by Carl Howard | Dec 2, 2014 | Atrocities and Oppression, Ethics, Feminism and LGBT, Philosophy, Sex
NOTE: This post is an analogy between different kinds of discrimination. While I normally avoid these, I thought it was necessary here as I’ll explain below. Still, take it for what it is, a limited and necessarily-flawed analogy. A man and a woman hook up. The next...
by Carl Howard | Nov 25, 2014 | Atrocities and Oppression, Biases and Fallacies, History, Medicine, Race, Resources, Food and Environment
The idea of Africa as a single place is common in Western countries, which has many consequences. I’ve looked at some of these before in terms of the idea of dividing countries up into first world and third world (here and here). There is a great website focussed...
by Carl Howard | Nov 18, 2014 | Feminism and LGBT, History, Race, Travel
Many kids have movies they love to watch over and over again. One of mine was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I’ve just seen it again for the first time in 15+ years. I suspected that it’d probably be quite racist but it exceeded my racism+sexism expectations by...
by Carl Howard | Nov 11, 2014 | Atheism and Religion, Atrocities and Oppression, Biases and Fallacies, Feminism and LGBT, Science and Skepticism
There have been Deep Rifts™ within the atheist and skeptical communities [in English-speaking countries]. These have now been covered enough in the wider media that you might have heard of them even if you don’t identify with any of those groups. Just in the last 2...
by Carl Howard | Nov 4, 2014 | Atheism and Religion, Atrocities and Oppression, Ethics, Feminism and LGBT, Language, Philosophy
I have a pet peeve: the use of the term “offensive”. Ok, it’s more than a pet peeve – I think its use in public discourse is misleading and harmful. To start, here are some uses of “offensive” that are particularly cringeworthy: You don’t have a right not to be...
by Carl Howard | Oct 28, 2014 | Creative, Society
Most of us blunder through life’s complications – but if Einstein, Gandhi, Richard Branson and the Dalai Lama have taught us anything it’s that the simple truths about happiness are still valid. Here is the collective wisdom of the last few thousand years that They...