Scientific Reality and Ideological Imagination

Posted on Friday 21 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Reality check about warp drives;
  • Reality perspective about the Kardashev ladder;
  • My evolving ideas about traditional vs. honest science fiction;
  • How the latest conservative panic appears in the new film Sound of Freedom;
  • How House Republicans are openly discriminating against LGBTQ Americans;
  • A film score track by Vangelis.

A reality check, in case anyone isn’t sure about this:

Big Think, Don Lincoln, 19 Jul 2023: Is Star Trek’s warp drive possible?, subtitled “The concept of the warp drive is currently at odds with everything we know to be true about physics.”
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Debates, the Political Divide, and Savannah Morality

Posted on Thursday 20 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Again, why debating is performance art and not about arriving at truth;
  • How the political divide is mostly about hatred on the right toward the left;
  • How all of this makes sense given understanding of basic human nature, the “Savannah” or “tribal” morality, outlined here, which characterizes conservative thinking.

Another take on the debate about debating.

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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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