Dang Martin

Of course, Simon, SOMETIMES an explanation is necessary.  However, most of the time it’s optional. Trying not to do stuff automatically is quite hard.  I’m getting there slowly. Try it out. Try not giving an explanation (unless you’re talking to a police officer, etc).

@danielw I like those.  I’m not very good with rules, so I haven’t compiled a list, but I do have personal projects.  I learned to not get irritated by anyone.  That took a few years, but I’m pretty good compared to how I used to be.

My mum had a favorite mantra.  Never complain, never explain.  I’m working with this one at present.  It’s harder…[Read more]

So basically, ‘evil’ is a concept of what the worst of the worst would be, if it were a ‘thing’.  Got it.

John Oliver did a segment on ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ last Sunday night.  The problem is worse than I though it was possible to be.

Can you operate with never using the word ‘evil’?  Would there be an obstacle to your communications without this word?  It’s a ‘magic thinking’ word, and since no human is all bad or all good, it would appear to be an invalid term

Not really. Bad, awful, mean, unkind, spiteful, hateful…  there’s no need for ‘evil’ because you endow the act with some kind of superpower. People can be arseholes.

The proper antonym of ‘good’ is ‘bad’. The term ‘evil’ is a giving up of the possibility to make the ‘bad’ become less so, or even good.   It’s populism can most probably be linked to religion or group thinking.  There is no real antonym to ‘evil’   I don’t believe in ‘evil’, I think it’s a perjurative term.

I read (probably on Twitter) that Macron the French had warned Russia in advance of the blitz over the weekend.  I was trying to find supporting information for this, and came up with the FT article here http://www.ft.com/content/ab5c6d60-3f15-11e8-b7e0-52972418fec4

Ask him what the point of a vacation is if you’re just going to go home afterwards 🙂

Chicken and egg situation, really Jake.  Does religion cause violence in humans, or are humans inherently violent and this is reflected in group or tribe behaviour?

It’s funny, in the West over the years, we see Muslims as more violent, and Hindus as more peaceful, but this is a fallacy.  I spent some time in Fiji, for example, where the Hindus are aggressive and the Muslims gentle.  I had always thought that Buddhists were extremely peaceful, and then I learned of the Buddhist aggression in Myanmar.  It seem…[Read more]

I’m with Reg.  Fuck that way of thinking

Reg, how DO you get yourself involved in street debates?