Atheism+ is little more than an attempt to destroy the fledgling and so far successful New Atheist movement. It disgusts me.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: atheism, Thought of the day | 1 Comment »
Thought of the day
Posted on October 21, 2013 by Michael
I have a number of issues with feminism. The biggest is that the movement is overwhelmingly pro-censorship, and that tells me there aren’t enough good arguments in its favor. However, I have another significant issue: It seeks to promote female equality when positive or beneficial things are involved with said equality, but it falls loudly silent when equality is not to the benefit of women. Specifically, I have in mind the military. After falling behind many nation’s that allowed women in combat roles, the U.S. recently caught up (or is at least in the processing of implementing its new policies on the matter). That’s fantastic and it’s how it should be. But this benefits women. Female soldiers who wish to have the opportunity to fight for their country and/or who wish to be considered for promotions where combat experience is needed now have that opportunity. Yes, this puts them in harm’s way and that is something to be admired on a certain level, but it’s a choice. More than that, it’s a desired choice. That’s why women fought for this sort of policy, and it’s why feminists are generally supportive of it. But I ask…what of the draft? Why don’t we have a movement, either spear-headed or at least supported by feminists, that would require women to sign up for the draft at 18? As I recall, I forfeited my alleged “right” to vote or some such nonsense if I didn’t fill out some card the military wanted. (I did fill it out.) Why shouldn’t women have the same requirement of them? I thought this was all about equality.
I don’t expect to hear much about this from feminists any time soon.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Feminism, Thought of the day | 11 Comments »
Thought of the day
Posted on October 16, 2013 by Michael
There are very few non-ivy league colleges and universities that are actually any better than the average run-of-the-mill school (at least education-wise). People think that if they spend $35K a year on their education, they must be getting far better professors who are able to pass along their knowledge far better than other professors at other schools. It isn’t really true. Some of the more expensive schools may have better resources for courses where that matters*, but the education one receives from a state university in, say, Idaho, is not significantly different from the education one receives just about anywhere else. Moreover, very few people even care about a person’s place of education once that person gets into the “real” world.
*If a person majors in sociology, the greater resources probably won’t make a huge difference. However, a person who majors in a lab-based/heavy science may see some notable benefit in terms of equipment.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Higher education, Thought of the day | Leave a comment »
Thought of the day
Posted on October 15, 2013 by Michael
I just spent the weekend on North Hero island on Lake Champlain and it was great. I’ve been to a lot of states and I have to say, Vermont is definitely one of the best. The people are always nice, the landscape is hard to match (especially in autumn), and Burlington is just about my ideal city. Plus, best of all, I like to imagine how much someone from Alabama, Mississippi, or some equally terrible state would hate all the recycling, hybrid cars, and general awareness of the world around us that one finds when in Vermont.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Thought of the day, Vermont | 2 Comments »
English degrees
Posted on October 10, 2013 by Michael
When I started by college career, I began as an English major. I enjoy writing and I think language is very important. However, I soon found I disliked the historical focus in my English courses. It isn’t that I dislike history – I love it, actually – but I didn’t feel I needed to know all the details of whatever issue of the day had influenced a writer. For instance, knowing that children were chimney sweepers helped me understand some of William Blake’s work because it gave me context, but the detailed politics of child labor in the 1800’s were for another type of course. And so I moved on. At first I simply went to the nebulous Liberal Studies degree. My passion was biology, but I really despised math courses, so LS allowed me to minor in biology while avoiding most math. Of course, that wasn’t quite satisfying enough for me, so I eventually just bit the bullet and declared my major to be biology. I now have two B.A.’s, one in Biology and one in Liberal Studies (with a philosophy minor), but I still think back to that English degree. I’m not going to bother ever obtaining it, but I do want to defend it.
While I was still majoring in English, I didn’t usually try to hide it. I thought, why should I be ashamed? It was a degree in a subject where, sadly, most people are utter morons. It isn’t exactly a money-making degree, but it fit a passion of mine. Of course, we can’t forget an important fact here: People are assholes. Admittedly, an English degree isn’t as hard to obtain as many other degrees, but it’s still a degree and it still requires a lot of work. Moreover, despite the contrary popular myth, an English major does not graduate with a lack of real life skills. I should know. I use my writing skills every day – and not just on some blog in the corner of the Internet. I’ll explain.
My job involves describing and interpreting a huge variety of college level textbook images. I mostly specialize in math (ironically enough), but I also do science and other books. One of those “other” books is one on which I’m working right now: an engineering mechanics dynamics book. I barely understand the title, much less anything to do with engineering. Or so I thought. The material is a lot of pre-calc and algebra II stuff on the math end and a lot of physics for the remainder, and I understand all that, but that doesn’t mean I understand engineering on a deep level at all. However, I’ve been able to easily work around that due to a higher level understanding of English. (My two or so years as an English major definitely helps, but my general interest in language is the bigger factor here.) Because I am able to write well, I am able to do this job well. In essence, because of my background in English (both formally and informally) I am better prepared to tackle a very difficult topic. I doubt the average person with an MBA could do this job.
So here’s my point. It may be true that English majors aren’t setting themselves up, on average, for huge financial success with their degrees, but it isn’t true that their degrees are of a low utility. Quality writing is one of the more important skills in society, even as we move more and more towards a money-driven corporate, business culture. I use my skills in English every single day, making me more money than I’ve made doing anything else – including making vaccines. My science degree is what really got my foot in the door where I am now, but it is my English background that has brought me success.
So, hey. Stop shitting on English degrees and the people who obtain them. They have more skills than you realize.
Filed under: Language/Rhetoric, Misc | Tagged: English majors, Language | 4 Comments »
Thought of the day
Posted on October 3, 2013 by Michael
Hockey.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Hockey, Thought of the day | 3 Comments »
Thought of the day
Posted on September 23, 2013 by Michael
I couldn’t imagine being happy believing in something for which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever. What an empty, empty feeling.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Evidence, Thought of the day | 1 Comment »
Thought of the day
Posted on September 15, 2013 by Michael
Jimmy Carter is perhaps the most underrated president in U.S. history. We would have been better off if he had won reelection.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Jimmy Carter, Thought of the day | 1 Comment »
Thought of the day
Posted on September 7, 2013 by Michael
The accusation that one is “closed-minded” is usually more accurately interpreted as someone saying, “You don’t agree with me, so you must not have considered my position since what I believe is so right and there’s just no way what you believe is right.”
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Closed minded, Thought of the day | 2 Comments »
That asshole dad, Tommy Jordan
Posted on September 1, 2013 by Michael
Remember that asshole dad everyone loved? He was the guy who managed to access his teenage daughter’s private Facebook page, read a post where she complained about him and her mother, then he took her computer and shot it to show her the value of a dollar or something. Well, I came across my post about him (linked above) the other night when I was meandering around FTSOS, so I decided to send him a message on Facebook. This was something I wanted to do a month or two after the hoopla died down, but I forgot, so here it is now. First is my initial message:
Now that the hoopla around your video is more or less gone, I want to make a few points.
1. You didn’t like that your daughter embarrassed you on Facebook. So what did you do? You embarrassed her on Facebook (and beyond). First, that’s overtly hypocritical. Second, it demonstrates a greater immaturity than your daughter did. Third, the embarrassment a high school student gets from something like this is more significant than the embarrassment you suffered. How many of your friends mocked or would have mocked you upon seeing your daughter’s post? I bet none. How many of her friends do you think mocked her?
2. You were clearly motivated to improve your daughter’s attitude, but you were also motivated by revenge. That’s petty and immature, and it’s the only reason you sought to embarrass her. Sit her down next time and talk. You’re suppose to be the adult.
3. In an interview you said you wanted to teach your daughter the value of a dollar. I find this fascinating since you clearly don’t have a clear concept of what wealth even is. If you did, you wouldn’t have destroyed a thousand dollar machine into which you just invested $130. You may as well have sold the computer and burned the cash you got from it. It’s exactly the same thing – YOU destroyed wealth. Your actions betray a deep misunderstanding of the “value of a dollar”.
I think these are all pretty strong points. He did seek to embarrass her, he was clearly motivated by some petty feelings of revenge, and he did ironically destroy wealth. Here’s his response:
Hey dipshit.. it’s been a year and a half. No one cares what your opinion of me is, especially me. There is a very short list of people whose opinion matter to me or my family. Let me consult my list to be sure… yup, just as I thought, your name isn’t on it.
Go stalk someone else, idiot. If you insist on feeling like you want to hurl your opinion around to people that will listen, I suggest you use your own wall, not my inbox. I’ve got better things to do.
What a class act, huh? Name-calling, accusations of a serious crime, and, well, more name-calling. Here’s my response:
Oh, I’m glad you ‘consulted your list’. I was worried you were going to be witty.
My opinion clearly matters to you enough to get you riled up, prompting you to respond. So you lose that point.
As for who the “dipshit” is, Tom, I’m not the one who wanted to teach my daughter the value of a dollar by destroying a thousand dollar machine. You did that, and all because you aren’t very clear on the concept of what “wealth” is. So you lose the “dipshit” point.
And as for who the “stalker” is, if your definition of stalking is so loose as to include people talking to each other, then I’m surprised you haven’t turned yourself into the authorities for your more egregious stalking. After all, you’re the one who invaded his daughter’s private Facebook wall. (What would your defense be? Insecurity? Were you afraid of being embarrassed in front of your daughter’s high school friends?) And so you lose yet another point.
Unsurprisingly, that appears to be the end of the exchange, but it turned out better than I had thought. I figured he wouldn’t even see my post for months since it went to his “Other” inbox on Facebook, then I figured even if he did see it, he wouldn’t respond. But I’m glad that he read what I had to say. He has clearly been fellated to heaven with praise for his immature, asshole-ish behavior; I doubt he’s received very much criticism at all. It’s just too bad that there are probably a boatload of people out there willing to do the same sort of childish garbage-parenting he practices.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Tommy Jordan is an asshole | 17 Comments »
For the Sake of Science 