Arguing with certain people can be very frustrating as they seem to not want to engage with what is being said. Instead, the use of hyperbole, insults, and emotionally charged language are meant to infuriate and obfuscate with the goal of winning the superficially wrought emotional battle (arguing versus agitating).
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Dead Wild Roses: Practical guide to impossible conversations | Peter Boghossian x Brain Bar
One of the curses that progressives that have gone awry (the woke) bring to the table is often the disregard of objective fact. For the faux-progressive sets, the more oppressive factors that you happen to bring to the situation makes your insights somehow more relevant and more important (‘truthier’) than
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Left, Right or Centre – Explainer
In today’s age of populism, with ideology apparently dead, how do you now if you are on the left or right or in the centre. There are indeed some basic philosophical positions that determine if you are on the right, left or in the centre. If you are on the
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Feminist Standpoint Epistemology – Playing with Fire
What it is – “Feminist standpoint theorists make three principal claims: (1) Knowledge is socially situated. (2) Marginalized groups are socially situated in ways that make it more possible for them to be aware of things and ask questions than it is for the non-marginalized. (3) Research, particularly that focused
Continue readingThings Are Good: Stay Calm by Reading This Graphic Novel About Stoicism
Getting angry at things is easy, understanding one’s anger is hard, but by practicing the hard part you can become a better human. As always, it’s useful to learn from the work of people that came before us. Donald Robertson and Zé Nuno Fraga wrote and illustrated a graphic novel
Continue readingScripturient: Wild Fruits
When he died of tuberculosis in his mother’s home, in 1862, 44-year-old Henry David Thoreau had already made his mark on the world with the publication of several books and numerous essays, including Civil Disobedience, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, A Yankee in Canada,
Continue readingScripturient: Freedom or Just Free-Dumb?
It’s a sad statement on modern affairs that the word “freedom” has been reduced to a generally meaningless term, thanks to the constant gaslighting by the right. Every rule, regulation, protocol that the right doesn’t like, doesn’t agree with their ideology or that hurts their feelings is trumped up as
Continue readingScripturient: Socrates and Saunderson
In Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, Socrates debates with three sophists — Gorgias the rhetorician and his pupils Polus, and Callicles — about justice, power, morality, and virtue. Socrates also questions the value of oratory and rhetoric — the crafts of the sophists — in contemporary politics and whether they do good
Continue readingmark a. rayner: What is the multiverse?
If you’ve ever gazed up at the stars, knowing that you are only seeing a tiny fraction of our galaxy, and then realized the Milky… The post What is the multiverse? appeared first on mark a. rayner.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Greatest of Philosophers
Who are the greatest of philosophers? Ask 20 scholars, and they will give you 20 different answers. The list I would offer would not be appreciated by most academic philosophers, especially in the West; but I do not place a high value on the opinions of most academics. While there
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: On Puritan-Capitalism: Money As The Measure Of All Things
The mechanistic materialist world view, which the West, beginning with Europe, adopted a mere 400 years ago, and then exported through economic, financial, military and cultural colonialism and neocolonialism to the rest of the world, has been nothing short of a cultural, sociological, political, economic, ecological, spiritual, public health and
Continue readingThings Are Good: Philosophers Help Scientists do Better Work
Some empiricists argue that science is a separate discipline from philosophy, and those thinkers may want to rethink their stance. The debate isn’t philosophy or science, the debate is actually how much philosophical rigour should be applied within a certain field of research. In order to effectively advance scientific fields
Continue readingScripturient: Montaigne on Ketchup-Flavoured Cheetos
In his famous work, Essays, Michel de Montaigne, channelling the Epicureans, wrote that, “All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim. (Book I: On the Power of Imagination).” And I have to admit that what we euphemistically call “junk food” is a widespread pleasure that
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Buddhism: Surface & Depth; Or, Big Mind & Baby Minds
Buddhist meditation and mindfulness are very popular now, and have become mainstream. Hospitals, churches and secular classes are now offering meditation and mindfulness training and practice. That is a good thing, and it need not go with any kind of religious conversion; and in Western popular Buddhism, generally it does
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Who To Trust: The Short Answer
Who to trust? That is always a perennial question, and particularly now, when not only government, corporations, politicians and corporate and state media have repeatedly been shown to have lied, grossly distorted or concealed the truth, and engaged in deceitful PR and propaganda; but also, alternative and progressive media, along
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Reflections on the good life – Simplify, simplify
What brings true happiness? A healthy lifestyle; a positive attitude, outlook and philosophy; a simple life close to nature; meaningful work; time spent in solitude and stillness, reconnecting with yourself; and surrounding yourself with people, and an environment, a place, that fit with you: these things bring happiness and peace
Continue readingScripturient: A Meeting of the Minds?
Niccolo Machiavelli and Michel de Montaigne never met, nor could they have — Machiavelli died six years before Montaigne was born, and they lived about 1,200 km (800 miles) apart — but imagine the conversations they could have had if they had lived at the same time and close enough
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Philosophy & Metaphysics 101
(Excellent talk on philosophy, metaphysics and human happiness is linked below.) When we let go of attachment, aversion and ego, our energy naturally rises, increases and expands, and our happiness, health, energy, joy, peace, power, love, compassion and clarity increases. This is the central lesson of all the great spiritual
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The death and rebirth of Pelagius, and the (still unfolding) history of Christianity: A New Renaissance, or Hell On Earth?
Pelagius: it’s a soft g, as in germane, not a hard g, as in gorilla, but otherwise the discussion here in this podcast below is good. Here are a few thoughts, after four decades of study, research and meditation, on the still-unfolding history of Christianity. Know your history. The Emperor
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