Always fight speech you don’t like with more speech. Don’t abuse the legal system to get your way.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Free Speech, Thought of the day | 1 Comment »
What is a gene?
Posted on April 21, 2018 by Michael
I remember one of the first biology-based debates I found myself in was in some random message board devoted to music. I can’t for the life of me remember what the board was, and I doubt it still exists today anyway, but I recall music being central to what brought me there. Of course, there were plenty of other subjects up for discussion at this place and in its various forums, and that led me into some useless debate with a racist metal head. (I’m sure his racism and affinity for metal were quite independent of each other.) He was making some claim about black people and intelligence, and he kept referencing some gene he seemed convinced proved his point. This was probably well over 15 years ago, so I don’t recall many of the specifics, but I do recall not really knowing what a gene was, so it was difficult to counter him effectively. I tried looking it up, but there really weren’t any easy-to-digest answers for someone who didn’t know what to look for in the first place. And, of course, this was a bit before the days of YouTube (and Wikipedia was in its infancy). Fortunately, for better or worse, the Internet is a far different place today. As such, I wanted to post a YouTube video I found in the hope that any person who finds himself in a similar situation to mine from years past would be able to gain a quick understanding of what a gene is. There’s a certain type of person who loves to use science to justify a belief he would hold no matter what, and relatively-educated racists are among them. Here’s the short video:
Filed under: Biology, Misc | Tagged: Biology, gene, genes, Racism, youtube | Leave a comment »
Thought of the day
Posted on March 1, 2018 by Michael
In any debate, there’s a good chance one or both sides will find something frustrating. It happens to me all the time. That’s the nature of debate. However, I think one of the more insidious ways frustration creeps in – especially in our 2018, you-either-100%-agree-with-me-or-you’re-literally-a-Nazi/commie/libtard/cuck culture – is when a person refuses to acknowledge that one particular point they’ve been using might be bad or in some way flawed. There seems to be this belief that if a single thing about an argument is wrong, then the entire conclusion and/or the broader point(s) being made have to be thrown out. Many of my more recent posts focus on this sort of thing. For example:
In this post, I talked about people who used bad correlation to claim Confederate statues were racist. The correlation sucked and it was bad science. But does any reasonable person think that means the case for Confederate statues being racist just got weaker?
In this post, Shaun King claimed 1) Thomas Jefferson never did anything as President to stop slavery and 2) Jefferson refused to free Sally Hemings while he was alive. The first claim is blatantly false and the second one is dubious; delving into the second claim reveals that Sally Hemings, while in the free country of France where she was paid a wage, actually negotiated a future for herself and her children. None of these facts mean King has to stop hating Thomas Jefferson for owning slaves with whom he fathered upwards of 6 children.
In this post, I talked about the nonsense claims that said Joe Arpaio was accepting guilt by accepting his pardon. The case law supports exactly the opposite conclusion, and, ultimately, the issue isn’t settled law. But does that mean Joe Arpaio isn’t a racist piece of shit who knowingly broke a host of laws? Of course not. But that doesn’t mean my point wasn’t met (elsewhere) with accusations of supporting Arpaio and his shitty policies.
I greatly dislike the level of polarization that permeates seemingly everything today. Person 1 should be able to draw conclusion X while using points A, B, C, D, and E, and Person 2 should be able to agree with conclusion X even though he may reject point C. Why Person 1 so often thinks this means he must be mortal enemies with Person 2 is both baffling and disheartening.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Common sense, Thought of the day | Leave a comment »
Thought of the year
Posted on January 1, 2018 by Michael
God still doesn’t exist, alt-medicine is still quackery that cures nothing (including the flu, colon cancer, and diabetes), and Tom Brady is still the greatest NFL player of all time.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Thought of the year | 2 Comments »
Merry Christmas
Posted on December 25, 2017 by Michael
Thought of the day
Posted on October 3, 2017 by Michael
The social justice use of the word “privilege” is almost always wrong. What people cite as examples of privilege are more often examples of baseline treatment. And if you’re getting baseline treatment, that isn’t privilege. For instance, if I walk into a department store and no one starts watching me or following me with cameras, that isn’t privilege. If they have no particular reason to target me and they therefore don’t, in fact, target me, that’s baseline treatment. It’s what anyone ought to expect. However, if a black man walks into the same store and finds himself immediately watched for no reason other than that he’s black, he isn’t getting that same baseline treatment. That’s obvious discrimination. But racially-based discrimination does not somehow magically make baseline treatment a privilege in comparison.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Privilege, Thought of the day | Leave a comment »
Thought of the day
Posted on September 24, 2017 by Michael
Free speech has no legal restrictions in the United States. Not a single one.
- Laws against incitement are not restrictions on free speech.
- Laws against threats are not restrictions on free speech.
- Laws against fighting words are not restrictions on free speech.
All of these things are outside the definition of free speech in the first place; free speech is any expression which does not violate the rights of others. To say that the illegality of something which violates a right is also a restriction on said right is nonsensical. No one argues that the illegality of murder is a restriction on one’s right to liberty for that very reason. Murder isn’t part of the definition of liberty in the first place. It can’t be. No rights violation can ever be part of the definition of the right(s) it violates.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Free Speech, Thought of the day | Leave a comment »
Thought of the day
Posted on June 18, 2017 by Michael
I’m still waiting to read the first news article ever to discuss the disciplinary record of a cop who is also a victim of a crime. Because the media seems to have no problem when the victim is a black man – even one who complied with everything and did absolutely nothing wrong.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Philando Castile, Thought of the day | 2 Comments »
Thought of the day
Posted on January 17, 2017 by Michael
I’m thankful every day that I don’t have some terrible condition like diabetes or heart disease or even colon cancer.
Filed under: Misc | Leave a comment »
Merry Christmas
Posted on December 25, 2016 by Michael
For the Sake of Science 