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"I like the idea that you are greeted by a yeti either as you leave this world or when you first arrive in the afterlife. If you're creating a new religion or lifestyle, may I suggest you implement this concept into your theology?"
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"I understand the momentum of gun ownership in the US, and find most people I know who own weapons do actually either hunt (and eat their hunt) or keep it for home protection (there are the nuts who fetishize guns and violence, but that's not the point I'm getting to here, we can talk about that later, b/c that's its own disturbing thing).
But the idea that just owning a weapon is part of a way to be more libertarian, to hold off hatred and violence born of hatred, is something I find a very simplistic outlook not born out by historical reading.
In the 1920s, we have a perfect case study of what happens when an armed minority is beset upon by racist white people. It's called the Tulsa Race Riot."
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"About three decades ago, the rhetorical scholar Wayne Brockreide (1972) coined the expression of "arguers as lovers." Now, take that too literally with opposing counsel and you have a conflict of interest on your hands. But the core of Brockreide's argument is that effective advocacy proceeds from a fundamental respect and appreciation for the other side -- their claims, their characters, their capacity for judgment and reason, and their motives. Practically, how do you do that? Let me suggest three starting points."
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"On Saturday morning at the ScienceOnline conference in North Carolina's Research Triangle, I was part of the team that launched ScienceSeeker, a new blog aggregator that strives to collect posts from all science blogs around the internet.
In contrast to ResearchBlogging.org, ScienceSeeker is inclusive. Whether you're posting your trip to Maui or a detailed analysis of a journal article, it will show up on ScienceSeeker."
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"But reviewing my past evaluations recently, I came across this gem: "Stop thinking you're the smartest person in the room."
At first this made me laugh. I mean, it's my class, I designed it, it's often based on my research. These students are mainly first year students. I have a PhD, so one would assume that I have reasonably more knowledge than anyone else in the room-indeed, that I am now (officially, as of this year!) old enough to have parented one or two of these students would at least give me points in the wisdom and experience categories. Granted, there are usually 250 students in this class, so statistically it may be possible that I'm not the smartest person in the room. I'll just go on the assumption that I outrank in terms of age and number of degrees.
What was this student trying to communicate?"
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"Now, before we examine his article, tell me something. What are the chances that someone who has never obtained a degree in physics, and has never worked in physics, would know well enough what one needs to do to become a physics, and then know what to expect when one becomes a physicist? That's like me writing an article on how to become a lawyer ("Yes, you should get a law degree first, and then take the bar exam"), and then what to expect when you become a lawyer ("Oh, just file lawsuits against a lot of people!"). Not only does he not have first hand knowledge of what he's writing, it appears that he also hasn't been doing his homework, or talking to other physicists about it."
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I appreciate your having the link to better litigating. Some people think the legal system is intrinsically too adversarial (well, they call it that don't they) and go for alternatives like professional mediation services. That's cool, but the legal system is here and after all, if someone else sues you then you can't force them to accept mediation. (BTW, IMHO those clauses in some contracts saying you can't sue the company but must accept "mediation" from some service that's not likely too objective, should be banned.) Also, I've heard that most European legal processes are more geared to mediative/investigatory ways of dealing with things but also some horror stories about not accepting some protections we take for granted (note need for distinction too between civil suits and criminal proceedings.) I'm sharing this on my FB page.
I noticed a cutely physics-sounding link at the site there, it was:
Li, Haiquin and Samir Chatterjee (2010). Designing Effective Persuasive Systems Utilizing the Power of Entanglement: Communication Channel, Strategy and Affect Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 6137DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-13226-1_27
Surely they mean "entanglement" as metaphor for our society, and indeed it is, is it not?
BTW a good, varietous (I'm trying that coinage, it may be grody) and thoughtful mix of various links here overall as usual.
I just checked out "Surviving the World", which I've discovered I love. I went all the way back to the beginning to flip through.
I can't help wondering: did you ever come across this one?
http://survivingtheworld.net/Lesson58.html
I can't help wondering: did you ever come across this one?
No, I hadn't. Between that and the Red Sox hat, I'm not sure I trust that guy...