To be brief: The obsession with quantity and volume has to end. More is not always better. Quality matters most. But people in the 21st century are addicted to endless entertainment, distraction, empty and largely useless talk, and endless amounts of “news” and commentary. Unless we step back, pause, reflect,
Continue readingTag: Chomsky
A Puff of Absurdity: A Fruitful Exploration of the Core
Maybe there are seeds of potential deep within ourselves, but maybe there’s nothing there but a collection of signals. Regardless the outcome, we need to dig in to see what we can find. In several classes I took last term, the idea of a core self that’s fluid came through
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Boiling Frogs Timeline
Globally, Covid cases rose by over 50% in the past month! This article that reported the stats, mistakenly says the WHO “officially declared the end of the coronavirus pandemic worldwide in May 2023.” Here’s what the WHO actually said last May: “I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency. That
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Yup, It’s Still Airborne
The much publicized 60 Minutes episode on Covid ran last night. Lots of accolades on social media, but I wasn’t impressed. We’re just happy for scraps at this point. The segment ran in two parts. The main part, at 13 minutes, was all about cleaning air in buildings. As they
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Manufacturing Consent to Spread SARS-CoV-2
Like the political/media machine convinced citizens that invading Iraq was necessary, we’re being convinced to spread a virus that will come back to destroy our own lives. Yesterday, Arijit Chakravarty, who specializes in applying mathematical modeling to drug discovery and development, and Martha Lincoln, assistant professor of cultural and medical
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Truth is Out There
Because it’s harder than ever to discern fact from fiction means we have to work harder. Don’t give up! Definitely not an example of Art Deco. I once dated a guy I thought was absolutely brilliant. He seemed to know everything about every topic. He could answer and explain every
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Politics of Hopelessness
I started posting other people’s twitter threads in part because twitter was (is) threatening to self-destruct, but also because there are some incredible gems that could disappear into the ether even if twitter remains. It’s not set up to easily find that one post you read weeks ago – ever
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Chomsky’s Lessons from 2021
Yanis Varoufakis spoke to Noam Chomsky, at DiEM25, about what 2021 has taught us. In a nutshell: the wealthy puts profits over people to their own detriment (e.g. patent rights over vaccines, which provoked mutations) and will only help with climate change if they can profit without taking risks. We
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: On The Use & Abuse Of History
A typical account of history is presented in the video linked below, and here are some reflections on it, and on the general practice, or malpractice, of professional historians, and scholars and intellectuals broadly. As Noam Chomsky has said, the major media portray themselves as free and unbiased media, but
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Dealing With Lemmings, and The Delusional
“Never underestimate the power of denial.” – American Beauty” Cowards can never be moral.” – Gandhi “The world is a dangerous place, not because evil people do terrible things, but because millions of people let them.” – Einstein “Just because you bury your head in the sand, doesn’t mean the
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: In Defence of Professor Noam Chomsky
Chomsky is about as corruptible as Gandhi, from my perspective. Further, he is the precise opposite of a globalist – he’s a self-defined anarchist, a libertarian socialist. He’s not omniscient or infallible, however. Some people think that any error in judgment means you must be corrupt, and part of some secret
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Future of the Left with Natalie and Noam
I stumbled across a video of Natalie Wynn in conversation with flippin’ Noam Chomsky. They are two of my favourite thinkers, but I never, in my wildest imagination, would have expected to find them chatting together. Noam seems to be everywhere these days, doing one talk after another, and Natalie
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Libertarian Socialism & The Rebirth of Freedom & Democracy
What is libertarian socialism, and why should we be interested? Libertarian socialism is a long term goal, I would say, agreeing with Chomsky, who is the most prominent libertarian socialist alive. That’s point one. Although, history is full of surprises, so it may be closer and more attainable in the
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Chomsky: Corporate Fascism Clarified
Exactly as I said this spring, in an essay titled, Sinking All Ships (Except Our Own), Chomsky is saying, as well, what by now should be obvious to all: the business elite are using a virus scare to vastly increase their already stratospheric wealth, and much more ominously, their already
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Question Everything: Metaphysics, Science, Philosophy & Common Sense
Here are thoughts on a short video linked below, but I would frankly assert that the thoughts presented here in this reflection or meditation are more interesting and more useful than the talk that they are commenting on. This seems to me an unnecessarily obscure talk (linked below), even though
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Sliding Into Irrelevance: Pro-Censorship Stance Obliterates Careers – and Minds
The once-great Naomi Klein. I had great respect for her until she burned her very considerable credibility to the ground, by publicly and viciously attacking Glenn Greenwald recently – after he quit The Intercept, for not agreeing to their new policy of enforced censorship, saying Glenn had “lost the thread”.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Top 12 Books For Understanding The World
Or, Why A Critical Reading of History Is Now Critically & Urgently Needed The details are important, but an understanding of the major patterns of history are even more important. I don’t think that is possible without giving due credence to the quiet revolution which occurred in anthropology in the
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The War On Democracy
(Comment below after listening to the most important three minutes of info you are likely to hear in decades, or have likely ever heard. Noam Chomsky on The Crisis Of Democracy, via Spotify, is linked below. But note this important synopsis of my political analysis, which pretty much accords with Chomsky’s,
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Who Are The CIA?
Who are the CIA? This will tell you everything you need to know. Here’s where things really started to go wrong: 1947, the National Security Act, which created the National Security Council and the CIA, giving the CIA sweeping, ultra-secretive, unconstitutional powers, and near limitless budget through the legalized, covert
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Policing: Time for Change
In 1982, Milton Friedman advised, “Keep options open until circumstances make change necessary. There is enormous inertia–a tyranny of the status quo–in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis–actual or perceived–produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying
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