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 25, 2013 | Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Charity and Philanthropy, Feminism and LGBT, Race, Science and Skepticism, Society
Some recent events got me thinking about the troubles with the idea of being reasonable. Of course, I’m all for the practice of reason. The problem is using it as a label in argument, especially when it’s done with rhetorical flourish. A great background post to this...
by Carl Howard | Nov 8, 2013 | Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Science and Skepticism, Society
Via lots of places, a story about the recent San Francisco subway shooting has luddites everywhere lamenting how smartphones have changed Who We Are. What prompted this was footage of a man brandishing a gun on the subway and pointing it at people none of whom noticed...
by Carl Howard | Oct 29, 2013 | Atrocities and Oppression, Biases and Fallacies, Feminism and LGBT
One of my friends is now living in Moscow where he has spent some time debating supporters of Russia’s horrible homophobic laws. Last week, there was a Facebook thread where he wanted to clarify some thinking about gay adoption. The question (paraphrased by me) was...
