physeter

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
I do not use FB or Twitter or any other medium.

I mostly quit both, years ago, but didn’t delete my accounts. Maybe a few times a year I check FB for updates on my closest friends or family. And recently I’ve added some people to follow on Twitter, based on their record of being factual, e.g. Dr. Michael Mina, who…[Read more]

Reg,

“Vegan Tylenol” is woo because living Vegan sounds like a perpetual migraine. 😁

As for Anarchy, I’ve read it said that men would have to become Gods before they could become Anarchists. This makes sense, because only immortal beings that couldn’t be harmed and Omniscient, Omnibenevolent beings who know all and love all would be fine…[Read more]

It’s hard to think of many historical precedents, where a people once controlled a territory centuries earlier, and then an occupied power controlled it and then mostly gave it back to the previous occupiers, as though they had a legitimate claim to it.

It would be like saying that the Greeks have a legitimate claim to Istanbul. That’s saying the…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Why are adults legally allowed to assault children in their care?

The personhood of children seems to still be an emerging concept. It’s awkward because children require guidance, supervision, and custodial care, but that doesn’t mean their lives should serve the whims of adults tasked with their care.

I can…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
World of Woo: ‘Vegan Tylenol’ and the pain of Scientific Ignorance.

There are good points in the article—overall certainly worth a read—, yet I still find it weird how much veganism brings out the silliness in its critics in places:

How can a petroleum-based, factory-produced medicine be vegan in the first place?…

[Read more]

Thanks, Reg 🙂

I wonder would the free will quote read better if he used the term ‘atheism’ instead of ‘determinism’?

It takes a certain intellectual courage to instead embrace determinism and a worldview of causal complexity. But it also offers enormous promise: a clearer vision of your place in the Universe, freedom from unnecessary anger, pride, guilt and…[Read more]

Regarding the free will article, while the author claims to find no persuasive arguments on behalf of determinism (he isn’t trying very hard to understand them, then), he reaches this  conclusion:

It takes a certain intellectual courage to instead embrace determinism and a worldview of causal complexity. But it also offers enormous promise: a…[Read more]

Regarding the article on infantile consciousness, while the notion that playing classical music soothes fetuses may (or may not) be woo, they can at some point react to stimuli.

We find it hard to distinguish between reactivity, awareness, consciousness, and memory, since fetuses and infants can’t talk to us.

And so, are the anti-abortion people…[Read more]

“Agnosticism” is an absurd position, claiming that the belief in a cosmic sorcerer who created everything through an act of magic, who created a lake of fire for people who use their free will incorrectly, who hates it when you covet your neighbor’s backyard swimming pool, who lets playing toddlers be crushed by their dad’s car who was running out…[Read more]

As you may know, the country was founded primarily by “deists,” a fact Christian nationalists are at pains to ignore. CN bears a striking resemblance to a theological movement big in the 60’s called The Death of God. While DoG had many wrinkles, one of them held that basically God made the universe and then left, a belief rather similar to…[Read more]

Social Media is something I refuse to be involved with. I do not use FB or Twitter or any other medium. When I debate with people face to face I often wonder how they can be so opinionated and/or outraged on subjects that, to me, they clearly know very little about. They seem to have no ability to frame things in any context other than “Well…[Read more]

RE: Liberal democracies are backsliding worldwide. Could anarchy help.

No. but rationality can. Because of these wars and recent politics, I keep having the terrible thought that our lives are back in the hands of theists, ideologs and personality cults. Be they Christians, Muslims, Nationalists or Communists. I guess it has really always been…[Read more]

Have a great week folks!

@Unseen link added to explain who Mr. Ziv, is.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
“People don’t understand how fragile the situation is,” Mr. Ziv said. “Hamas has to pay for this.” He paused. “With their existence.”

Who is this “Ziv”? It sounds like Netanyahu.

“People don’t understand how fragile the situation is,” Mr. Ziv said. “Hamas has to pay for this.” He paused. “With their existence.”

Unseen,

Well, Haj Amin Al-Husseini’s propaganda of hatred against Jews has not served the Arabs of The Palestinian Territories very well all these decades. And that hatred is about to get a bunch of Arabs killed, including innocent Arabs who are human shields for Hamas weapons.

So, yeah, Haj Amin Al-Husseini really was Anti-Semitic in the…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
I’m scouring my posts and I don’t see where I used the word “Antisemitic.”

From the article you linked to: “Hitler’s closest Middle East ally worked hard to be worthy of the Fuhrer’s praise. A look at the life and legacy of one of the most impactful anti-Semites of the twentieth century.”