Aldous Huxley put this thought by Marcus Aurelius a bit differently: ‘The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.’
Author: craigshields
Social Progress in the United States
As shown in the graphic here, the U.S. was making decent progress until fairly recently. Some speculate that the emergence of Donald Trump on the political scene released a great deal of pent-up hatred, allowing, in fact encouraging, white people …
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Finland and Homelessness
Finland’s tackling homelessness is a far easier challenge than one might think, insofar as they actually care about stuff like this. Everyone gets free education and healthcare in exchange for the taxes they pay, so their healthy and gainfully employed. …
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Science and Our Dreams
I have a great deal of respect for the popular physicist Michio Kaku, not only for his prowess as a scientist, but for his capacity to translate his knowledge in a way that communicates to those of us of lesser …
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Wine Grapes and Climate Change
I just spoke with a guy in the wine industry, and I asked him how, if at all, climate change is affecting what he does. From his perspective, it’s the horrific wildfires whose smoke imbues (or “taints”) the grapes with …
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From Senior Energy Analyst Robert Rapier
Here are a few thoughts that had not occurred to me: When companies get caught “cooking the books,” the fallout is generally brutal. We’ve seen it before—Enron, WorldCom—where shady accounting led to total collapse and bankruptcy. Even when a company …
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A Liberal Arts Education
My alma mater, Trinity College in Hartford, CT, has been named to LinkedIn‘s inaugural Top 50 Colleges list, ranking #42 nationally and #4 among liberal arts colleges. This ranking recognizes schools that “best set their graduates up for long-term career …
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A World Without War
The concept presented at left is important, but one whose only answer is that this civilization is far more likely to go extinct than it is to survive via the cessation of war. I base this on the way our …
Lumber and CO2
I just met a married couple who recently retired from a lumber business they ran for 30 years in Southern California. When I asked about any trends they see in the industry vis-a-vis environmental sustainability, they had plenty to say, …
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Trump and Inner-City Crime
I wouldn’t say he “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” I would say that he’s a pathological liar, and he knows that tens of millions of idiots believe what he says, regardless of how baseless.
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