I am fascinated by this guy, but a huge mass of shifting, pudding-like terminology defeats me ( Read more... )

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( benthamite )

One of the worst things you can call someone now is "well-meaning ( Read more... )

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I have developed a manifesto-sized idea and am about to blog it out. You have been warned. Long essays making a large cultural point can't be sold and published conventionally unless the author is a respected and eminent intellectual or a rock 'n' roll star. Those who can, do; those who aren't, blog ( Read more... )

The Anthropic Principle is the most ridiculous thing I have seen produced by real grown-up scientists.

It's fascinating in a train-wreck way to watch geeks reinvent wheels. Clearly there wasn't any need to stay awake during Philosophy 10, much less do any reading on the subject later on when they got big ideas about the place of humanity in the

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1. I was already a member of this religion, and I just didn't know it. I am quite serious, actually. I don't feel that gathering in groups and acting like a religion makes too much sense, but all along the one thing I've known is that I don't know anything.
   
   
2. TABLETOP VIBRATOR FOR OFFICE USE. Actually if this thing worked better than most conference ( Read more... )

Partly because it's amusing, and partly because it sums up my feelings about impending doom of all kinds, from personal death to universal apocalypse. The topic of "we're all screwed, and what's to do?" has come up a lot lately. So here's R.L. Stevenson, as quoted in Blyth's Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, once again.

THE SINKING ( Read more... )