Category Archives: Human Nature

If Humanity Doesn’t Have a Grasp on Reality, Does It Matter?

Posted on Saturday 17 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Today: posted items from 1-3 Oct that I collected while this site was down: The Thin Skin of Reality; And today: posted page Notes on Meaning, (and Wisdom and Purpose and Progress), part of my grand plan to identify broad … Continue reading →

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The Thin Skin of Reality

Posted on Saturday 17 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Items from 1-3 Oct. Trump in Time; How AI could worsen a common cognitive trap; Trump’s demand for Fox propaganda; People with lower cognitive abilities are more likely to endorse Christian Nationalist claims; Shaun Tan and the “thin skin of … Continue reading →

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Along the Spectra

Posted on Friday 16 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

In the context of the Tom Cruise film Digger, thoughts about the difficulties of thinking about climate change; Neil deGrasse Tyson wonders if humans are intelligent enough to understand everything; Fareed Zakaria on why Marco Rubio thinks the West is … Continue reading →

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Conservatives and Empathy

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Conservatives against empathy: excuses for selfishness; Another piece about boarding houses, once banned, perhaps now more appropriate than ever; Recalling a 50-year-old thesis about how human stupidity drags societies down; Quotes from Thomas L. Friedman and Paul Krugman about Donald … Continue reading →

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A World We Can’t Trust

Posted on Tuesday 29 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Bill McKibben on how we weren’t built for a world like this; Locus server issues today; More destruction: Trump scales back fuel emission standards, and removes supports for LGBTQ+ folks; How Trump’s new AI-powered America.gov tells truths that counter Trump’s … Continue reading →

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Abdication

Posted on Thursday 24 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

History runs in cycles, sorta. The US has gone through isolationist periods before. Though this time it may be part of general reaction against modernity and complexity. Salon, Heather Digby Parton, today: Donald Trump abdicates as leader of the free … Continue reading →

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It’s Not Just MAGA

Posted on Monday 21 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

There’s right-wing rejection of modern values in Europe, too; The end of American exceptionalism, which has been going on for some time; Who does Trump want to shoot with snipers on his Triumphal Arch? A study about children exposed to … Continue reading →

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Science, Ultimate Questions, and Belief

Posted on Sunday 20 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Scientific American on whether some questions may never be answered, with my thoughts on humanity’s cognitive limitations; David Brooks interviews astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan about humanity’s place in the cosmos: we’re significant because we can shape our realm, even though we … Continue reading →

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AI and Human Nature

Posted on Saturday 19 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Considering whether doomers and skeptics about AI are both a little bit right (I remain agnostic); What ‘misalignment’ means; Istvan Csicsery-Ronay on what to expect if AI is built on human literature. – – – It’s usually not true that … Continue reading →

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Possibilities of Apocalypse

Posted on Friday 18 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

An essay about how the dangers of technology, like AI, have been avoided before (e.g. with nuclear technology), through various kinds of government regulations (not to mention international cooperation); And yet there are more incidents of bad AI behavior; Now … Continue reading →

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