"An 'imagined reality' is an addictive mental drug that humans are infatuated with. It cures the frustration brought about by the constraints of the actual reality. Like a physical drug, it could cure pain and make life in prison more tolerable, but it could also take away life if used excessively. It brings communities with … Continue reading Imagined Realities, Evidence & The Singular
Tag: truth
The Hardest Arguer
The person arguing the hardest typically has something else at stake other that being right. Whether it is their brittle male egos, love of authoritarianism or other kinds of fundamentalism, they are often arguing for a worldview. Being right often has little to do with it.
Calling Bullshit
"Our learning objectives are straightforward. After taking the course, you should be able to:* Remain vigilant for bullshit contaminating your information diet.* Recognize said bullshit whenever and wherever you encounter it.* Figure out for yourself precisely why a particular bit of bullshit is bullshit.* Provide a statistician or fellow scientist with a technical explanation of … Continue reading Calling Bullshit
The Misinformation Virus
"Online media has given voice to previously marginalised groups, including peddlers of untruth, and has supercharged the tools of deception at their disposal. The transmission of falsehoods now spans a viral cycle in which AI, professional trolls and our own content-sharing activities help to proliferate and amplify misleading claims. These new developments have come on … Continue reading The Misinformation Virus
The Illusion of Certainty
"Scientists sometimes resist new ideas and hang on to old ones longer than they should, but the real problem is the failure of the public to understand that the possibility of correction or disproof is a strength and not a weakness......Most people are not comfortable with the notion that knowledge can be authoritative, can call … Continue reading The Illusion of Certainty
The Market of Truth & Faction
"Fooling people only requires telling them what they want to hear, over and over again. People love to hear how right they are." —Stan Beeman, in The Americans. The market for truth is a small one. On the scale of the universe, it is true that we are insignificant. On that level, we don't factor … Continue reading The Market of Truth & Faction
Celebrating Our Differences
After reading a bit about the Anne Hathaway kerfuffle on limb differences portrayed in The Witches, I find myself of two minds. On one hand, we are all imperfect, a work in progress. When we do something stupid from a perspective we haven't considered, it's good and useful to have our myopic perspective pointed out. … Continue reading Celebrating Our Differences
Neil Postman’s Advice on How to Live the Rest of Your Life
"7. Establish as many regular routines as possible.In order to position yourself well to cope with constant change, you should establish as many predictable structures and routines as possible. The point is to reduce the number of decisions you have to make about trivial matters. Save your energy for major questions that arise in our … Continue reading Neil Postman’s Advice on How to Live the Rest of Your Life
Cast Reason Aside
"You can tell time by the cry of 'Never again'...The future is obvious. Escalating suicide, the 20-year real-terms recession, the blackout, the plagues, those people falling onto the tracks, microhomes and governments' continued abuse of 'emergencies', are obvious. Yet many feel it a duty to portray shock of surprise when it comes along...Human beings aren't … Continue reading Cast Reason Aside
Comforting Illusions
"William Sloane Coffin tells the story of a scientist from Harvard flying on an experimental mission in a private plane over the lake country of northern Alabama, measuring with elaborate instruments the fish populations of various lakes. Sighting two fisherman out at some remote lake he had just surveyed, the scientist figured that as a … Continue reading Comforting Illusions
Don’t Mistake Theater for Your Reality
I, too, have been called names. I have found myself sharing the living and thinking space of people with Cluster B personality disorders. I have seen them conjure worlds, hammer manacles, and shape the world with their words and beliefs. And while their tutelage was hard, I learned a great lesson, which I will share: … Continue reading Don’t Mistake Theater for Your Reality
Change Your Conversations/Life
tl;dr: Discussions with people with love and respect done in the spirit of discovery of truth can be a powerful force for personal change. Without love, respect and a concern for truth, discussions devolve into signalling group allegiances and programming / deprogramming The Others and is best avoided. "Anti-idiotarianism: Opposition to idiots of all political … Continue reading Change Your Conversations/Life
There’s More in the Mortar Than the Pestle
Mazeways, reality range and glowing red rat cunning, invention of engines, fuels, tanks full of the stored fat of bloodshed, machine-shaped, faceted 3D printed jewels. Factories of fascism, launching rockets on the ecliptic, living within the lie, full manifests of memes and dockets, launch determines orbit, STANDBY. Red glare, the bombs bursting in air 48 … Continue reading There’s More in the Mortar Than the Pestle
Why Fiction Trumps Truth
"When it comes to uniting people around a common story, fiction actually enjoys three inherent advantages over the truth. First, whereas the truth is universal, fictions tend to be local. Consequently if we want to distinguish our tribe from foreigners, a fictional story will serve as a far better identity marker than a true story... … Continue reading Why Fiction Trumps Truth
cafebedouin.org 