Simon Paynton

..or at least a non sequitur….as most people who use the Galileo Gambit aren’t making a formal logical argument….it appeals not to reason but to ego, making it less an argument and more a psychological defense mechanism.

Yes, I guess it is more of a cognitive bias than a logical fallacy.

Cheers Strega! Hope all is good with you!

I am still thinking about what the ideas of the Enlightenment……..

The Lillian Hellman Fallacy and the Galileo Gambit.

There’s a predictable pattern in modern argument, especially online, where someone with a weak or poorly supported claim begins by presenting themselves as a courageous dissenter—someone who “refuses to cut their consc…[Read more]

Thanks Reg!!

Have a great week!

Appreciate it, PopeBeanie….I just rhyme what the evidence taught.
Gift of the gab, not the gift of God……
Critical thinking’s my creed, skepticism my sport.

Trump & Kabal, and Bannon and Project 2025 behind the scenes make headway while pumping out executive orders and any kind of rage and cult enthusiasm they can stir up to produce distracting headlines. I feel dumb not realizing, up until today, that releasing the Epstein files could have also served that purpose. Unless Trump et al knew it would…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
They don’t much care about democracy.

I still have hope they can shed their cult uniforms. They surprised me with their gullibility and falling for a malignant narcissistic style of self-confidence, arrogance, and bullshit “solutions that will save America”, and they WILL suffer some consequences when it hits rural America e…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Please don’t see my criticism as anti-American. I hope it is seen as pro-Enlightenment. I have no tribal attachment, and I can separate the myth from the machinery.

Oh, oh, you talking to us? I don’t think so, and it makes me suspicious, as does much of your other recent writings of thoughtful quality, that you’re w…[Read more]

All insurrectionists (and Christian Nationalists) in the audience, come on down! A president can pardon any and all criminals ahead of time?

16 minutes:

Once you no longer reserve a hidden compartment in your reasoning for “maybe there’s a divine exception,” the entire field of view opens up. You stop having to protect contradictions, and patterns that were once blurred by reverence or taboo become visible. I don’t carry a residual conceptual veto. When you remove that invisible constraint of ma…[Read more]

Thanks, Reg!

Have a great week!

Thanks Jake, I was mostly thinking about Ireland when I wrote that :-).

I failed again in my prediction that MAGA would become aware enough of the pain that even they will inevitably feel, e.g. wrt losing health care (and now food support) for low income families. It is happening, but their core love and trust in their father figure/cult leader is largely still there.

As is the hate of libs and any of vestiges of…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
At that point, our only hope will be the military.

Trump keeps acting stupid and unaccountable, intentionally claiming ignorance of some of the people and policies affected by decisions made by his kabal that are borderline criminal or mafia-like.

To what you’re saying about how the military might be our only hope, the…[Read more]

The Enlightenment was about freeing thought from authority, be that authority religious, royal, or dogmatic. Now the new authorities are hashtags and outrage algorithms. The problem is not just ideological, it’s epistemic. Both the ‘Lunatic Left and Rancid Right’ have abandoned Enlightenment principles like reason, evidence, and open debate in fa…[Read more]