The world will not end. This shit will go on forever. Such is life.

Tolerance is a good thing, but like everything else in life, it’s essential that it’s understood properly. There is a terrible misunderstanding going around that to be tolerant is to draw no distinctions between any beliefs. Any two opinions are just as valid, and everyone’s opinion is equal. Don’t say anything rude to anybody, because they have every bit as much right to their opinion as you do.

That’s bullshit. You don’t agree to disagree about the facts. The world is how it is, and if you can prove it, you should. If someone tells you wiccan healing magic is just as good as surgery and real medicine, you tell them that they’re bat shit crazy. That kind of belief will lead them to hurt themselves, or others, or the very least, waste money and fund quacks and lunatics.

The facts extend pretty far, they DO include some religious claims, especially claims about history. Intelligent design, creationism. These are false claims with some religious tinge. Go ahead and let people know they’re bullshit. These claims are also harmful to a person, believing falsehoods does usually lead to harm, sooner or later.

There are matters of pure preference, like favourite colour. Don’t argue with someone over which colour is best (except as a joke), because that’s completely personal preference. These instances, where the entire claim is about personal preference are the only circumstance where you can’t say someone is wrong.

HOWEVER, if someone’s opinion is based on a falsehood (for example, they believe America is the best country because it has the cheapest education system) you can certainly tell them their opinion is wrong, precisely be telling them that the fact that their opinion is based on is false.

So go ahead, call bullshit on liars and people who believe crazy things. It’s not intolerant. Lies and falsehoods don’t deserve to be treated the same as the truth, and it’s a bizarre misguided understanding of open-mindedness to think that.

There’s an idea going around that if you have a disagreement with someone, it’s best to accept a middle ground. This is only correct if it’s a matter of opinion, and neither position is absurd.

For instance, say one person thinks that the world population should be controlled by social order, education and a program of information regarding contraception.
Someone else says that the U.S. ought to nuke a few countries and kill 2 billion people right away.

A ‘fair’ compromise is to nuke a billion people and then hand out information of condoms to some of the survivor. But that idea is dumb as hell.

Sometimes a compromise is great, but if one suggestion is terrible, don’t let them do even part of it.

Your Honor, I ask no mercy and I plead for no immunity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I never so clearly comprehended as now the great struggle between the powers of greed and exploitation on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of industrial freedom and social justice.

I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity. The people are awakening. In due time they will and must come to their own.

When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand. Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/court.htm

People talk up how well science explains stuff, and discovers stuff. It’s usually good for explaining stuff and good at discovering stuff, but don’t forget one other thing, what some people consider to be the essential part of science.

Science, generally is an attempt to counterfeit a super power: the ability to see the  future. We take this for granted, but take to seconds to think about this. If you study modern science, you can make, given some time to work it out and a bunch of information, accurately predict what happens when you hit things in certain ways, or set things on fire, or whatever. This is the big project that science is really trying to do. To learn to predict the future based on conditional statements based off past regularities.

Scientists predict the future accurately all the time. They predict what will fall down, what will stay up, what will go where, and how fast, when you hit it with something. That’s impressive. Don’t take that for granted. The more science we have, the better we see the future.

What is it for something to be true?

Trivial answers would be that true things are facts, or true things have been proven, or that the something is true is something actual. These are trivial answers, lacking the depth to explain, they only restate.

Religious fundamentalists would say that the truth is the word of God.
A casual atheist would say something true is something proven by science.

Therein lies a problem, if either of those answers are yours. Truth, as it is properly spoken of by science rests on the world. The truth describes a situation that corresponds to reality. This sounds very trivial, and it really ought to be, but since most people don’t consider this they can be led astray on discussions of truth. The truth is not the truth because it is what scientists claims, or it is what evidence shows. Evidence and the claims of professionals are reasons to believe that the world is such a way. Science does not make the facts of science true. All the true facts of science are already true, and have always been true, whether discovered or not. It ought to be the same with religion, it is not a God’s saying something that makes it truth, but that the statement agrees with the state of the world that makes it true. Though the testament of a reliable figure is a reason to believe something, it being said or written does not produce the truth.

For all his prejudice and awful metaphysics, here I agree with Schopenhauer:

Truth does not depend on any favor or disfavor, and does not have to ask anyone’s permission; it stands on its own two feet; time is its ally; its power is irresistable; its life indestructible. (82)
[Philosophical Writings, Arthur Schopenhauer, translated by E.F.J. Payne  The German Library, Continuum publishing, 1994.]

Truth is not a quality, something is not true like it is big, or like it is red. Truth is a special relation between the world and a statement. 

The left has an advantage over the religious right that I believe gives us a good chance at success: the right does not understand what it is talking about. As such, they waste resources and time and fight ineffectively. They try to fight the demonic forces of homosexuality and socialism with prayer. That is wonderful, instead of doing anything useful, they talk to their imaginary sky-man. The more they pray, the better, that’s wasted time they spend thinking they’re doing something.

It is like that so often, they are inefficient because they are deluded. They run camps to turn homosexual people straight, something that can’t be done, and so these camps  accomplish nothing but psychologically torturing homosexuals and making them activists for the left wing cause.

So, at least we have that. Because they’re crazy, they’re ineffective.

A few days ago, the NDP national convention decided to delay the vote on whether the word socialist ought to be dropped from the parties constitution. It’s not the values or ideals that are disputed, but the word.

Because socialist has become such a pejorative term in north America since the cold war, the NDP is considering dropping the word to gain broader appeal to people who are uncomfortable with the term.

I want them to keep it. A socialist is not a bad thing to be, and if they give it up, they abandon a claimed history attached to the word. The NDP is Canada’s socialist party. They ought to use the word proudly, and by their actions show the word’s reputation is undeserved. A victory for the NDP won by concealing their socialism would be hollow. I want the NDP to win as a socialist party. The important thing about the NDP is that they are so different from the Conservatives, and what I want, and I believe many other supporters of the NDP want, is a party that proudly displays how different it is from the standard North American political party. Rather than letting Canadian culture tell them it’s not OK to be socialists, the NDP ought to tell Canadian culture that it is OK to be a socialist.

My last point is that to stop using the term would break a bond across distance and time. Socialism is about being united, and abandoning something that might seem trivial, like a name, would actually be abandoning a link to the socialists of other countries, and to the socialists of the past.

So I ask you, show your support however you can, and let someone know you want to keep the socialism in the NDP.

It’s not in character, but her voice is so interesting.

Regular laziness is passive, it avoids current work, because it doesn’t want to do any work. It’s the lazy that doesn’t mow the lawn because it doesn’t realize the drop in property value when the lawn turns entirely to weeds and rusting car parts means it will need a second job if it wants to buy a new house when the current house rots and collapses.

Aggressive laziness has foresight, it foresees the drop in property value, and works now, so it won’t have to work later. It does everything it can to avoid work, even work, so long as the work is less than the possible work.

You already know about this though, because aggressive laziness has a more common name: Responsibility. Really responsible people eventually get to retire, and do almost nothing. So next time you see someone working hard, they might not be hard-working, they might be aggressively lazy.

I would like to suggest people follow a general rule for deciding the preferred theory. All other things being equal, the most disappointing and mundane theory is to be preferred.

This rule favours theories involving accidents, incompetence and corruption over conspiracy theories. It favours the placebo effect and self-deception and lying over new-age medicine. It also favours problems caused by stupidity over problems caused by sinister intention.

I don’t encourage the use of “why?” it’s overly vague, and allows a myriad of subtle linguistic dodges. When you next use “why?”, try to determine which sense you intend the word in. Many “Why?” type questions derive their difficulty from the indeterminacy of the word “why?”, rather than the actual complexity of the question.

The question “Why did you do that?” can mean:
What caused you to do that?
What were you thinking when you did that?
What did you mean to accomplish by doing that?

If you find that you ask a question with why, but don’t know how you could substitute the “why” out for clearer language, you have not decided what question you are asking, and so you can not receive a correct answer.

“Why are we here?” is a popular question reducible to
What chain of events led us here?
What are we meant to be doing here?
For what purpose are we here?

Deciding which question you mean to ask is an important step towards finding an answer. “Why” is not the only word with such problems.

When any freedom is given, another is necessarily taken away. This is not always obvious. To defend freedom in the abstract is impossible. Particular freedoms must be favoured.

If people have the freedom to work whatever job they can get without any government interference ensuring they have jobs, they give up the freedom to live without fear of starvation and poverty.

If someone has the freedom to keep however much money they earn, the government must give up the freedom to redistribute wealth to the needy.

If companies receive the freedom can market any product they want, consumers give up the freedom to purchase products knowing they are not harmful.

If a country gains the freedom to govern itself, the country that formerly ruled it loses the freedom to intervene in its affairs.

No gain in freedom is free, some trades are wise and others short-sighted. Freedom is too abstract a concept to be used seriously in precise language.

Only speak in tautologies. 

Now, Canada is a constitutional monarchy. Which is stupid, we sure don’t recognize the right of the royal family to rule. So it seems like we should just politely tell them we’re done with them and that democracy is fine with us, the monarchs can go hump themselves with their ridiculous fame and stupidly over-inflated fortune.

But we don’t want to. Because the Queen has been a friendly old lady, and a nice face on our government. So maybe we keep the queen, but we politely decline to touch any of that prince Charles disaster. Canada should go to Queen Elizabeth II, and tell her that she’s the last Queen of Canada. After she goes, we flip off Prince Charles, and we switch from a Queen to Canada’s first FOLC.

That is of course, the Friendly Old Lady of Canada. Chosen by the Senate after a country wide search, the FOLC is the friendliest lower-middle class woman in Canada over the age of 65 who bakes good cookies and appears to love everything. The FOLC replaces the Queen as a friendly non-douchey figurehead for our government, will be more distinctly Canadian, non-classist and help remind Canadians our of true values, eating cookies and being polite.

This is a serious idea. At least it’s more serious than people who suggest we should stick with the fucking monarchy. Those young royals? I don’t think so. Talk about it, maybe we can get it in the NDP platform in a few election cycles.