Category Archives: uncategorized

The recent scandal at Guernica magazine was deeply embarrassing to me despite not having any involvement in or even awareness of the magazine.  This is because I know that if I had been aware of the magazine I would have … Continue reading →

One answer to a Quora question about JKRowling goes as follows: It isn’t what she herself has said, although she’s been generally insulting and has displayed great ignorance by denying the fact that the Nazis destroyed scientific literature about trans people. … Continue reading →

I expected to like this (more than 2 years) old piece by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff on the way opposing viewpoints seem to dig themselves deeper and deeper into extremes of overreach. But I was surprised to find in it … Continue reading →

It may seem to Palestinians that Western outrage over the murder of foreign food delivery workers is placing higher value on our own ethnicity than on the other victims. But it is more that by seeing the targeting of an … Continue reading →

What’s more, the grievance and resentment at the heart of Trumpist nationalism in America is in some ways quite similar to the mentality of Putinist nationalism in Russia: One obsesses over losing the culture war and being disrespected by the … Continue reading →

Apparently FortisBC is being sued over ‘deceptive’ marketing tactics regarding so-called Renewable Natural Gas. I haven’t seen what Fortis is actually offering or claiming, but capturing methane from waste dumps makes sense (and is renewable in the sense that the … Continue reading →

One doesn’t “besiege” a site that is not resisting. So the question that comes to mind here is who is returning fire and how did they get in to “defend” the hospitals? Source: Israeli forces besiege two hospitals, kill dozens … Continue reading →

John Polkinghorne’s  Quantum Theory – a Very Short Introduction is a decent enough introduction to quantum theory, but might have been even better if 30% shorter. The first two chapters are a pretty good introduction to the historical motivation and … Continue reading →

Many (but not all) anti-genocide protests are themselves genocidal (in the opposite direction), so opposing those protests does not imply endorsing what they are protesting against. And failing to recognize the genocidal aspects of an entity’s behaviour is not the … Continue reading →

The life of Scandinavian writer Victoria Benedictsson, who achieved literary stardom under a male identity as Ernst Ahlgren and then committed suicide apparently due to unrequeited love for a man, is quite a fascinating story. But it seems odd that … Continue reading →

This makes things so much clearer (and more acceptable) to me. According to Kenneth Stern, the lead author of the I.H.R.A. “definition”, its main intent was more to identify things as warning signs of possible antisemitism than as de facto … Continue reading →

Nancy Mace claimed that she was being “shamed” as rape victim when George Stephanopoulos asked her how she could support Donald Trump after seeing the result of the E Jean Carroll lawsuit. But Stephanopoulos made no reference to Mace’s personal … Continue reading →

All sides in politics these days seem to think that it is a good idea to include and endorse any argument or “evidence” that appears to support their own cause, no matter how stupidly outlandish or unreliable the purported argument … Continue reading →

A Quora questioner asks: How do you solve the Twin Paradox if everyone (including the waypoint) is co-moving at the get-go? But what’s with the “if” in this question? And what do they mean by the word “co-moving” other than perhaps … Continue reading →

This essay suggesting that “it’s time to replace the genetic blueprint idea” seems to be confounding the genome itself with its expression. For while the genome as a whole only implicitly and incompletely specifies the overall structure and behaviour of … Continue reading →

https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/wp-content/uploads/Godel-Basic-Theorems-and-Their-Implications-1.pdf

In addition to his amusing “proof” of the existence of God, Kurt Gödel also argued for belief in an afterlife in letters written to his mother. But I don’t share the view, expressed by Alexander T Englert in this Aeon … Continue reading →

While there needs to be a broad campaign emphasizing that Trump is a threat to the rule of law it should be something that Joe Biden actually refrains from making any comment on so that he can remain above the … Continue reading →

I agree that the idea of ‘precolonial Africa’ is Eurocentric, and that in versions which imply that pre-Eurocolonial Africa was simple and homogeneous it is insultingly vacuous and wrong. But Africa is not alone in being so insulted, and on the … Continue reading →

Cruz and even deSantis have too much of an “elite” manner to take over the mantle but Vance has more of the people touch. His autobiography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly_Elegy), which has already been made into a movie, takes a more nuanced view … Continue reading →