Stupid Things

“Keep right except to pass,” is not as simple as it might seem.

“Free speech absolutism” is a nightmare authoritarian concept that grants more power to the powerful, while weakening marginalized groups.

The Paradox of Tolerance states that in order to maintain a tolerant society, we have to be extremely intolerant of intolerant views.

Robert Lanza, MD, a pioneer in cloning and regenerative medicine, is proposing to rip up the scientific frame in favor of his pet theory of “biocentrism.”

I get the sense that, birthers, 9/11 ‘truthers,’ climate change deniers, Alex Jonesers and other New World Order nutjobs all have this one thing in common with fundamentalists: They think that wishing will make it so.

Civilized ethics can be boiled down to two broad questions: Do you think in terms of short-term or long-term self-interest How large is your “in-group,” or circle of concern?

I recently heard a new term I hadn’t heard before: Glurge. But I’ve certainly experienced it. Now you can, too…

I’m not suggesting we all need to experience torture or deprivation to know what it’s like to be human. Far from it. But we do need to realize what’s lurking just under the patina of polite society.

Provocateur Limbaugh waddles to his bully pulpit every day, and gets paid a fortune to spout the worst possible distortions, lies and insults, and that’s ‘free speech.’

Homeopathy is a vicious fraud. In all but the “weakest” potencies, the medications contain not one atom or molecule of the original substance–but are only sugar pills.