Gallup's Mirror

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
What if Consciousness is Fundamental?

Sean Carroll also has a recent podcast with Christof Koch on this topic. When I heard Koch expressing support for panpsychism, it sadly felt like a nod to woo-woo. Fortunately, Sean kindly dissented. As much as I respect Koch, IMO, his view struck me as simply “reasoning” that…[Read more]

The video with Jason Stanley on Amanpour referred to a Guardian article on the topic of how the Trump admin wants to define university policies and practices. As Enco notes, they can do this when they have powers of the purse. (Yo MAGA, the left may have set the scene, but you made governmental interference inevitable.)

Excerpt from the…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Is it just me or is AI art deliberately formulaic and creepy?

LLMs and AI algorithms are designed by humans, and source data gathered from the internet that humans created and maintain. I.e. that’s where any formulae and creepiness would be originally coming from, with a dose of whatever unexpected weirdness might come…[Read more]

I am liking the new artistic upgrade to Chatgpt.

I asked it to generate a picture in the style of Ralph Steadman as per below;

Thanks, Reg!!

Have a great week!

Due to work getting in the way of life, today’s post is curtailed.

TheEncogitationer wrote:
In other words, it takes more than just making stupid noises on EuroVision or not furnishing the apartment for me to use the term: “Fascist.”

Same here, actually. And using that word lowers his credibility, imo, while I guess I took advantage of the clickbait opportunity when I posted it here.

However, I’m not con…[Read more]

Enco, I promise I was only reviewing this thread, starting with its first post back in December, and my purpose was not to find examples of the kind of stuff that you write. But the following comment spurred me to point out that Jason Stanley is not the only pontificator conflating “Fascism” with policies they criticize:

TheEncogitationer…

[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
And now the Universities and this psycho, self-hating, suicidal egghead Jason Stanley have the nerve to scream “Fascism” when anyone–and this is not just Trump and MAGA–wants to put an end to all this nonsense???

I’ve made it a habit to just skip comments like this, so I’ve lost count. How does that come out so easily…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
If Universities accept taxdollars, they are by definition willing instruments of the State.

OK, “by definition” according to certain idealisms, but not long-standing traditions of giving academia and upper educational institutions some freedom to define curriculum and policies. Otherwise, an “instrument of the state”, by…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
[…]Citizens United was defending anyone’s right to express themselves via donations.

What It Takes to Speak Freely: A Defense of Citizens United Written By Eli Solomon https://hulr.org/fall-2024/what-it-takes-to-speak-freely-a-defense-of-citizens-united

That article emphasizes more than once, I’m paraphrasing, that “…[Read more]

Leftism vs Authoritarianism in America, are those the only main characters left playing now?

The 19-1/2 minute video is about Fascism taking down or converting universities into instruments of the state. Side note, “they” now want NPR and PBS to be next on the chopping block.

The problems with news media started with the loss of local newspapers. . Many areas had 2 or more regular papers with opposing views. Local reporters kept local politicians and officials in check. In the last 20 years most of these have fallen victim to the mega corporations and local politicians “get away with more”. These “news deserts” were…[Read more]

Yes, it has nothing to do with land. It is just the indoctrinated hatred of Jews by the poisoned minds of Islamist’s that is the problem. In the article I posted above about measles “that made me angry and sad”, the mother meets with RFK after her child dies from measles. A totally preventable death but she does not see that. She is still on “Team…[Read more]

I was recently told that I am deliberately refusing to listen to god calling me. I asked them how they knew which god was calling out to me. Then I told them this silly joke…

A hurricane is headed for a small town. The news says that everyone needs to evacuate. A religious man in the town says “I’m not going to leave my home, God will protect…[Read more]