Rationally Speaking Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters The United States, locked in the kind of twilight disconnect that grips dying empires, is a country entranced by illusions. It spends its emotional and intellectual energy on the trivial and the absurd. It is captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble. The virtues that sustain a nation-state and build community, from honesty to self-sacrifice to transparency to sharing, are ridiculed each night on television as rubes stupid enough to cling to this antiquated behavior are voted off reality shows. Our culture of flagrant self-exaltation, hardwired in the American character, permits the humiliation of all those who oppose us. It is the cult of self that is killing the United States. We have a right, in the cult of the self, to get whatever we desire. The tantalizing illusions offered by our consumer culture, however, are vanishing for most citizens as we head toward collapse.
Skeptic » Home » The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine Khan Academy NeuroLogica Blog Jul 14 2015 Why Pluto is Important As I write this post we are just minutes away from the closest approach of the New Horizons probe to Pluto, the farthest world we have thus far explored (24 minutes and counting). Still, a couple of people have commented to me or in my presence that they don’t understand what the big deal is or why this is important, so allow me a moment to explore why I think this is such a big deal. First, let us not forget what it took to get there. Continue Reading » Jul 13 2015 Supporting the Narrative in an Echochamber Dunning, commenting on the implications of the Dunning-Kruger effect, wrote: An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors, and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate knowledge. This seems accurate, but I think the situation is actually worse.
The Ideas Economy (The Economist) Improbable Research Connexions - Sharing Knowledge and Building Communities Skepticblog Mission | The American Prospect You've Got Questions ... We've Got Answers What is The American Prospect? The Prospect is a bimonthly print and online political magazine based in Washington, D.C. What's your bent? We're liberal, progressive, lefty—call it what you want, we're proud of it. Why do you hate America? We don't. What's it mean to be a liberal magazine? Good question. When was the Prospect founded? By whom? Robert Kuttner, Paul Starr, and Robert Reich. Why another liberal magazine? When the Prospect was founded in 1990, conservatism—buoyed by a decade of Republican rule—was ascendent; under Reagan, income inequality ballooned. How can you be objective if you're liberal? Our idea of journalism is different from the mainstream media's. We try our best to represent conservative ideas fairly, even if we disagree with them, but you'll also notice our contributors often disagree most fiercely with each other. Are you just a shill for the Democratic Party? No. Who is behind all this? Check out our staff page. How do I subscribe?
An 18th Century Quote Defines Today's Truth “Don’t be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there’s no poverty to be seen because the poverty’s been hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don’t be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there’s no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Those words were written by Jean-Paul Marat in the latter part of the 18th century, but they are still so true that they could have been written today. A tip of the hat to MadMikesAmerica for the quote. Link to original post