Posts by Andre Alessi
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I don't think there's much point in imagining ways in which Stead's revenge fantasy could have been divorced from the events that so obviously inspired it. A more interesting question, I think, is whether the judges knew about the background of the story before they awarded it the prize. Surely they know how to use Google?
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The works of the ancient world mostly survived because of the Church rather than in spite of it. Yes, they were hugely influential on science, and they were hugely influential on the Church too.
Actually, the Dark Ages were called that in very large part because of the almost complete loss of Greek learning within the scholarly circles of western Europe (which was effectively identical with the Roman church.) You have to hunt far and wide for a scholar during the period between Augustine (4th century) to slightly before Aquinas (13th century) who even knew how to read Greek or cared to read the Greek pagans: Boethius is one of the very few. Most of what was understood of the Greeks of that period was from secondary or tertiary sources, and quite frequently mistranslated or misrepresented (e.g. the Roman Plotinus' neoplatonism, which was much more palatable to the church than Plato's actual writing.)
The reason we know about Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, etc at all is because, while Europe was busy burning witches and blaming plagues on the devil, Arab, Persian and Middle Eastern Jewish scholars were reading these works in their original language and translating, commenting upon, debating with, and improving upon their theories and methods. (See for example Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, who effectively invented algebra in the 9th century.)
A lineage of scientific theory by no means travels solely through Western culture or the Church, which came very late to the party, and did not stay long.
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I think what a lot of this boils down to is a question: What relationship is there between the metaphysical claims of religion on one hand, and its ethical strictures and effect on an individual's relationship with their wider community on the other? Can you have one without the other, or do the two necessitate each other somehow?
This is where a lot of modern, conscientious religious folks get caught up. If you can live a good life without believing in the supernatural claims of your religion, why believe them at all? Unfortunately, the religious folks who acknowledge that this is a possibility aren't the vocal ones in the debate about the worth of religion-instead, we get the foaming-at-the-mouth types who refuse to believe that an atheist nevertheless could consciously and actually choose to be a good person. There's no possibility of forward progress in a debate between that lot and atheists like myself.
But of course, it's that question that gnaws away at the root beliefs of moderate religious people, and forces many of them ultimately to either abandon beliefs that are effectively trivial (in the philosophical sense, not the pejorative) or throw their lot in with the "Believe or be damned!" lunatics.
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Am I the only one who finds Richard Dawkins and the other "atheism uber alles" usual suspects to be at least as objectionable as overtly in-your-face religious types? What's the difference between his "There is only one truth, and that's my truth" and that of organised religions?
I tend to see Dawkins, PZ Myers, et al. as the equivalent of the shock queens of the gay rights movement-they realised there was no way they were ever going to be accepted by their hardcore opposition, and that controversy brought them to the attention of the otherwise apathetic mainstream, so they went full tilt OTT.
That's not to say I don't think Dawkins is a dick when he wants to be, but he's essentially operating in a hostile environment, at least in America (which is the biggest driver of religious nonsense in the Western world today) and would get absolutely no coverage if he was less than confrontational. And in the end, why should he refrain from calling absurd beliefs absurd?
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Oh, now you've done it.
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I don't think there's a lot of passionate self-interest in the "general public's" difficulty with scientific authority. The majority of it is knee-jerk contrarianism, "Well, somebody told me something that sounds like it might be hard to believe given my current way of thinking about the world, so I'm going to ignore it." I don't see most global warming skepticism from people as coming from any deeper place than that-it's easy and comfortable.
There are things that give me hope though, and one of them is the Internet. Recently the musical abomination that is the Insane Clown Posse has been rightly mocked by a meme, "Fucking magnets, how do they work?" (a direct quote from one of their "songs") and explicitly linked with the proud ignorance of public figures like Sarah Palin.
Article on the meme including the original hilarious/awful video (with NSFW language, obviously) and a bunch of photoshops:
After the magnets comment Shaggy says “and I don’t want to talk to a scientist, yall mother fuckers lyin, and gettin me pissed”. This line implies a sense of frustration and an inability to understand basic scientific concepts, while maintaining a childlike sense of wonder over the forces of nature.
One can see the pain expressed in Shaggy’s face as he recalls how science class made his brain hurt. While he wants to know how magnets work, he is not willing to accept a scientific explanation.
There's a greater amount of scientific literacy on the internet than it might first seem, and a lot of anonymous forum dwellers on places like 4chan, Fark and Something Awful are much, much more savvy at taking down the arguments of global warming denialists than some people who are officially paid to do so.
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I think this is the right place to tell you all about Höpöhöpö Böks, which is an Icelandic poem composed using only one vowel, making it a univocal lipogram.
"This is why you should never listen to poets, they lie to you":
I've had a couple of nightmares involving volcanic eruptions since I moved to Devonport. There's something about literally living in the shadow of a volcano (even an extinct one) that seems...silly.
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Cats don't even need expensive doohickeys to keep them happy. A helpful human hand will do:
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Or a delegation
How about a hikoi from Parnell up to Newmarket, up Khyber Pass, over Newton Bridge to Ponsonby, down College Hill, up Queen St, along K Road to Symonds St and then to the b offices?
That'd sweep up 95% of Auckland' media folks in its wake.
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I haven't been interested in listening to b Breakfast since Mikey took it up again. It's not that I don't like listening to him (I do) or that I'm not a loyal b-boy (I am) but I listen to b to hear something new. I once had a heated discussion with a guy a few years older than me who couldn't understand why I would listen to a radio station that played songs and artists I'd never heard of. My response was "Well, that's the whole point. If I knew exactly what I wanted to listen to, I'd turn on my iPod and select them." He was horrified, but then he thought that ZM was "edgy" so I'm not going to judge.
b is going through a pretty conservative phase in their lineup right now, which is sad to see. I'd much rather they took a chance on some twenty year old film studies student with a sense of humour and a crazy flatmate.
As for not turning up on time-I remember those shennanigans from Mikey's previous breakfast stint, and I'm amazed he's still getting away with it. As someone else who has done indie breakfast radio (if in a much smaller market) I can tell you that it's not that fuckin' hard to turn up on time. If your listeners expect you to start at a specific time, you start at that specific time come hellor high water.