nowhere close to being evidence of a creator.

While yesterday’s post was about the new Harari book that revisited his ideas of how major human concepts, like money, government, and religion, are ‘stories’ that people agree upon to enable a functional society, today’s is about another application of ‘story,’ the continued propensity of humans to imagine conspiracy theories about everything unusual that happens in the world. Things can’t just happen; they must be part of nefarious plots by the evil ones. Everything is imbued with meaning and intent; it’s a demon-haunted world. (The is a phenomenon on the right, of course, and related to morality, as I’ll explain in future posts.)

Now we have the solar eclipse next Monday. Of *course* there are conspiracy theories about it! Apparently this has always happened, every time there’s an eclipse. Human nature being what it is. (Did we see any of this back in 2017, when my partner and I drove to Oregon to see that solar eclipse? I’ll have to check. But not right now.)

Salon, Nicole Karlis, 5 Apr 2024: Nothing true under the sun: Why solar eclipses are a breeding ground for conspiracy theories, subtitled “Experts explain why astronomical events are frequently fraught with conspiracy theories and magical thinking”

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Yuval Noah Harari, UNSTOPPABLE US, Vol. 2

Posted on Thursday 4 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: “Why the World Isn’t Fair.” (Bright Matter Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House; March 2024. xv + 189pp. With copious illustrations by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz.)

This is the second volume in what might be called SAPIENS-FOR-KIDS, short and heavily-illustrated books that run through the themes of Harari’s SAPIENS (which I reviewed here) but for middle-grade readers. I heard once that one of the all-time Jeopardy champions honed his general knowledge of all things by reading books for kids, and indeed, a book like this helps anyone to see the crucial themes that stand out from among all the details, at a 30,000 feet level, so speak. In this book, it’s about the unfortunate consequences of the agricultural revolution, and how complex society lives by stories.

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Imagine Prioritizing Truth Over Being Right

Posted on Wednesday 3 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

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, Cass R. Sunstein, 1 Apr 2024: The Nobel Winner Who Liked to Collaborate With His Adversaries (shared link)

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

Posted on Tuesday 2 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • 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 meat.

NY Times, 1 Apr 2024: A Transgender Holiday Fell on Easter. Republicans Lashed Out at Biden., subtitled “President Biden, in acknowledging both days, drew the ire of many on the right, who attacked him as besmirching Christianity.”

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