by Carl Howard | Dec 16, 2013 | Atrocities and Oppression, Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, History, Race, Society
A very common political trope in western liberal democracies is for more conservative people to call candidates/policies by less conservative people/parties as communist or socialist or a similar pejorative term. This happens during elections but also during the day...
by Carl Howard | Dec 4, 2013 | Atrocities and Oppression, Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Ethics, History, Race, Science and Skepticism, Society
It’s common to hear lamentations about the stupidity of the general voting public. “And these people vote!” is a common ending to a story about stupidity as you can see in the image above. It’s not as combative as “And these people breed!” (which I might cover later)...
by Carl Howard | Nov 28, 2013 | Atrocities and Oppression, Biases and Fallacies, History, Race
There’s been some news coverage about the Dutch tradition of Zwarte Piet or Black Pete. As part if the annual Feast of St Nicholas celebrations, Santa is accompanied by a servant (whose appearance is of pagan origin). Basically lots of people put on blackface. ...
by Carl Howard | Nov 14, 2013 | Charity and Philanthropy, History, Interesting Stuff, Resources, Food and Environment, Science and Skepticism, Society
Every year, Edge.org publishes responses of about 100-150 scientists, philosophers, public intellectuals (and alas some, cranks) to a single question. It’s generally an interesting read, previous posts are about the 2011 question (What is the most important invention...
by Carl Howard | Nov 11, 2013 | Atrocities and Oppression, History, Mind, Psychology and Consciousness
Young members of the Khmer Rouge, Tuol Sleng Museum, Phnom Penh It’s a cliche that various horrible events from the 20th century have changed the popular understanding of human behaviour — but it’s true. It particularly hit me in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum looking...
by Carl Howard | Aug 16, 2012 | Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, History, Mind, Psychology and Consciousness, Science and Skepticism, Society
A few weeks ago, I was out with 3 friends and the conversation turned to the increasing prevalence of technology especially with smartphones being so common. I believe that all three of them agreed that this was a definite negative. People would turn increasingly...
