On politics:
We need to stop backing ourselves into absolutist corners and instead
take every issue on its own.
- On abortion (taken from an anonymous source):
Here's the thing: It doesn't matter when life begins or whether a
fetus is a human being or not.
That entire argument is a red herring; a subjective and
unwinnable distraction.
NOBODY has the right to use your body against your will, even to save their life or the life of another person.
That's it. That's the argument.
They cannot force you to donate blood, or marrow, or organs, even though thousands die every year on waiting lists.
They cannot even harvest your organs after your death without your explicit, written, pre-mortem permission.
Denying women the right to abortion means they have less bodily autonomy than a corpse.
- Absurd conspiracy theories (flat earth, vaccines, etc) are
destroing all the progress society has made.
- Capitalism in the US (like all systems) is a human-made game with
rules, and the rules unequivocally favor the top 1%. The rules
should be changed.
- Personal liberties should include the right not to wear a helmet
when riding a bicycle and similar things.
- Quality of healthcare should not be proportionate to
wealth. Healthcare should be a human right.
- Those immigrating to the US should be doing so legally.
- US immigration law is too restrictive or otherwise biased, but
this means the law should be changed, not ignored.
- Country boundaries are a human construct, and we're all humans.
National pride makes as much sense as pride in a sports team. Being
born into a particular region is a matter of luck, or the opposite.
- Marriage is a human-construct. What people do with their own love
life and sexuality is not the concern of others.
- Sexuality and gender are both spectra.
- Politicians who would limit access of trans-youth to specialized
healthcare are doing evil. The alternative is often suicide, and, if
not that, a life of hell.
- Hurting animals needs to be a federal crime.
- If you hurt yourself on someone else's property it's probably your
own fault.
- A claimed love of God is contradictory with a love of
weapons and military.
- A claimed love of God is contradictory with distaste for
helping people.
- Belief in God has nothing to do with a person's ability to be
good, to see or perceive beauty in its deepest forms, to have
compassion, and to love.
- The question "what is the meaning of life" doesn't seem to me to
be an important one, although I think Sagan's "we are a way for the
universe to know itself" is about as good an answer as can be found.
- If you think the "big bang" was a literal explosion you've been
misinformed. The creation of space/time is as mind-bending to think
about as the creation of existence should be. You couldn't stand
outside space/time to observe it happening. The big bang was
the expansion of space/time. We were inside of it, and its extent
was probably infinite even at the moment t=0. A time before the big
bang didn't exist, because time wouldn't have existed; Time dilation
approaches infinite as mass density increases toward infinity, so
the closer you get to t=0, the longer it takes to get there. The
concept of the creation described by evidence is as unfathomable as
it is beautiful.
- Science works, but it takes a lot of effort to understand, and if
you think you understand it without being a scientist, you're almost
definitely missing most of the picture. When personal understanding
is unobtainable, it takes wisdom to trust the people who've spent
their entire lives researching the subject. PhDs are damned hard to
get, and scientists have every motivation to disprove
their peers. Really.
- Both US political parties have become radicalized
- The two party system is destroying America
- All the push back to BLM (Blue/Red lives matter), with the
associated flags, is immature, insensitive, and moronic.
- We need police.
- The budget of the militaries of the world is gobsmackingly
misappropriated. I suspect that we could have solved cancer years
ago if we spent more money on research and less on bombs and
aircraft carriers. The need for the militaries arise from the pride
in birth locality and other folly (see various above).
Unfortunately, it may be a "necessary evil" until humanity can get
past letting objectively bad people come to power (Hitler, Putin,
etc).
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On mask mandates (1/2022):
I now know two 80+ year olds who caught Omicron, who were vaccinated,
and now are recovered. So anecdotally I see that this isn't like the
previous variant, and certainly the data bears that out. The current
variant is now down to ~7X flu-like mortality risk for vaccinated
individuals. Not great, but projecting into the future, I don't
foresee a time when this is a total non-concern. So what does that
mean for mask wearing? Do we wear them forever? If we're going to
stop, this would seem to me to be the time to consider it.
I'm pro-vaccine, pro-science, etc., but the issue of wearing vs. not
wearing masks has become political, and I'm starting to feel that the
mask vs no-mask division's logical foundation is outdated, as people
on the political left in the US are inclined to keep wearing them and
those on the political right are not, but as a team-badge instead of a
reasoned stance. If we were confronted with Omicron for the first time
now, without all the variants that came before, I would contend that
the idea that everyone should wear masks all the time would not have
been seriously considered. Kids are growing up without the innate
ability to perceive facial expressions! I hate to say it, but the
anti-mask people have a point. Some risk is associated, yes, but for
God's sake, are we going to do this forever?
Those at the highest risk are free to wear KN/N95 masks to protect
themselves. Yes! If there's still anyone who hasn't vaccinated at this
point, then sucks to you if you die from this.
What about stopping spread so that more virulent or dangerous strains
don't evolve? We might consider transitioning more heavily to
technological interventions. Strain-specific vaccinations need to be
accelerated along, yes, but what about UV-air filtration in all indoor
spaces, in addition to continuing mask mandates in high risk
areas?
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NASA Edge:
What happened to the "NASA Edge" program on NASA TV? My husband and I
used to love watching Chris, Franklin, and Blair but they've just
disappeared from the programming. Please bring them back.
EDIT (11/2020): NASA Edge appears to be back! But not enough.
More please.
(2/2022): Hmm, I feel like I'm seeing more still. Bravo!
P.S. NASA TV is fantastic, and nowadays extremely easy to get via Roku
or similar streaming TV devices.
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Stop exclamation point abuse.
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Technological unemployment is coming:
Essay
IMPORTANT
I've since come to the conclusion that the average human will sink
into pervasive dissatisfaction if told they don't need to work,
regardless of how ideal their living circumstances. For a complete
treatment, read the original six Dune books.
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I don't text and often don't respond to email within the first day
of receipt. Take back your life.
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Those super strong hand driers you see in public restrooms nowadays
are stupidly loud. Sometimes they're dangerously loud.
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Movie theaters were more fun when the films were actual 35mm film.
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Long live the Linksys WRT54G!
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I'm so fed up with modern minimalist infinte scroll websites. Making
the user hunt for what they're looking for isn't good web design...
it's just asinine.
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