Ray Peranus

I’m an asshole, so I have no problem saying I can take a look at this dude and know exactly...

Sat, 05 May 2012 01:10:00 -0700

I’m an asshole, so I have no problem saying I can take a look at this dude and know exactly what he’s like, based on his appearance and perceived Paultardness.

He’s a compulsive contrarian who thinks he’s smarter than he actually is. You don’t want him in Philosophy or Political Science class because he’ll disrupt it every chance he gets and is completely unable to even remotely accept a discerning point of view.

He’s got an opinion on everything and has to dominate every conversation by trivializing anything anyone else may say that is actually relevant to the topic, by pushing his own predominantly trite experiences as equally valid.

He spends his weekends playing Skyrim or War Machine or some shiat like that in his dorm room, which is littered with Taco Bell bags and towers of Mountain Dew cans. He may or may not have a girlfriend, but if he does, she puts up with his neglectful, condescending attitude out of profound lack of self-esteem.

His Facebook feed is also littered by Paultardisms, which he accepts as gospel and thinks people un-friending him out of annoyance actually means that he is winning some sort of intellectual war that exists solely in his head, and he’s just showing people what mindless sheep they are. He also listens to Alex Jones daily. He has an enormous music collection, but didn’t pay for any of it.

Finally, he also jerks it. A lot. But uses his socks so his roommate doesn’t find out.

The Illuminati Was Dreamed Up by a 20th Century Paranoid Anti-Semite

Wed, 02 May 2012 10:22:00 -0700

When you woke up this morning and had your breakfast cereal, it’s only because the Illuminati decided to let you live another day. It’s the Chuck Norris of conspiracies — an all-powerful, all-encompassing shadowy entity that runs everything and has leverage everywhere. Their ultimate goal is something called the New World Order, which is basically a planet-scale re-enactment of 1984.

The organization is said to be led by the queen of England (so that’s what a queen does), and lists of known members include pretty much everyone of influence who isn’t her. This flowchart should clear things up for you…

By:Pauli Poisuo, M. Asher Cantrell

Nesta Webster was a 1920s British historian, writer, propagandist and Nazi sympathizer who had a less-than-secret vendetta against Jews. If you’re unfamiliar with the Roaring ’20s, you might be wondering how such a person could gain influence in pre-WWII Britain. If you’ve read The Sun Also Rises, or a biography of Henry Ford, you know that anti-Semitism was up there with stupid-looking pants and the Charleston in terms of things rich white people lost their goddamned minds over.

Webster was married to a superintendent of the British police, which rendered her pretty much untouchable, and she was even tight with Winston Churchill a few decades before he came to his goddamn senses. While Webster wasn’t the only crazy anti-Semite working at the time, she used an ability to weave far-reaching conspiracies and a willingness to have sex with powerful men to become hugely influential. And then she got really crazy.

The deuce, you say!

While laboring in the bullshit mines of run-of-the-mill anti-Semitism, Webster struck gold when she proposed an elaborate historical bad-guy cult that worked in alliance with the Jews and was responsible for everything bad that had ever happened. She was studying a fringe conspiracy theory that the French Revolution was secretly orchestrated by a tiny, long extinct secret society called the Bavarian Illuminati, when she decided “What if that, but like the Jews are in on it, too!?”

Noticing that people rather liked her theory that the decisions they disagreed with were secretly decided at secret meetings they weren’t invited to, she started expanding it to include various other historical events she deemed unsavory. The theory was too elaborate to blame just the Jews and Illuminati, so she had to construct a vast network of secret societies, all working together. Basically, if you dared to dabble with suspicious concepts such as “science” and “free thought,” you were in on the conspiracy.

Pretty much all the legends of the Illuminati in today’s public consciousness and popular culture can be traced back to Webster, who greatly exaggerated and even completely fabricated the facts. Her massively ballooned, cartoonishly evil version of the Illuminati is the version that Americans first heard about, and the one whose mythology has since been further twisted by various authors.

Video

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:40:58 -0700

“What are you gonna do today, Napoleon? … Whatever I feel like I wanna do. Gosh!” Napoleon...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:53:42 -0700

“What are you gonna do today, Napoleon? … Whatever I feel like I wanna do. Gosh!”

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

“I fantasize about a massive, pristine convenience. Brilliant gold taps, virginal white marble, a...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:52:10 -0700

“I fantasize about a massive, pristine convenience. Brilliant gold taps, virginal white marble, a seat carved from ebony, a cistern full of Chanel Number 5, and a flunky handing me pieces of raw silk toilet roll. But under the circumstances I’ll settle for anywhere.”

Trainspotting (1996)

“We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” The Truman Show (1998)

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:49:12 -0700

“We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.”

The Truman Show (1998)

Circular Logic

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:10:00 -0700

“The bible is true because the bible said so”

~ Christians

“Circular logic made me commit buggery because of the circular nature upon which buggery is performed”

~ Oscar Wilde on Circular Logic

“I’m hot cos I’m fly, You ain’t coz you’re not”

~ Mims

“Circular logic is the most important logic of the day because it’s easy to make. Is real easy to make, because it’s important”

~ Merrill Howard Kalin

“Circular logic involves proving something with circular logic”

~ Circular Logic on Itself

“I never said that!”

~ Oscar Wilde on The Above Quote

“Circular reasoning is not logicaly valid because it isn’t”

~ stupid feminists on the comunist “Man”ifesto

Circular Logic is the most common form of logic on the planet Earth, as well as on all the other planets including Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, but not Pluto because it’s a dwarf planet. Circular logic is perfect and flawless. Because of this perfection, all mathematics and sciences are based on circular logic. The flawless nature of circular logic is clearly demonstrated by the fact that all math and science are based on it. Circular logic is also the second most efficient means of producing energy, falling just short of the Cat-Toast Device. The great thing about circular logic is that it’s always great and it always works.

The Logic Circle (Also known as the Happy Logic Face)

In Circular Logic, Given A and B:

If Fact A proves Fact B

Therefore Fact B proves Fact A

The concept of Circular Logic is similar to Boolean Logic in that it is conditional and nearly always results in something vanishing in a poof of logic. However, while Boolean Logic tends to operate as a strange line with awkward left turns, Circular Logic always runs in a circle continuously until either it gets tired or a restraining order is enforced.

Use in Religion

Many religions were founded on the principles of circular logic claiming that if followers didn’t believe what they told them, they would be damned to an eternity of suffering. This was backed up by documents which stated their beliefs, which were obviously true because so many people believed in them. When questioned about the hard evidence of their belief system they were directed to the documentation and told that just because they didn’t believe, didn’t make it untrue.

[Ray Comfort] an outspoken evangelist recently used circular reasoning in a debate to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that hell was real. He stated that regardless of what we believed it wouldn’t change the fact that we would have to face God on judgement day. “You say I don’t believe in hell. You can’t say that. That’s like standing in front of an on-coming truck and saying I don’t believe in trucks” The truth is that regardless of our beliefs hell exists because we can’t change the fact that it exists.

edit The Inherent Beauty of Circular Logic makes it Inherently Beautiful

The Infallible Truth behind Circular Logic

Circular logic can be proven by means of itself, and as it is the most valid form of logic its integrity to this day has not been questioned. Despite all its wonders, there has been a lot of speculation over the benefits of the logic and some criticism after many dangers were exposed in a government funded research project that occurred as a result of its occurance.

Circular logic can theoretically be used to generate perpetual motion. If such a mechanism can be created that moves because it is moving and doesn’t stop moving because it won’t stop moving such a device can be created. Scientists have been working on developing a working prototype, but the maths is so revolutionary that most of the common laws get thrown out the window and things become very unpredictable. In one such experiment a scientist got caught in an infinite loop of logic and is still stuck there to this very day pondering whether if he stopped thinking he would be able to stop thinking. The scientist remains in a stable, but catatonic state. The funding for research into this area was cut after the discovery of the Cat-Toast Device; but circular logic (alongside murphy’s law) played a vital part in the theories making this possible.

George (who was visiting Venus at the time) in the year 1696, used circular logic as a method to prove his own existence, since so many people would deny ever knowing him when questioned. He theorized that because the sky was blue whenever he existed, the fact that the sky was blue proved his existence. This conclusion was later challenged by the Venusian philosopher Oprah, who claimed that the sky was never blue on Venus, which proved that George never existed when the sky was never blue. After a moment of thought on the subject, he then vanished in a poof of logic.

If it is possible to make a sentence refer back to itself somehow and prove itself right, then it would be through using circular logic; since this sentence refers to itself somehow and proves itself right, then it is through circular logic.

And it poof of logics itself out of existence.

Other Uses

Other than being the perfect form of logic, you can use circular logic in many practical ways:

If your car has a flat tire, and your spare was eaten by grues, then you can use circular logic as a tire; however, it is suggested that you drive your car away from the grue if you don’t want to be eaten.

If multiple circular logics are stacked on top of each other, then you could defend a city by confusing your enemies by making their heads implode.

Circular logic can be used as a weapon in war, mostly in the stage of getting it approved by congress.

It is an impressive magic trick to separate two intertwined circular logics and then put them inside each other again.

Some people have tried using circular logic as a life boat, but it does not float for most smart people.

"Learn to enjoy being proven wrong, or you’ll never learn anything. If you never lose an..."

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:57:00 -0700

“

Learn to enjoy being proven wrong, or you’ll never learn anything.

If you never lose an argument, then you need to find some better arguments.

Winning an argument is satisfying; losing an argument is productive.

”

Video

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:25:00 -0700

“Words create lies. Pain can be trusted.” Audition (2000)

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:15:00 -0700

“Words create lies. Pain can be trusted.”

Audition (2000)

“Oh, I lie now and then. Sometimes I’d tell them the truth and they still wouldn’t believe me, so I...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:13:00 -0700

“Oh, I lie now and then. Sometimes I’d tell them the truth and they still wouldn’t believe me, so I prefer to lie.”

The 400 Blows (1959)

“The Precogs are never wrong. But occasionally, they do disagree.” Minority Report (2002)

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:12:00 -0700

“The Precogs are never wrong. But occasionally, they do disagree.”

Minority Report (2002)

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:10:43 -0700

5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think By:Kathy Benjamin, CRACKED Staff, Karl...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 01:55:00 -0700

5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think

By:Kathy Benjamin, CRACKED Staff, Karl Smallwood November 01, 2011 2,276,904 views

#5. We’re Not Programmed to Seek “Truth,” We’re Programmed to “Win”

Think about the last time you ran into a coworker or family member spouting some easily disproven conspiracy theory — somebody who still thinks Obama’s birth certificate is a fake or that Dick Cheney arranged 9/11 to cover up his theft of $2.3 trillion from the government. When they were shown proof that their conspiracy theory was wrong, did they back down? Did they get this look of realization on their face and say, “Wow … if this is untrue, then maybe the other ‘facts’ upon which I’ve based my fringe beliefs also aren’t true. Thank you, kind stranger, for helping me rethink my entire political philosophy!”

That has literally never happened in the history of human conversation. Whether it’s a politician whose point has been refuted or a conspiracy theorist who has been definitively proven insane, they will immediately shift to the next talking point or conspiracy theory that backs up their side, not even skipping a beat. They keep fighting to defend their position even after it is factually shown to be untrue. But what’s really weird is that process — of sticking to your guns even after you’ve been proven definitively wrong — is apparently the entire reason humans invented arguing.

Getty
“OK, so Dick Cheney doesn’t have a third arm. He might still be capable of spitting acid.”

The Science:

It’s called the argumentative theory of reasoning, and it says that humans didn’t learn to ask questions and offer answers in order to find universal truths. We did it as a way to gain authority over others. That’s right — they think that reason itself evolved to help us bully people into getting what we want. Here’s how a proponent puts it:

“‘Reasoning doesn’t have this function of helping us to get better beliefs and make better decisions,’ said Hugo Mercier, who is a co-author of the journal article, with Dan Sperber. ’It was a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us.’ Truth and accuracy were beside the point.”

And as evidence, the researchers point out that after thousands of years of humans sitting around campfires and arguing about issues, these glaring flaws in our logic still exist. Why hasn’t evolution weeded them out? The answer, they say, is that these cognitive flaws are adaptations to a system that’s working perfectly fine, thank you. Our evolutionary compulsion is to triumph, even if it means being totally, illogically, proudly wrong.

Getty
“Check it out, you guys, Carl has something called ‘Loose Change’ loaded up on his iPhone.”

Yes, kids, being a dick works.

So During Your Next Argument, Remember …

You do this, too. If you’re a human being, you’re from a long line of people who got to the winner’s circle again and again by ignoring facts in favor of advancing your side. So, the next time you find yourself desperately Googling for some factual example that proves your argument is right, andfailing to find even one, stop. See if you can put the brakes on and actually say, out loud, “Wait a second. If the things I’m saying in order to bolster my argument are consistently wrong, then maybe my argument is also wrong.”

Getty
“But if President Obama isn’t a serial killer, what does my life mean?”

It’s going to be harder than you think. Back when evolution was still sculpting your ancestor’s brains, admitting you were wrong to the person you were debating got you bred out of existence. These days, being able to admit you’re wrong is the greatest skill you can develop if you want to stay married.

#4. Our Brains Don’t Understand Probability

Do you know a guy who keeps a loaded shotgun under his bed? You know, in case a gang of European terrorists storm into his house and try to kidnap his family?

If you throw a bunch of statistics at him about how unlikely that is (for example, that he lives in a low-crime suburb in Wisconsin where there’s only been one murder in the last 40 years, that he’s statistically more likely to accidentally do something stupid than ward off a criminal and that more people were struck by lightning last year than successfully shot bad guys in the middle of committing crimes), it won’t change his mind. Instead, he’ll rebut you by citing a news story or an anecdote about a guy who successfully fended off a Die Hard bad guy thanks to his trusty 12-gauge. For him, that single, vivid example completely overrides all talk of statistics or probability.

Getty
Also, zombies.

Now take it into the realm of politics. The U.S. has spent $1.3 trillion on the war on terror so far. That was in reaction to about 14,000 total deaths from international terrorism from 1975 to 2003. That’s more than $90 million spent for each person killed.

If you point out that this money would have been better spent preventing industrial accidents (which kill twice as many people per year than died in the World Trade Center) or, even better, curing cancer (the equivalent of about 200 WTC attacks each year), you’ll be told, “Say that to the 9/11 victims, hippie!”

Getty
“Why do you hate eagles?”

The Science:

It’s called neglect of probability. Our brains are great for doing a lot of things. Calculating probability is not one of them. That flaw colors every argument you’ve ever had, from the tax code down to that time your friend totally cheated you in a coin-flip.

Getty
This game exists because your brain is bad at math.

In this experiment involving electrocuting subjects (presumably conducted by Dr. Peter Venkman) scientists found people were willing to pay up to 20 dollars to avoid a 99 percent chance of a painful electric shock. Seems reasonable enough. But the same subjects would also be willing to pay up to seven dollars to avoid a tiny 1 percent chance of the same shock. It turned out that the subjects had only the vaguest concept of what 99 percent or 1 percent even means. All they could think about was the shock.

It’s no surprise that we’re bad at this, since the whole concept of measuring probability is a recent invention. Early man didn’t have any concept of what percentage of bear encounters ended in being eaten. He only knew that he didn’t want to be eaten. Our brains are not meant to instinctively understand any equation more complex than this:

Bear = Run Away

Getty
We’re pretty sure there’s supposed to be a coefficient of pant-soiling in there somewhere.

That worked fine for a hunter-gatherer trying to avoid being devoured by a bear like his father was. Unfortunately, running a government or an economy is a little more complicated, and we’re still stuck in “Bear = Run Away” mode.

As experts point out, when there is strong emotion tied to the unlikely event, our ability to continue to see it as unlikely goes out the window. Thus, any statement of “It’s very unlikely your child will be eaten by a bear, these bear traps in the yard are unnecessary and keep injuring the neighborhood kids” will always be answered with, “Say that when it’s your child being eaten!”

So During Your Next Argument, Remember …

Again, everybody does it. The only difference is which issue is so charged for us that we’re willing to throw probability out the window.

Getty
“Math can blow me, I know that gardener is out to steal my babies.”

Look, we realize not everyone is going to stop shouting at each other at protests, sit down and go over the numbers. But maybe take a deep breath and think twice before the next time you tell someone: “We’ll see how you feel when it happens to you!”

#3. We Think Everyone’s Out to Get Us

If you’re smart and savvy, you know not to trust anyone. This is why we can excuse ourselves for using shady or flat-out dishonest tactics to win an argument. We’re sure the other guy is doing much, much worse.

Getty
“I will yield that the sky is blue, if you acknowledge that the moon landing was engineered by an unfrozen Walt Disney.”

The world is so full of hidden agendas and stupid ideologies that we have to do whatever we can to keep up. And “whatever we can” is often code for lying.

The Science:

Think about all the people you’ve disagreed with this month. How many of them do you think were being intentionally dishonest? Experts say you’re almost definitely overshooting the truth. It’s called the trust gap, and scientist see it crop up every time one human is asked to estimate how trustworthy another one is. In one study, subjects were asked to rate the likelihood that strangers would share pretend winnings with them. The subjects figured about half were trustworthy enough to share. When it came time to actually share, about 80 percent came through. The subjects thought the world was almost twice as corrupt as it actually is.

Getty
“Most of the people in this calculus class would cut my throat for a value meal.”

The problem, as another study found, is that when you assume someone is lying, you rarely find out that you’re wrong. You just walk away congratulating yourself on being able to sniff out an ambush from a mile away.

“Why would he flee the country? He loves surprise parties, poker and judging blow job contests.”

We start assuming people have ulterior motives and hidden agendas as early as age 7 and from that point on, we never have to lose another argument for the rest of our lives. After all, if we assume the person we’re arguing with is lying, the only thing they can prove to us is that they’re a really good liar. This is how racism, sexism and any other sort of discrimination work. Once someone’s made-up their mind that color is the culprit, convincing them otherwise is going to be close to impossible, no matter how ridiculous the scenario.

“I can’t buy anymore white cars from you, Sneaky Pete. They keep blowing up. What other colors do you have in this model?”

This is also where you get claims like, “Those conservatives don’t really think taxes are too high, they secretly hate poor people!” or “Those liberals don’t really think the poor need assistance, they’re secretly communists!” It’s impossible to learn anything from a conversation with someone who you think is lying to you. The more arguments you get into with those lying extremists from the other side of the aisle, the more you learn about how they lie, the faster your brain turns off after they start talking.

So During Your Next Argument, Remember …

Do you support the Occupy Wall Street movement? If so, do you find it frustrating when opponents claim the protesters have a hidden agenda and are just tools of the communists?

Do you support the Tea Party? Do you find it frustrating when opponents dismiss the movement as a bunch of racists?

No matter what side you’re on, you’ve played that game, and all it does is give you an excuse to ignore everything the other person says. You’re dismissing their points as lies, they’re doing the same to you, so why are you even having the conversation? Because you like making everyone else at the dinner table feel tense and awkward?

Either admit that maybe this person honestly thinks what they’re saying is true, or just talk about sports.

Getty
“I always found lacrosse a little too socialist.”

#2. We’re Hard-Wired to Have a Double Standard

Here’s a good way to ruin your afternoon. Go on the Internet and find any discussion thread that brings up overweight people (like this or this one). Stand back and watch as a crowd absolutely rants about how incredibly easy it is to lose weight, and how incredibly lazy you have to be to get fat. The conclusion will be that being fat is literally a moral failing and the sign of a bad, disgusting human being. It’s to the point of actual anger and violence directed toward the overweight in real life — the fat are one of the last groups people can openly hate.

Getty
In at least four states, we can legally hunt this man.

But now take any of those people and try using the same logic with their weaknesses:

“You’re struggling to get by on your income? I can’t imagine how lazy a person would have to be to not be wealthy. Just go out there and make money! Duh!”

“You don’t have a girlfriend? I can’t imagine how much of an antisocial dick you have to be to not get a beautiful woman to love you. How hard is it to get off your ass and be a dynamic, sexy, personable human being?”

Getty
“Seriously dude, just stop having a micropenis.”

“You drink alcohol? Or smoke cigarettes? Or smoke pot? Why don’t you try not doing those things?”

“You suffer from depression or anxiety? Uh, have you tried not?”

Now watch as they rattle off ten thousand extenuating circumstances for their embarrassing problem (the economy is bad, women are bitches, I have an addiction) while completely rejecting all of the similar causes of obesity.

Getty
“My compulsive, life-shortening habit is completely different from overeating. Namely, it’s much sexier.”

The Science:

It’s called the fundamental attribution error.

It’s a universal thought process that says when other people screw up, it’s because they’re stupid or evil. But when we screw up, it’s totally circumstantial. Like if you notice a coworker showing up to work high on mescaline, it’s because he’s an out-of-control peyote hound. But if you show up at work high on mescaline, it’s because you had a flat tire and you needed the distraction.

The process feels so obvious when explained — we simply lack information about the context in which the other person screwed up, and so we fill it in with our own. If we’ve never been fat, then we assume the fat guy feels the exact same level of hunger as we do, that his metabolism is the same, that his upbringing is the same, that the spare time and energy he can devote to exercise is the same as ours. We think that both of us faced the exact same fork in the road and only one of us chose to eat churros.

Getty
About 40 of these a week for two years are all that separate you from that guy who had to be airlifted out of his living room.

The reality is, of course, that you were on completely different roads. The assumption that everyone’s circumstances are identical is so plainly wrong as to be borderline insane, but everyone does it. Pundits and politicians alike mock the unemployed as lazy, even though their own data shows that for every five unemployed people, there is only one open job. “I don’t understand, can’t you all just become radio talk show hosts like me?”

So During Your Next Argument, Remember …

Forget about talking politics with your crazy shop teacher for a second. If you’re consistently doing this when arguing with your significant other, that’s a good sign that the relationship is dying. Listen for it — when you forgot to do the dishes, it was because you had a thousand other things on your mind. When she forgot, it’s because she doesn’t care. If you find yourself automatically dismissing your partner’s explanations as “excuses,” you’ve gone to a bad place from which most relationships do not return.

Getty
“You didn’t take out the trash this morning. Is it because you don’t love me anymore?”

#1. Facts Don’t Change Our Minds

Here’s how things would work in a perfect world: You and your friend are on opposing sides of an issue. After reaching an impasse, you pull out a piece of information so precise, so compelling, so perfect, that your buddy does a 180 and completely changes his mind. You high five and skip off into the distance.

And this probably has happened … as long as it was a subject that neither of you particularly cared about. But if it was some emotionally charged issue, like abortion? God help you.

Getty
Covering your mouth is the first step in any successful dialogue.

The Science:

Let’s go back to the beginning for a moment, and the theory that people figured out how to build arguments as a form of verbal bullying rather than a method of spreading correct information. That means that there are actually two reasons somebody might be arguing with you: because they actually want to get you to think the right thing, and because they’re trying to establish dominance over you to lower your status in the tribe (or office or forum) and elevate their own. That means there’s a pretty severe cost to being on the wrong side of an issue completely separate from the issue itself.

Now think about the way people treat the two sides of a debate like teams. Not just political parties; remember how one side of the Leno vs. Conan debate referred to themselves as “Team Coco,” or how Twilight fans refer to their factions as “Team Edward” vs. “Team Jacob.”

Getty
Team Leatherface?

Then note how may debates involve people jumping into an issue in which they have nothing at stake (only a fraction of the millions of the “Team Coco” people supporting Conan on the Internet actually watch his show), just so they have the chance to join a team.

Now think of how much it would hurt them to have to change teams.

Getty
“I looked like a fool on the Internet. This is my only path now.”

That is why confirmation bias exists. We read a news article that supports what we believe, and we add it to the “I’m right about this” column. News articles that contradict what we believe are dismissed. We make up a reason — maybe the source is part of the conspiracy from the other side or whatever it takes to make sure the “I’m wrong about this” column remains empty.

Researchers have done experiments where they hooked up people’s brains to scanners and then made them read a story pointing out something stupid their favorite candidate said. The logical parts of the brain stayed quiet, while the emotional parts of the brain lit up. Their brains were weighing the story, not based on what it logically meant for their position, but on the emotional/social consequences of that position being wrong.

Getty
“You’ve pushed me past the breaking point, Snopes.com!”

Then, once the brain had decided that this news story being right would mean pain and humiliation for the reader, it told the logical part, “Figure out a way to use your ‘logic’ stuff to make this pain go away.” The next day, you probably heard those test subjects at the coffee shop going on and on about how biased the press is against their guy.

So During Your Next Argument, Remember …

You won’t remember this. You’re hard-wired to remain entrenched, and the Internet makes it worse because your political beliefs are pasted all over Facebook and wherever else you post your opinions. Backing down means going back on all that. It means letting down your team. Every inch of your psychology will fight it.

Technology gives us the power to be wrong forever.

The scary part? The same logical fallacy that prevents that crazy guy who keeps predicting the end of the world over and over from admitting maybe he was full of shit is the same fallacy that drives partisan politics and, therefore, government policy. Sleep tight, voters! Evolution is working against us.

Why Libertarianism Doesn't Work...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:42:00 -0700

bythereisnospoon

A bunch of libertarians have taken great offense at my earlier post yesterday on libertarianism in Somalia. The key part of that post was:

This, by the way, is why racism, theocracy and libertarianism go hand in hand, when from a philosophical point of view they should have little to do with one another. The negative effects of the lack of a central government are so obvious in developing countries that wherever the social order fails as in Somalia, it must have been due to bad religion, or the defect of having been born to an inferior race.
Ron Paul fans must reassure themselves that such things would never happen to white, Christian folk. They’re immune from the Somali problem by virtue being of different stock and different values, you see.

The “Somalia” argument is a sore spot for libertarians. They either fall back on the old line of race and religious prejudice I outlined, or they claim that it isn’t trueLibertarianism, you see: it’s anarchy. True Libertarians believe in just enough government to protect private property and personal safety; without those protections, they argue, anarchy ensues.

The only problem for libertarians is that they cannot point to even a single current or historical example of a government that functions as they imagine it should. They have no concrete, real world examples, so they ply their arguments in a theoretical construct.

Each and every example of places with little centralized government is dismissed by libertarians as an anarchistic situation, not a “true” Libertarianism. It’s the “no true Scotman” fallacy, Ron Paul edition. The hellish situation in Afghanistan is blamed on 30 years of war and tribal anarchy, rather than the lack of a central government. The case of Somalia is blamed again on war, on American intervention, and again on tribal anarchy. Historical examples of feudalism arising in the absence of a centralized state, or the repeated Dark Ages that arise after civilization collapses, are dismissed as either irrelevant to the modern world or invalid because of war and anarchy. The fact that corruption and the Mafia are more prevalent in southern Italy where tax collection and central government are weaker than in the North, is again dismissed as a cultural or anarchistic issue. It’s always the same argument.

Libertarianism, in other words, is infallible. Wherever it fails, it does so because the people weren’t ready for it, or there was too much violence to allow it to work, or because the government wasn’t powerful enough to protect people from harm.

Libertarians fail to realize that there has never been—and never will be—a government that functions according to their principles because it runs entirely contrary to human nature.

As any libertarian understands when it comes to statist authoritarians, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. When you decentralize and remove the modern welfare state, leaving only essentially a glorified police force in charge to protect private property and personal safety, one of two things happens:

1) The central police force turns into a right-wing military dictatorship invested in stamping out all leftist thinking, then appropriating the country’s wealth for themselves and their friends (e.g., Chile under Pinochet);

2) All central authority and protection break down completely as power localizes into the hands of local criminals and feudal/tribal warlords with little compunction about abusing and terrorizing the local population (e.g., feudal France, Afghanistan, Somalia, western Pakistan, etc.) As I said before:

Feudalism is the inevitable historical consequence of the decline of a centralized cosmopolitan state. That’s because the exercise of power by those in a position to wield it does not end with the elimination of federal authority: rather, it simply shifts to those of a more localized, more tyrannical, and less democratically accountable bent.

Urban street gangs in under-policed neighborhoods, mafias in under-taxed countries, and groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon invariably step in to fill the void where government fails. When the Japanese government wasn’t able to adequately help the population after the earthquake and tsunami, the yakuza helpfully stepped in to do it for them. The devolution of local authority and taxation into the hands of criminal groups willing to provide a safety net in exchange for their cut of the action is the invariable pre-feudal result of the breakdown of the government-backed safety net. It happens every single time. The people will want a safety net where utter chaos doesn’t prevent it: they’ll either get it from an accountable governmental authority, or from a non-governmental authority of shadowy legality. Both kinds of authority will levy their own form of taxation, be it legal and official, or part of an illegal protection scheme.

In its own way, the “No True Libertarianism” argument is very similar to the “No True Communism” of those on the far left, who argue that the fault of Communism lies not with the idea, but with the practice—despite the fact that no successful large-scale Communism has ever been implemented in the world. Neither ideology can fail its adherents. They can only be failed by imperfect practitioners.

Both ideologies run counter to human nature for the same reason: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The people with the money and guns willalways abuse the people who don’t have the money and guns, unless there are multiple levels of checks, balances, and legal and economic protections to ensure the existence of a middle-class tax base with a stake in maintaining a stable society. The modern welfare state didn’t arise by accident or conspiracy: it evolved as a means of avoiding the failures of other models.

Libertarianism is a philosophical game played by those without either enough real-world experience of localized, non-state-actor tyranny, or enough awareness of history to understand the immaturity of their political worldview. Unfortunately, the harm they do to the social safety net and to governmental checks and balances is all too real, and all too damaging.

How Ron Paul’s Libertarian Principles Support Racism...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:20:00 -0700

By Jonathan Chait

The furor over the racist newsletters published by Ron Paul in the nineties is, in some ways, more revealing than the newsletters themselves. In a series of responses by Paul and his supporters ranging from anguished essays to angry dismissalsto crazed conspiracy diagrams (check out page seven), the basic shape of the Paul response has emerged. Paul argues that he was completely unaware that, for many years, the newsletter purporting to express his worldview consistently expressed vicious racism.

This is wildly implausible, but let’s grant the premise, because it sets up the more interesting argument. Paul’s admirers have tried to paint the racist newsletters as largely separate from his broader worldview, an ungainly appendage that could be easily removed without substantially altering the rest. Tim Carneyargues:

Paul’s indiscretions — such as abiding 9/11 conspiracy theorists and allowing racist material in a newsletter published under his name — will be blown up to paint a scary caricature. His belief in state’s rights and property rights will be distorted into support for Jim Crow and racism.

The stronger version of this argument, advanced by Paul himself, is that racism is not irrelevant to his ideology, but that his ideology absolves him of racism. “Libertarians are incapable of being racist,” he has said, “because racism is a collectivist idea, you see people in groups.” Most libertarians may not take the argument quite as far as Paul does — many probably acknowledge that it is possible for a libertarian to hold racist views — but it does help explain their belief that racism simply has no relation to the rest of Paul’s beliefs. They genuinely see racism as a belief system that expresses itself only in the form of coercive government power. In Paul’s world, state-enforced discrimination is the only kind of discrimination. A libertarian by definition opposes discrimination because libertarians oppose the state. He cannot imagine social power exerting itself through any other form.

You can see this premise at work in Paul’s statements about civil rights. In a 2004 statement condemning the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Paul laid out his doctrinaire libertarian opposition. “[T]he forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty,” he wrote. “The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties.”

Paul views every individual as completely autonomous, and he is incapable of imagining any force other than government power that could infringe upon their actual liberty. White people won’t hire you? Then go form a contract with somebody else. Government intervention can only make things worse.

The same holds true of Paul’s view of sexual harassment. In his 1987 book, he wrote that women who suffer sexual harassment should simply go work somewhere else: “Employee rights are said to be valid when employers pressure employees into sexual activity. Why don’t they quit once the so-called harassment starts?” This reaction also colored his son Rand Paul’s response to sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain, which was to rally around Cain and grouse that he can’t even tell jokes around women anymore.

This is an analysis that makes sense only within the airtight confines of libertarian doctrine. It dissipates with even the slightest whiff of exposure to external reality. The entire premise rests upon ignoring the social power that dominant social groups are able to wield outside of the channels of the state. Yet in the absence of government protection, white males, acting solely through their exercise of freedom of contract and association, have historically proven quite capable of erecting what any sane observer would recognize as actual impediments to the freedom of minorities and women.

The most fevered opponents of civil rights in the fifties and sixties — and, for that matter, the most fervent defenders of slavery a century before — also usually made their case in in process terms rather than racist ones. They stood for the rights of the individual, or the rights of the states, against the federal Goliath. I am sure Paul’s motives derive from ideological fervor rather than a conscious desire to oppress minorities. But the relationship between the abstract principles of his worldview and the ugly racism with which it has so frequently been expressed is hardly coincidental.

Video

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 20:30:00 -0700

Photo

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 20:05:00 -0700

You are born every 10 minutes....

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 20:01:00 -0700

You aren’t blindly devoted to “truth”, “liberty”, nor are you profoundly more intelligent than any one else interested in politics that does not exclusively accept your ideals the way the rest of your cult does. Let me explain… I’m sure this looks familiar:

It’s a pretty common technique. You make the sucker believe that you are literally the only person who can be trusted, and if any professional or expert says different, it’s because they have an ulterior motive. Kevin Trudeau says he can cure cancer. If your doctor says Trudeau is a nutjob, it’s because he’s being paid off by the corporations to lie to you. It’s why you Paultards are so quick to accuse people of being “evil paid off shills,” instead of showing social maturity and saying “You’re wrong and I disagree with you.”

You can’t fool everybody though. And It damn sure won’t get you a win in the election. Why do they continue you ask? You see the goal is to convince a small yet dedicated number of people willing to throw money at you. Because why would Ron Paul still be asking for campaign donations at this point, when clearly he has zero shot of winning and he’s already spent $500,000 per delegate? If you said, “spread the message,” then why don’t you donate directly to the causes that Ron Paul supposedly believes in? Hate the NDAA, then why not give that money towards the ACLU so they can hire lawyers to fight it? How does donating to Ron Paul help anyone that’s not Ron Paul?

There are a bunch of personality traits that would probably make you more likely to fall for this scam. All of them tie in with libertarians in general. You have to be fairly simple minded and naive to the operations of the real world and human nature to believe in such ridiculously oversimplified answers. You have to have a superiority complex (Narcissist), in order to believe that you have the answers that have somehow eluded the general population. Also I feel you have to be lazy, because it’s not hard to research a little deeper or even just stepping back and looking at it through the cube to see what’s really going on. And you don’t even need your libertarian translation stones to do it.