We’ve been behind the curve on Covid mitigations. At this point, we should be able to see the error in removing masks, right?! When the wastewater data and/or hospitalization rates are low but STARTING to rise, that’s when we need masks to be mandated. Instead, we wait until hospitals are
Continue readingTag: Plato
A Puff of Absurdity: On Legislating Kindness
If kind, other-centred behaviour isn’t entirely natural to us, then should it be legislated (more than it already is)? Many old timey philosophers agree that happiness is predicated on an increase in pleasure and decrease in pain, and that just seem like common sense. Yet all too often the choices
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Should Schools have A/C?
Or do we need hot days to be considered “bad weather” days and just close the schools? And do we need to re-think how we do school – and civilization – entirely as we start to feel the effects of climate change? I was always bothered when the main office,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Polycrisis and Planetary Palliative Care
Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon and Johan Rockström wrote about the “Cascade of Crises” we’re experiencing right now. They discuss global hunger, people forced to moved, political authoritarianism, violations of human rights, violent demonstrations, ongoing conflict. They point to two things: the magnitude of consumption and “vastly greater connectivity among our economic
Continue readingmark a. rayner: 10 Mind-Blowing Reads About the Multiverse
In a real sense, you could argue that every book is another reality. The best of them certainly feel like self-contained worlds, and when you… The post 10 Mind-Blowing Reads About the Multiverse appeared first on mark a. rayner.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Philosophy, Being and Reality
Some reading on the subject of philosophy, ontology, epistemology, metaphysics and the nature of reality that I’d recommend: Choosing Reality, by Allan Wallace, Dreamtime and Inner Space, by Holgar Kalweit, The Holographic Universe, and Mysticism and the New Physics, by Michael Talbot, and an excellent first major book, as an
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Slippery Arguments and Women at Google
You can read most of the infamous Google memo here, and for the record, I don’t think opening up this discussion should be a fireable offence, but I’m just concerned with this one piece of the puzzle right now: “the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Community, Again
I just read local author Paul Born’s Deepening Community. In places, it’s very close to what I’ve written about in terms of ensuring that we’re kind to one another at the very end. He doesn’t skirt around the issue that we’re in dire straights and that we can choose how
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Paradigm Shift in Climate Change Policy
In the news, Caroline Lucas, in The Guardian says one good policy isn’t enough; we need a paradigm shift: “Rather than simply looking for one headline-grabbing policy, the government should be embarking on a paradigm shift when it comes to how we get about in this country. …Ultimately we need
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness
Some Russell quotations have been floating around lately, so I read The Conquest of Happiness, first published in 1930, and, boy, did I need this right now! The main ideas and some bits I liked are below by chapter. The book is really just a mix of Stoicism and Epicureanism,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: If We Could Be as Smart as Frogs
I regularly tell students about our likely future. It’s often met with skepticism, so I provide lots of citations from the IPCC and NASA. Then I sometimes get a lecture on being so doom and gloom. Denial is our go-to defence against reality. But for whose benefit? It’s just for
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On the Philosophy of Mr. Money Moustache
A friend pointed me towards this podcast in which Tim Ferriss interviews Mr. Money Moustache (MMM), a man who retired from work in his 30s to live on the interest from his investments and then got a significant following as a blogger. The podcast describes the kind of life I’ve
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Swiss Army Man
I first saw this at the theatre and, despite the fact that it starts with a whole lot of farting in a wide variety of tones and tempos, the ending had me in tears. I highly recommend it. The surface story is about Hank, trapped on a deserted island –
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Swiss Army Man
I first saw this at the theatre and, despite the fact that it starts with a whole lot of farting in a wide variety of tones and tempos, the ending had me in tears. I highly recommend it. The surface story is about Hank, trapped on a deserted island –
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Is This the Sixth Estate?
The “Fourth Estate” is an antiquated term for unofficial social and political forces, primarily the media. Use of the term recognized, over two centuries ago, that the media affect social change. But once that became clear, it became a tool of the establishment. The church, politicians, and corporations started using
Continue readingPostArctica: Walking With Andy
Walking with Andy he talks and talks he copies things and gets on my nerves he has been to China I respect that but it looked boring (he didn’t get it) He said the sky sucked in my picture and I agreed So we did this together he laughed I
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Justice and Hatred
I had an online discussion at Dawg’s Blawg about the primary theme of Tarantino’s newest film, The Hateful Eight, and it got a bit too provocative to manage a sincere response in the window of a comment, so I brought it here. Unfortunately I can’…
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Those Statues Again
There are dueling petitions out to continue (which curiously disappeared) and stop statues of all 22 prime ministers being planted on the grounds of Wilfrid Laurier University, my old school that I loved all to bits. I wrote about this statue project on its inception two years ago. The statues
Continue readingLeDaro: Greek philosopher Plato’s view of God
“When speaking of divine perfection, we signify that God is just and true and loving, the author of order, not disorder, of good, not evil. We signify that he is justice, that he is truth, that he is love, that he is order, that he is the very progress of..”
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Measuring Well
In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates and Protagoras argue over the language Protagoras uses to explain what happens when, as he describes it, pleasure overtakes reason and people make horrible choices. Socrates insists that it’s not pleasure that overtakes reason, but ignorance. Here’s some key bits of the passage: They maintain that
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