Humour is about exaggeration. But it’s not exaggeration unless there’s at least a modicum of truth. So yeah, I’m trying to be funny. But take me at least a little bit seriously. Actions have consequences. So does abstinence. It’s not… Read More ›
Everything You Wanted to Know About What’s Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask
THE MIGRANT CRISIS
Walls are things. Borders are ideas. Hadrian’s Wall used to be both. Now it’s neither. Some borders have walls. Most don’t. They don’t because they don’t need to. They don’t need to because most people think borders are things. More… Read More ›
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: PART TWO
What do humans have that an AI replacement doesn’t? Well, a body for one thing. Okay, so let’s give it one. What does a human have that an AI-driven robot doesn’t? A certain kind of body, namely a human one…. Read More ›
ACCENTISM
Okay, this is going to sound pretty curmudgeony, but dammit, someone’s gotta say it, so it might as well be me. I try to understand them. Honest I do. But more often than not I can’t. And when I can’t… Read More ›
RACISM DEFINED
WHAT IS RACE? One defeasible but serviceable tell that two species share a common ancestry is that they remain interbreedable. So though possible, it’s highly unlikely that the pre-contact peoples of the Western Hemisphere were sui generis, as some of… Read More ›
TAXES, TARIFFS, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
The purpose of domestic taxation is two-fold. 1) It raises revenue for the government, without which it couldn’t do what we want it to do for us. And, 2) if but only if consumption of the product is discretionary, it… Read More ›
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
It’s my understanding that the province was named after the lake. So if we’re going to change Lake Ontario to Lake America, shouldn’t we change Ontario to America? And if so, is the capital of America Washington or Toronto? Apparently… Read More ›
NATURE, NURTURE, ATTRACTION AND REVULSION
To be disfigured is to have been ‘properly’ figured but then something happened, whereas to be deformed is to be born that way. This distinction may be important for other purposes, but not for what I want to discuss here…. Read More ›
BUT FIRST AN ASIDE ABOUT REPLACEMENT THEORY
That the complexion of Europeans and Americans is getting browner isn’t a theory, it’s an observable fact. But replacement theory – I had to look it up – is the view that there are some vile people – either the… Read More ›
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: PART ONE
For most of human history, literacy bestowed power. Power bestows privilege. And so, not surprisingly, the rarity of literacy was assiduously – sometimes even violently – protected. Once women can read … Once our slaves can … Can the same… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 