Category: Non-fiction

Feeding Molech for a Trophy

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Very rarely does something appear truly devilish to me, but this one really seemed strange, even crazy. I’m curious if those who don’t share my faith get the same vibe, but for sure there is something… off about her voice. It sounds compelled, if that makes sense: Of course, there is more to this than that. First, she makes the trade obvious – she is successful because having an abortion allowed the opportunity to be so; she would not have the trophy had she not aborted her child. She says, “Thank God or whomever you pray to.” An image comes…

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Who is Michael Moore Talking To?

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It sure ain’t the Ayatolla, who probably doesn’t know who he is and wouldn’t care what a godless, decadent American has to say to him anyway. This is to say nothing of the fact that posting a podcast is not actually communicating with a foreign leader. So who is this tub talking to? Well, everyone who agrees with him, that’s who. This is a plea for attention and an attempt to regain relevancy that has been lost due to the free-flowing information of the internet. He’s talking to leftists like himself, saying the things that they want to hear. They…

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On Being Prolific

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What does being prolific actually mean? Usually, it means that someone is outputting a great deal of something: a prolific writer, a prolific musician, a prolific painter, etc. I’m a bit different, though, in that I tend to split my productivity among several pursuits: writing books, writing blog content, recording informative (and hopefully somewhat entertaining) videos, recording music, and raising children. Yes, we often do not think of raising children as part of productivity, but it certainly is. Your progeny is in many ways your biggest legacy, and is also one of the biggest contributions you can make to your…

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“Star Wars Fans” and created identities

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Just a little follow-up to my post yesterday: Being a “fan” is no to a large part a function of identity. However, it is fundamentally different from other forms of identity, such as race, ethnicity, or religion. For ethnicity, membership is generally obvious and immutable – either you are the descendant of an ethnic group or you are not, with the only grey area being multi-ethnic individuals in some circumstances. For religion, identity is primarily how one views himself and his alignment with tradition and creed that has been passed down, and so is in most cases not up for…

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Social Proof

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“Social Proof” is something you NEED to become familiar with. It’s essential if you are going to be doing any kind of marketing. What is social proof? Basically, it’s this: Other people think this, therefore it is likely to be true. If you are thinking straight away that this is a logical fallacy, just hold your objections. I’ll explain how social proof is different than an appeal to popularity. Social proof is a very fast method of judging initial likelihood of truth – A filter, more than “proof” in the logical sense. This is in the realm of induction, obviously.…

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What the hell is a fan, anyway?

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Seriously, I have to wonder at this point, what a “fan” is. It seems like every fandom is trying to be a clique that excludes anyone isn’t interested in every piece of media related to something regardless of their preferences. Not only do I have to watch the bad movie, I have to read a bad book made out of the bad movie? I have to read bad tie-in books to the bad movie? I have to also read the good books that got thrown out by the corporation that made the bad movies, and I have to bad read…

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The Material Mind – What makes a mind “alive”?

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I detailed in a recent Star Wars Mandalorian analysis a rare entry into the the true science fiction space in the mighty space opera franchise. In the final episode of the first season, a droid character acts as though he is sapient, even making moral calculations, but at the same time denies that he is alive. This becomes important when the Mandalorian, who never removes his helmet in front of living beings due to an oath, allows the droid to remove his helmet and treat a life-threatening wound. This creates some dissonance with the titular character – he has come…

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Grades – Important Measure, or a Tool of Oppression?

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Once again, we have a great tweet as an entry-point into a deeper, more important discussion: Grading students – is it necessary and appropriate, or a piece of convention that ought to be reconsidered? Before we even bother digging into any perspectives, let’s challenge the initial response. It turns out the story that Jesse is responding to was the result of a writer being duped, and the email was faked. Buzzfeed issued the appropriate correction at the TOP of the story. That’s actually a responsible correction, so good on them. Why did this gain such traction? I think its because…

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Blogs are Back!

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To kick off 2020, we have a cascade of agreement on all sides: And I’m not the only one agreeing with Scalzi and Wendig: So why? Why are blogs a thing? Or alternatively, why do they NEED to be a thing? Scalzi spells it out – even if you are on the left, and I STRONGLY URGE any of my readers who feel “safe” on social media due to being politically aligned to the left to consider this, the goalposts can shift at any time and you can get your social media presence destroyed. They can destroy it directly by…

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Framing theft and electric shock

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Here we have a man trespassing on private property, attempting to steal someone’s property, and then receiving a mild electric shock for his wickedness. It might be staged, but its the framing that is interesting, including my own. The lefties in the responses try to frame the sign owner as some kind of psycho, ignoring and completely dismissing the obvious crimes being committed, or even trying to pretend that it was the property owner committing a crime. They also continually reveal both their dishonesty and/or ignorance. It was a mild shock, the kind that you would get from a DC…

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