Christian Movements
News flash: If you’re a part of a “Christian movement” that demands that “the government be a part of God’s wrath,” you have deep-seated psychological issues that are unlikely to resolve by encountering some meme on social media.
Tagged with: Christian Movements
Scandinavia and Electric Vehicles
When we look at new car sales in Norway, we see that only one in 10 is powered by an internal combustion engine.
Admittedly, Northern Europe has many positive geographic and demographic features: a strong supply of renewable energy resources, high gas prices, short driving distances, and, most importantly, a citizenry that honestly cares about sustainability, i.e., one that has a sincere interest in leaving behind a planet that fully supports life as we’ve come to know it.
By way of comparison, sales of new EVs in the U.S. run at about 6.5%.
Women Voting in 2024–Abortion Is One of Many Issues
It’s hard to imagine any self-respecting woman voting for someone who is proud of the work he’s done in removing the right to an abortion.
Who doesn’t love Betty White? “If men could get pregnant, abortions would be available at Jiffy Lube.”
Tagged with: Abortion Rights
Some Global Warming Technologies Are “Sexier” Than Others
Here’s an NPR segment on the “sexiness” of climate science, in which the concepts of geoengineering and nuclear fusion are explored.
The point is that, while things like covering large land masses with solar and wind farms may be practical, they lack the sex appeal of things like fusion, which offers what is essentially an infinite supply of energy in perpetuity.
The problem, of course, is that, where solar and wind are here now, fusion is likely at least a decade, probably several, in the future.
Looking at geoengineering, I suppose there are people who find the subject to be sexy. Maybe these are BDSM enthusiasts; I just find the topic to be frightening. Making wholesale and irreversible changes in the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, and dealing with an eternity of unintended consequences, doesn’t turn me on.
Tagged with: Global Warming Technologies
Why We Trust Scientists
At left is a meme supporting the mode of thinking employed by conspiracy theorists, i.e., that they, unlike the rest of us, “have the cognitive capacity to think critically for themselves.”
In fact, the reason that reasonable people trust science is that we’re aware that we lack the time and resources to conduct this research ourselves: formulating hypotheses, experiment design and execution, analysis of results, drawing conclusions, publishing findings, and having them peer reviewed.
Shortly after I entered the field of climate science and interviewed Dr. V. Ramanathan at the Scripps Institute, one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, a well-meaning guy suggested that I come to my own independent conclusions on the subject. I respectfully pointed out that “Ram” (as he likes to be called, is one of tens of thousands of people who have made it their lifework to study this subject, each of which has a serious head start over me, including several decades of work, uncountable terabytes of data, and billions of dollars of surveillance equipment on and above the Earth.
I’m equally unqualified to “do my own research” in disease control, anthropology, molecular biology, and quantum physics.
If a few crackpots think this renders me intellectually deficient or gullible, I’ll have to learn to live with that.
Tagged with: climate science
Jesus and America
The author of the meme at left makes a point we’ve covered here numerous times. There is no reason to think that God/Jesus favors, or should favor, the U.S. over the other countries on Earth.
Calling this “theological heresy,” on the other hand, seems unnecessarily nasty. Lots of Americans need this belief in their lives as if it’s oxygen. Let’s simply get used to living around these folks with tolerance and acceptance.
Yet, it’s interesting to think about what it would be like if there were less irrationality in the U.S. electorate. For instance, what level of support would there be for Donald Trump with his 91 felony counts if American voters were intelligent and reasonable people?
Tagged with: Jesus and America
Diversity
From the year I became an entrepreneur in 1984 until I moved into another line of work (environmental sustainability) in 2009, I’m guessing that my company (initially I myself) hired, say, 300 people. My policy was always: if two candidates for a position are roughly equally capable, and one is a white male and the other is a representative of a minority group, hire the latter over the former.
I have always wanted to do my part, all other things equal, to make our world a better, more just and inclusive place to live.
The notion that our civilization is falling apart because of anticapitalist wokeism is appealing to a relatively small group of hateful white supremacist idiots, but to a very few people beyond those limits.
Tagged with: diversity
More On the Meaning (Meaninglessness?) of Life
In a recent post, Does Life Have Meaning? I wrote about the plethora of recent social media posts on the supposed meaninglessness of our lives.
In addition to the other points I made in the original post, this subject appears to be a “first world problem.” Think for a moment of those living in areas that are war-torn, impoverished, disease-ridden, or ruled by cruel tyrants. How many have the bandwidth to concern themselves with the meaning of life and to bemoan its monotony?
Yes, as Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” but it’s possible that the over-examined life–as well as the unappreciated life–may be just as bad.
Does Life Have Meaning?
There seems to be a great number of social media posts recently on the subject of the supposed meaninglessness of our lives. Some people point to what they believe to be an absurd cycle of “eat, work, be entertained, sleep” that repeats itself endlessly until we become infirmed and ultimately die.
Personally, I see nothing absurd about any of this. Sure, our lives have no external meaning; it’s up to each of us to confer meaning to our existences by the choices we make. I used to say that I was “put on Earth” to solve corporate marketing challenges, the same way doctors consider that they’re here to cure disease and cops are here to fight crime.
I’m here for the same reason that any of us are: my parents had sex, and that’s essentially all that any of us can say, whether the pregnancy was planned or accidental. From there, it’s up to each one of us as individuals to find meaning as we make our way through the world.
There’s nothing about this that makes our lives absurd.
A Pleasant Surprise
In this day in which so many Americans have completely given up on English grammar, it’s almost weird to see that the sign-maker here correctly used a semicolon to separate two independent clauses. Kudos.
Btw, the message is excellent as well.
Tagged with: beach trash
