Solstice
December 21, 2020.
The Real Scrooge [Open College transcripts]
We’re posting the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Most are available only to subscribers, but here for the holiday season is the thirtieth, on Scrooge’s hero’s journey: To speak of pride, friendship, liberality, and an overarching wisdom about how they all contribute to a fully self-realized life—all of that is to make Dickens’s Scrooge
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Sex Dolls — Why Not? [Open College transcript]
We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the notes and transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the twentieth: Newly-engineered materials and robotics have made the physical experiences closer to the real thing, and artificial intelligence has enabled the robots to respond verbally and non-verbally more realistically. Perhaps robots will soon be able to pass sex-and-romance
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Talley’s review of Explaining Pomo — and its negative critics
Matt Talley: “I recently finished Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks. I had heard some really negative remarks from a few FB friends so I was curious to see how they held up after reading the book myself.” The comments after Talley’s review are worth reading too. See also my Open College response to two sets
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Today’s systemic witch-hunters
Be not deceived by apparent progress: systemic witchcraft still plagues our society. In December 1484, the Pope issued the “Witches Bull,” sanctioning the “correcting, imprisoning, punishing and chastising” of witches: “Many persons of both sexes … have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and
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The Stain of Slavery [Open College notes]
We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the notes and transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the nineteenth: Professor Henry Louis Gates, Chair of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University wrote: “without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been
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Idea Festival 2020: Cuidad de las Ideas (Mexico)
On December 5, I’ll be in Mexico to speak at La Cuidad de Las Ideas. “La Ciudad de las Ideas is an International Festival of Brilliant Minds, a celebration of creativity and curiosity. With the participation of over 60 speakers, from scientists to opinion leaders, the festival takes place from the 4th to the 6th
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Eton teacher Knowland fired for Patriarchy discussion
Eton teacher Will Knowland was fired for this online discussion of sex and gender: (I’m quoted on free speech at the 2:15-minute mark. Thanks to Marian Tupy for the link.) While Knowland’s discussion takes up whether Patriarchy is natural/artificial and good/bad — the implicit lesson of his firing seems to be Thou shalt not challenge
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