Category Archives: Ayn Rand

How did we ever get to this point? What pillars did we build? The churches tried everything the looked successful only to never succeed. We built an illusion. All we needed was the right formula. The church would succeed if we did it right. The pandemic pierced the illusion. Now people are searching for it. Like chasing mirages in the desert, we know the relief is just ahead. And then we find only dry sand. This gloom and doom piece seeks to go beyond piercing the illusion. I want to destroy the four pillars of it.

Rick WarrensPurpose Driven Churchwas bad enough. He decided a purpose driven book for life was necessary too. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. It is interesting to note that Warren never made a promise that his method for church development would actually work. In fact, he told people not to try to replicate the method of Saddle Back. When I criticized all things Purpose Driven, I was reminded of this by his supporters. But they still attempted it.

I remember the appalling moment a church leader stood before the congregation for an announcement. It was merely a commercial forPurpose Driven Life. This conservative lay member placed this book on par with the Bible. My heart sank. Because I remembered the idiocy that surroundedThe Prayer of Jabez. That nonsense fizzled out. But it left a mark of dishonesty on the people who adhered to it. I had to stop praying it, I heard more than one or two people say, because I was getting too many blessings. When I considered that greed was the driving factor for the popularity of the book, I doubted the reason was true. The shine wore off of the lure.

The used bookstore I frequented at the time began a pile of copies ofThe Purpose Driven Life a couple of years later. Seeking ones own desires, it appears, never ends. One of the pillars is self-focus.

The new church down the road is doing church in a whole new way! Or so they say. Evangelical churches more than any other theological type avoid being seen for what they are. I always found this interesting. Church leaders and consultants are always in the process of remaking church. An Orthodox Priest once asked, Is any Protestant Church the same as it was 100 years ago? I am not sure if any are the same as they were 10 years ago on the outside.

Jesus called his opponents white-washed tombs. In modern parlance, we would say repackaged corpses. The present trend in repackaging is to place a # in front of the name.

Reinventing the wheel is the attempt to look busy and do nothing. It is merely the attempt to avoid doing what one must. Churches use this pillar instead of confronting the social problems we help create.

Church growth programs are key to growing churches. At least, that is the message we get. I have said a lot about the overreliance on plans and programs. One church lay member could not understand why the congregation paid someone to tell them what they already knew. It was just common sense stuff we know we should do. Yes. And the real question is, why have they not been doing that common sense stuff?

One reason is that after a while people tire of doing those little actions of welcoming and engaging visitors. They have friends they have not seen in one (or more likely) three weeks. They want to catch up with them. Who is then left to engage visitors? No one. Yet, it is the same no ones who were engaging the poor, the widows, the orphans, and the hurting. These people do not increase offerings if they increase the attendance.

Doing the growth program is another substitute for engaging in ministry with the marginalized.

The harshest of the 4 pillars is this one. The filmA Hidden Life has the protagonist observe with another resident in his village in Austria that their neighbors, Do not recognize evil anymore. It is a biblical problem. An oft quoted text used by fundamentalists against their enemies is, Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes, and shrewd in your own sight! Ah you who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant at mixing drink, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of their rights! (Isaiah 5:20-23)

What is the result of the prophets criticism? The innocent suffer. The innocent continue to suffer by the actions of people in churches. And it is not by a direct action. It is by allowing evil to prevail and calling it good or necessary. Evangelical women holding Ayn Rand as a hero of their gender is a good example of that insanity.

These four pillars provided the illusion the pandemic pierced. It is time to take them down and turn to a theology of sense and compassion.

Go here to see the original:

4 Pillars of The Illusion | C. Don Jones - Patheos

Ayn Rand Institute resources offer a consistent intellectual case for a womans right to abortion.

For many years, the Ayn Rand Institute has led the world in offering rational philosophic support for a womans right to abortion. Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, the Objectivist perspective on that crucial issue is needed more than ever. This article gathers the available resources in one place, to help defenders of individual rights understand the philosophic errors that led to Roes demise. Thats the first step toward reaching a day when the Supreme Court can uphold the right to abortion on proper grounds for the first time.

Abortion (entry in The Ayn Rand Lexicon)

Ayn Rands Radical Views on Abortion (article by Ben Bayer in New Ideal)

Abortion Rights Are Pro-Life (article by Leonard Peikoff in New Ideal)

Why the Right to Abortion Is Sacrosanct (book available on Amazon)

Abortion Allows Women to Protect Whats Sacred about Life

Science without Philosophy Cant Resolve the Abortion Debate

Abortion Should Be Legal until Birth

The Dark Roots of the Texas Abortion Bans Vigilantism

Abortion Defenders Are Losing the Moral High Ground

The Pursuit of Happiness Includes the Right to Abortion

Roe v. Wade: Forty Years Later (podcast featuring Onkar Ghate and Tom Bowden)

Do you have a comment or question?

I have a comment

I have a question

If you value the ideas presented here, please become an ARI Member today.

Original post:

The Philosophic Case for the Absolute Right to Abortion - New Ideal

After the race was cancelled in 2020 and 2021, the 6th edition of the 750 mile Race to Alaska (R2AK) began June 13 with a 40-mile proving stage from Port Townsend, WA to Victoria, BC. For those that survived, they started the remaining 710 miles on June 16 to Ketchikan, AK. Heres the day six report:

The bookies over at the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce are divvying up the cash stakes everyone laid on the off chance they would be the ones to precisely predict the arrival time of first place. The total winnings are undisclosed, but were betting its not paid in candy corn, and it will make at least 1.5 dreams come true.

Also, true to form, 10,000 dollars of highly suspect bills were nailed to the wall of the Alaska Fish House last night, with the simple dare to the crew of Team Pure and Wild. If you sailed here to get it, then get it.

This is also the exact moment Tracker Acolytes global-wide take a quick beat and proclaim another R2AK decided and done. However, if you spent more than a thumb-scrolling minute with us, youre reaching for the third bag of Jiffy Pop, checking the anchor or mood lighting or poorly fluffed pillow, and waiting for the stories to play out.

R2AK is like an Ayn Rand novel written by a lesser Bronte, and its not until page 300 of this 1400-page tome that youll even get to understand what the hell its about because maybe what is most noble about this activity isnt the play-by-play of who does what; its what lives in the heart, and its a long beat.

At time of writing, a crew of three have claimed $10,000; quickly subtracted the cost of removing a perfectly functioning engine from their boat, shipping said engine, and reinserting it two weeks later; donating a grand of the winnings to SeaShare; then calculated time taken off from work, food, supplies, costs of returning the boat, Ketchikan expenses (lets see carry the one, move the decimal left a couple times); and have seen prize money go from black to a deep crimson red.Heart wins over math every time.

Over 359 Canada-goose-flying miles, 24 teams remain in play, taking part in astounding and distinctly different activities. The race for runner-up remains on, and the monohulls are best positioned to sweep the podium. This happened only in 2018, so not without precedent but with a lot of past multihull winners shaking their collective heads.

Teams Elsewhere (Soverel 33) and Fashionably Late (Dash 34) find themselves in a drag race arguably more exciting than the Melges showdown and knockdown fest that happened in the very same waters in 2019. In fact, the thrum on tightly tuned Spectra and stainless steel is echoing throughout the whole of the Canadian North Coast.

The spoiler could be Vegemite Vigilantes (Corsair 760 Sport trimaran), particularly as Fashionably Late has opted for an inside route around Duke Island that is looking a bit dookie. Hold your nose and hold on.

On June 23, the steak knife winners could be declared (or not) along with a gash of Pacific weather strong enough to hunker down in or double your wager. Either way, 24 teams row, sail, pedal, or paddle to a challenge two years in the making and one day closer to achieving it.

Race details Tracker Facebook Instagram

Race to Alaska, now in its 6th year, follows the same general rules which launched this madness in 2015. No motor, no support, through wild frontier, navigating by sail or peddle/paddle (but at some point both) the 750 cold water miles from Port Townsend, Washington to Ketchikan, Alaska.

To save people from themselves, and possibly fulfill event insurance coverage requirements, the distance is divided into two stages. Anyone that completes the 40-mile crossing from Port Townsend to Victoria, BC can pass Go and proceed. Those that fail Stage 1 go to R2AK Jail. Their race is done. Here is the 2022 plan:

Stage 1 Race start: June 13 Port Townsend, WashingtonStage 2 Race start: June 16 Victoria, BC

There is $10,000 if you finish first, a set of steak knives if youre second. Cathartic elation if you can simply complete the course. R2AK is a self-supported race with no supply drops and no safety net. Any boat without an engine can enter.

In 2019, there were 48 starters for Stage 1 and 37 finishers. Of those finishers, 35 took on Stage 2 of which 10 were tagged as DNF. There were no races in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

Source: R2AK

View post:

R2AK: Will monohulls sweep the podium? - Scuttlebutt Sailing News

Fridays Real Time With Bill Maher was the last episode to air before the show takes a month-long break. (Itll return on July 29.) Given the weeks Supreme Court decisions, Maher and his guests had no shortage of topics to choose from but the overall effect was more understated than one might expect.

Maher addressed the way that the aforementioned legal rulings represented a break from the status quo many Americans had thought would never change. From there, he spoke about considering returning to his running I know why youre happy gag, but commented that it wasnt the week for it. If youre keeping score at home, its Guns 1, Women 0, he said. And from there, Maher talked about Trumps influence lingering after he left office. Hes like a fart with bad hair, said Maher.

Maher went on to discuss Clarence Thomass concurring opinion and the continuing revelations from the January 6 hearings. Perhaps the most charged moment happened when Maher alluded to the testimony Rusty Bowers gave in the hearings, and found that his name elicited little to no reaction. No one watches the news at my show? Maher asked in disbelief then quickly summarized the Trump presidency in a handful of words.

Christine Emba, author of Rethinking Sex: A Provocation, was Mahers first guest. Youre here on an interesting day, Maher said. Emba described herself as completely shocked at the ruling, and noted that the ruling in question was counter to public opinion. The countrys moving in two very different directions, Maher replied.

Maher then asked Emba about her book and, more broadly, about the role of technology in modern relationships. Emba spoke about the complexity inherent to using apps for relationships including the way that dating apps can reduce some of the confusion regarding interactions potentially leading to romance and/or sex.

Emba went on to speak about the legacy of the #MeToo movement; Maher, for his part, was more critical of the internets role in both dating and the spread of porn. (Maher was highly critical about the role of the internet in spreading porn.) Emba shared several of the conversations shed had while researching her book, and the conceptual grey areas that emerged. And from there, Maher spoke about evolving attitudes towards sex.

We cant both be sluts, Maher said. And before long, it was time to segue to the panel discussion, featuring Andrew Sullivan and Katie Herzog. Maher spoke of the Republican Party playing the long game when it came to Supreme Court appointments, while Sullivan was more skeptical, noting that a Clinton victory in 2016 would have dramatically changed the Court.

Maher brought up the subject of an increasingly divided United States and brought up a few comparisons, including to Israel and Palestine, Belgium and the former Czechoslovakia. Sullivan was more skeptical of this, arguing that things had been this way for a while, and that this made sense due to federalism.

Sullivan went on to talk about the case that had caused Roe to be overturned and that the 15-week limit for abortions was higher than what youll find in Germany. Though Herzog was quick to point out that due to the difference in healthcare systems between the two countries someone would likely find out about a pregnancy much sooner in Germany than they would in the United States.

Sullivan went on to argue that Republicans would likely face a po;itical price for the Supreme Courts recent ruling. He went on to make the case for more centrism and expressed his frustration at the Biden presidency. This, in turn, led to a discussion of trans kids, gender roles, and the governments position on both.

Were going to get killed just for having this discussion, Maher said at one point, addressing the fact that all three have been criticized in the past for their comments on trans people. While Mahers show at its best can bring together people with differing beliefs, there was a general sense of agreement among the three speakers. And, again there was also the frustrating element of a heated discussion of trans rights without any trans people taking part.

In the second half of the segment, Maher mentioned that hed been unaware of drag queen story hours before a few weeks earlier. The Right is all about parents rights until the parents do something they dont like, Sullivan said and went on to make a long and impassioned defense of drag queens. For his part, Maher offered a compromise between right and left: a drag queen story hour where the works of Ayn Rand were read.

Emba joined the panelists for Overtime, where the first question addressed the FDAs ban of Juul. Herzog spoke about her frustration with this position, and argued that Juul had helped smokers wean themselves from cigarettes. This segued into a larger description of smoking and the devices one could use to smoke, whether it be tobacco or weed.

Somehow, this ended up turning into a heated discussion of menthol cigarettes and whether younger generations are having fewer children and, in terms of the latter, whether thats a good thing from an environmental perspective.

And then came New Rules, where Maher expressed horror at the idea of ketchup-flavored popsicles. (Which, to be honest, is understandable.) Also up for discussion? Monkeypox and the goblin sharks Tinder photo. The bulk of the segment focused on Democrats losing demographic groups who have historically voted for them with Mahers argument being, essentially, an extended metaphor about good lawyers and bad lawyers.

At least, thats how it began with Maher returning to some of the subjects that irk him the most (such as the term Latinx), before making a grander point about policy stances that could potentially stand in the way of bipartisan actions. The Democrats need to be like the lawyers you see on billboards, Maher said. Though the conclusion he reached that Democrats should keep Trump from attempting to interfere in another election didnt necessarily seem to contradict any of the policy stances he had critiqued earlier in the segment. It was an odd note on which to close the episode; lets see where Maher and the nation are in a months time.

Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.

More:

Bill Maher Addressed an Eventful Political Week on Real Time - InsideHook

The clumsy cry of despair in the novel Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (source: Wikimedia Commons)

Love her or hate her, Ayn Rand was a far greater intellectual than Donald Trump. She actually studied the works of philosphers Arisotole, Locke, Kant, and Nietsche and and although the ultimate value of her pop philosophy fell far short of her own claims about it, she deserves mention in the context of todays culture war.

Was Ayn Rand a necessary pre-cursor to the rise of Authoritarianism in twenty-first century America? I think the answer must be yes even though, as a champion of individual freedoms, she would vehemently disagree. (Hint #1: This is because her absolutist, laissez-faire philosophy contradicts itself.)

When we examine Trump, we are torn between naming him evil genius and utter fool. Yes, he has an uncanny ability to attract educated followers who succumb to his beguiling ways and bend their ethics to the fracturepoint in the furtherance of his illegal and immoral schemes. But we also see that his eagerness to commit crimes and his penchant to spew hatredoften overrule his desire to hide such antisocial tendencies behind a curtain, like Nixon more carefully attempted.

Rand was born in Czarist Russia and was a teen during most of the Russian Revolution. From her perspective, socialism and totalitarianism were irreversibly intertwined, even though she acknowledged that Nazi rule in Germany began with a free electionand that Great Britain was only a partly-socialist nation. While we must concur with Rand that povertys breadth and the Kremlins atrocities in Soviet Russia are brutal condemnations of both the Soviet economy and its governing structure, she obviously got it wrong about Democratic Socialism as practiced for more than 100 years now, in Western Europe, which has achieved a relatively high degree of both econonmic and political equality among citizens (without excessive truncation of freedoms for individuals and businesses).

Rand was an avowed atheist, whereas Trump keeps his atheistic tendencies under wrap for political gain. While we know that Trump worships power and notoriety, Rand worshipped individual freedom and something she called objectivism which is essentially objectivity blended with rationalism (as contrasted with subjectivity and irrationalism).

Rand characterized two of historys co-parasitic evil forces with the names Attila (the tyrant) and the Witch Doctor (the priest). Hitler embodied both and to a lesser degree, so does Trump. The Witch Doctors role is to propagandize the massess so they dont believe their own eyes or their own brains (anti-objectivism) and Attilas role is to selectively apply brutal, excessive force on perceived enemies to create an example so the masses will fear using their brains independently of the leaders edicts.

Because Rand was also a strong advocate for law and order, its difficult to ignore the likelihood that her psyche must have had a bit of Attila blended in with the other portions of Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith. (Hint #2: Rand believed governments primary role was to deter looting and rioting so that Producers could have more freedom to make unlimited profits.)

Therational side of Rand makes me think she would be in favor the work of the January 6 committee, however her blind love of absolute freedom, which issues pardons for all sins committed by Producers, makes me wonder if today, she might be a frequent guest on Tucker Carlsons show.

In the best light, we can think of Liz Cheney as a modern-day Ayn Rand a strong advocate for small government when it comes to regulating big business, yet a staunch defender of the American Constitution when totalitarian, fascist, and anti-rational forces attack it. However, there is a worst light scenario too.

A new articleby Tom Nichols in The Atlantic sheds some light additional light on why so many Trump supporters find it so difficult to abandon their irrational world-view even when the level of irrationality grows day-by-day, and the facts demonstrate so clearly that Trump is a both a tyrant and a witch doctor. From the Nichols article:

But living in an alternate reality is unhealthyand dangerous, as I realized yet again while watching the January 6 committee hearings and listening to the stories of Republicans, such as Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers and others, describing the threats and harassment they have received for doing their duty to the Constitution.

I think the Trump superfans are terrified of being wrong. I suspect they know that for many years theyve made a terrible mistakethat Trump and his coterie took them to the cleaners and the cognitive dissonance is now rising to ear-splitting, chest-constricting levels. And so they will literally threaten to kill people like Kinzinger (among others) if thats what it takes to silence the last feeble voice of reason inside themselves.

So the MAGA base are scared to death of the consequences of their willful blindness and they lash out violently and pitifully in hopes they can postpone the day of reckoning.

Ayn Rand actuall spoke of this phenomenon, and it doesnt end well. There is scene toward the end of Atlas Shrugged where Dagny Taggart confronts a guard (an Attila) who is obstructing her access to John Galt (who is at that momentbeing tortured by James Taggart and others at the State Science Institute). Dagny sets up a philosphical dilemma for the guard to demonstrate his abandonment of his own reasoning faculties. The horns of this dilemma overhwhelm the guards undeveloped intellect. He tells Dagny its not fair for her to forcehim to make a decision, because hes not sure which action is right and which is wrong.

What follows is Dagnys penultimate conversion to authoritarianism, although Rand probably didnt view it that way.

Calmly and impersonally, she, who would have hesitated to fire at an animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man who had wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness.

Come to think of it, perhaps Ayn Rand would prefer to be a talking head on Fox News.

Is it fair for us towonder what Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger would do if they were in Dagny Taggarts place? Im pretty sure I know what Elon Musk would do.

More here:

Ayn Rand v Donald Trump? - Daily Kos

The following is a letter to the editor submitted by a reader. It does not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper. To submit a letter, email nbowe@dlnewspapers.com.

Too many Americans, especially laissez-faire Republicans but also neoliberal Democrats, are devoted to the selfish, authoritarian philosophy of Ayn Rand, a woman whose tragic early life experiences turned her into a woman so narcissistic and self-serving that she recommended we let others die on the streets if they dont have enough. That way, she said, we can have more than we need.

She never understood that many countries with robust capitalism, like Norway or Sweden, also have Medicare for all, subsidized childcare, sturdy maternal and paternal leave, and subsidized post-secondary education that doesnt require students to go into debt to earn a degree or learn a trade.

What matters in life is having enough, not too much. What matters is community, which translates into English as cooperation. Some Americans Ive met lately act as if the word comes from across the sea. It doesnt. The laws that are best are the ones that do the greatest good for the largest number of people.

Ayn Rand cult members claim to value freedom and individualism but, at one extreme, want to take away Social Security and Medicare, two programs that increase freedom and protect individuals. They also want to restrict a woman's right to choose how to live their own lives.

Some of us, despite inflation, have been lucky. We have enough. We take one day at a time, live each moment to the full, and give back as warranted by our means. Were civil even to those who curse us. We do our best to practice the Golden Rule do to others as you want done to yourself and the Serenity Prayer: Give me courage to change things I can, serenity to accept things I cant, and the wisdom to tell the difference.

None of us need more. We only need enough. Life is a series of adventures and misadventures. Theres great beauty around us. The earth zips around the sun at 67,000 mph. If you stand still, you can feel it move under your feet. Its fragile. All of us are stuck on it together.

The rules, therefore, are very simple:

Perhaps JFK, in his famous Peace Speech at American University in 1963, the year he was assassinated by a man with a murderous weapon, put it best: For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our childrens future. And we are all mortal.

See the original post here:

Letter: The rules of life are very simple - Detroit Lakes Tribune

We instinctually ascribe political and strategic genius to the authoritarians of the world. One American commentator described Putin as a "grandmaster of chess" when it comes to strategy. But anyone that acts as a tyrant over the people of their country, and causes the pain and suffering of a war, is no genius, writes Yaron Brook and Elan Journo.

No death toll can truly capture the devastation that Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and their ilk inflicted upon the world. The engineered Great Famine in Ukraine (Holodomor), the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, and the Killing Fields of the twentieth century should have taught us to evaluate dictators properly. But, depressingly, many politicians and intellectuals persist in misreading dictators.

How the West got Russia and China WrongRead more For example, when Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran was rising to power, he found admirers among Western intellectuals. In 1979 Richard Falk, a professor of international law at Princeton, dismissed concerns about Khomeinis political vision of Islamic totalitarianism. Falk suggested that Iran may yet provide us with a desperately-needed model of humane governance for a third world country. Thats not been the experience of Iranian women who are brutalized and jailed for failing to wear hijab; nor of gays executed by public hanging; nor of any Iranians who value their freedom; nor of any of the victims of Iranian-backed Islamist terrorism.

Remember when Bashar al-Assad of Syria was seen as a savvy reformer, invested in the welfare of his people? Except that he became notorious for inflicting chemical weapons on his subjects. Mohammad Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia was breathlessly hailed as a forward thinking, capable leader: yes, the selfsame MBS who ordered the hit and literal butchering of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist affiliated with the Washington Post.

But surely the most consequential examples today are Xi Jinping and especially Vladimir Putin.

In the words of one American commentator, Vladimir Putin is like a "grandmaster of chess" when it comes to strategy, whereas Barack Obama "stumbles with checkers." On the eve of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the Russian dictator as "very shrewd, very capable," adding "I have enormous respect for him... [Putin] is an elegantly sophisticated counterpart who is not reckless but has always done the math."

___

The notion of dictators as charismatic, capable strategists is an illusion

___

While Donald Trump was in office, he was one of Putin's superfans and apologists. Trump has described the Ukraine invasion as "genius," later praising Putin for having "taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions."

This is a severe misreading, and the most obvious evidence can be seen in the battlefields of Ukraine. The reputedly formidable Russian military has struggled against courageous Ukrainians fighting in self-defense. It can also be seen in the extraordinary scale and extent of international sanctions imposed on Russia. But this misreading goes deeper than a strategy that backfired.

The notion of dictators as charismatic, capable strategists is an illusion. The illusion endures partly because they can appear successful, at least for a while. But the truth is that Putin and Xi, like their twentieth century predecessors, are fundamentally impotent.

Charismatic, inspiring loyalty? Oh, come on. They are at war against their own subjugated people.

___

Putin and Xi are not simply politicians who get a few details wrong. Theyre wrong all the way down

___

For individuals to live, think, produce, and thrive, the role of a proper government is to protect their freedom. It is freedom that fuels human progress and prosperity. No one who values human flourishing can look at Putin, Xi or any other dictator as anything but a lethal aberration.

Putin and Xi are not simply politicians who get a few details wrong. Theyre wrong all the way down. They dominate, brutalize and exploit those who think, teach, invent, produce, run businesses, create value at whatever scale. By violating the rights of their citizens, Putin, Xi and other dictatorial leaders defy the objective conditions necessary for individuals to live and prosper. They are destroyers. "To deal with men by force," observed philosopher Ayn Rand, "is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion."

Dictators are at war not only with their own people, but, ultimately, with reality. Putin and Xi are usurpers, and on some level they know it, but shut their eyes to that truth. The epic scale of censorship and repression under their reign is telling. Why intimidate, muzzle, and seek to control the thoughts of the population, if it truly found you inspiring and magnetic?

Orwell's fearsome "Big Brother" pales in comparison to China's vast surveillance of its population, social credit scores, and legions of censors. The regime crushes dissent, and it imposes thought control. When Dr. Li Wenliang spoke out about the novel Corona virus at the pandemic's outbreak, he was silenced, punished, humiliated; after his death from Covid 19, tragically vindicating his warning, censors scrubbed Chinese social media to erase public demands for freedom of speech. Or recall what happened to Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis champion who accused a Party official of sexual assault: she was disappeared. (Only after an international furor about her vanishing, did she reappear for a stage managed interview.)

Putin's railroading and "disappearing" of critics, the poisoning of opponents, the eradication of every last vestige of an independent media, the marinating of the population in endless propaganda: these are a confession of weakness, a fear of facing the facts. Thought control puts the regime's wishes above facts, on the premise that wishing makes it so. There's no "war" in Ukraine, only a "special military operation" -- and any Russian who denies this or objects to it can face up to 15 years in prison.

What Putin, Xi and their cronies have achieved are regimes geared toward exploitation. Putin-aligned oligarchs have ransacked the country. China's caste of party-aligned operatives have raked in billions, amid the countrys impressive economic rise. That rise, now seemingly slowing, occurred despite not because of Chinas dictatorial leadership. It was a consequence of the slight degree of economic freedom the Party condescended to permit -- and which it is now undoing.

___

To put it bluntly, many Western intellectuals and policy makers have an irrational prejudice against freedom, especially as manifested in markets

___

There's nothing charismatic, nor "shrewd" nor "sophisticated" here. Such dictators and their hangers-on are thugs, gangsters and murderers who operate under the state's (ostensible) moral authority. Human parasitism is an expression of not of efficacy, but of impotence.

Why then do some people view Putin and Xi as impressively capable, strategic leaders? Here are two factors.

First, to put it bluntly, many Western intellectuals and policy makers have an irrational prejudice against freedom, especially as manifested in markets. You can see it in the bias against markets, deemed messily inefficient, and in favor of central planning. While we both reject this common perspective, our point here is not to persuade you that we're right about markets. Rather, it's that many in the West are afflicted by what you might call Central-Planner Envy, and this leads them into warped thinking. It picks out supposed accomplishments -- "Behold the highspeed trains in Xi's China!" -- while evading the full reality of the uncountable individuals whose rights are trashed in the course of maintaining the regimes systems pervasive repression.

A second, more significant explanatory factor is Western appeasement of Russia and China. Instead of frankly recognizing the evil character of these regimes, Russia and China are afforded the undeserved moral status of civilized countries. By agreeing to sit down with them at summits and multilateral meetings, our heads of state perpetuate the fiction that Putin and Xi as efficacious and benevolent leaders that belong in the company of rights-respecting nations.

The United Nations is a major culprit in whitewashing these regimes. Both have permanent seats on the UN's powerful Security Council(!), despite violating the organizations stated principles -- flagrantly, repeatedly, and on a vast scale. What about the massacring of pro-democracy student protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989? Dousing the last embers of intellectual freedom? Interning thousands of Uighurs in concentration camps? Wiping out the last vestiges of freedom in Hong Kong? Ongoing piracy of foreign-owned intellectual property? The dishonest handling of the COVID pandemic? No, China has learned that it is effectively untouchable.

This official whitewashing encourages, and is reinforced by, the willingness of American and European companies to invest in China and Russia as if they were basically free, civilized, moral regimes. The consequences are pernicious. Putins regime, for example, has benefited handsomely from the inflow of foreign capital and joint-ventures with BP, Shell and Exxon. But, since the war in Ukraine, all three of these companies are frantically departing the Russian market, suffering losses in the tens of billions of dollars.

___

The notion that Putin and Xi (and their ilk) are charismatic, efficacious leaders is false. They have pit themselves against the facts and against human life

___

When you reflect on how the U.S. and European nations dealt with Putins past aggression, his initiation of war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, is exposed as foreseeable, rather than strategically shrewd let alone genius. Passive appeasement by the U.S. and Europe emboldened Putin. Consider the incisive observation of Evgeny Kissin, an expatriate Russian pianist and composer, who on this issue exhibits greater clarity of vision than political leaders in Washington, London, and the capitals of Europe:

if the West had applied the same sanctions against Putins regime as it is applying now 8 years ago, after the annexation of the Crimea, there would have been no war in the Ukraine now. Ill tell you even more: had the West applied such sanctions in 2008, in response to Putins invasion of Georgia and the de facto annexation of South Ossetia, Putin would not have annexed the Crimea five and a half years later and maybe, by that time he would even no longer be in power. And more: if the West had applied such sanctions back in 1999-2000, in response to the genocide in Chechnya, there would definitely have been no invasions of Georgia and the Ukraine.

The notion that Putin and Xi (and their ilk) are charismatic, efficacious leaders is false. They have pit themselves against the facts and against human life. To the extent such dictators advance toward their stated goals, they wreak havoc. Zoom out from Ukraine, where Putin's forces are floundering, and recall that Stalin's reign brought nothing but death to his own people. Hitler lost a world war, laid waste a continent, and put to death tens of millions.

Reflecting on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a key figure in the final solution, Hannah Arendt coined the phrase the "banality of evil." Its an idea that remains controversial. If you take it to mean that evil is in fact small, unglamorous and commonplace, there's some truth in the observation. And it certainly applies to Putin, Xi, and other dictators; picture Saddam Hussein upon being dragged out of hiding from an underground rathole.

But this idea is at best incomplete. Theres a deeper truth about the character of evil, which Ayn Rand discussed in her writings. Rand observed that evil was impotent that evil was the irrational, the blind, the anti-real and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it."

View original post here:

The Banality of Putin and Xi | Yaron Brook and Elan Journo - IAI

WASHINGTON Back when green was merely a color as opposed to a movement, Bill McKibben was on the frontlines of the environmental wars. After graduating from Harvard in 1982, he worked at the New Yorker but eventually left to publish The End of Nature in 1989, a book that established him as a leading thinker on the damage human activity is causing to the planet and future generations of humans.

Since 2001, he has been teaching at Middlebury College in Vermont and publishing books, including most recently The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon. A memoir of sorts, the book is best explained by its own subtitle: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened.

Bill McKibben was one of the speakers for an Earth Day event organized by the Center for Earth Ethics in April. (Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Though hardly romantic about the past, McKibben is especially dismayed by the American present, wondering how we became a society strained by bleak racial and economic inequality, where life expectancy was falling even before a pandemic deepened our divisions, on a heating planet whose physical future is dangerously in question.

McKibben spoke to Yahoo News from his home in Vermont on what he said was a lovely day. It was humid in Washington, D.C., where climate change will soon enough render weather conditions akin to what Mississippi experiences today.

Yahoo News: You write about neighborliness. What is that, and why is it important?

Bill McKibben: I use a number of different words to talk about the same thing, which is the sense that we belong to communities as large as our species and as small as our neighborhood. Over the course of my life, we encountered the extremely radical idea that our only duty was really to ourselves, perhaps our family.

That was the key switch. Jimmy Carter represented one world, and Ronald Reagan the other. We made a decisive choice.

To you, the neoliberal turn is the disastrous one that has brought us to this point?

It goes deeper than just neoliberal economics. When Im discussing Christianity, I think thats what happened there too, from community to evangelicals single-minded focus on my personal Lord and savior. Weve ended up in a very transactional and hyper-individual world in so many ways.

Story continues

I might be misreading, but I dont think you see this solely as the project of philosophical conservatives.

There were certainly seeds of it that came out of the 60s as well. Do your own thing had Ayn Rand (an influential novelist and philosopher) on some level too.

If, in a sense, our entire society is complicit in this arrangement, could it be that simply most people want to live this way?

Its possible. Its a very interesting question. Clearly human nature contains both things, right? Theres a draw to a kind of selfishness, and that, evolutionary biologists can explain. But theres also a draw to a kind of sense of community and connectedness that again, even evolutionary biologists can explain. Good working societies hold these things in balance right down to the idea that you might need a gun because you had to have a well-regulated militia. But thats a very different world than the world where everyone decides they want their own AR-15 because thats what freedom means.

Theres a lot in your book about debts that need to be paid. Can you explain that concept?

Weve come to this extraordinary period of just unimaginable wealth creation. But we now understand some of the cost, the expense of others. Whether there were people in our own society shut out from the economic escalator ride or people who are having their lives turned upside down by the carbon that we poured into the atmosphere in the course of becoming that prosperous.

Im old-fashioned enough to think that debts owed should be repaid.

Often debts are only repaid if theres some compulsion to do so, right?

Thats true. In this case one lacks any method of forcing it. Thats why one writes books and organizes and so on and so forth. And appeals to the conscience of people, which is not a completely fruitless appeal.

But should government be more muscular in these areas?

Of course. But government is just another way of saying all of us working together. So unless we build a consensus within our society that we should do these things, then the government is not going to do them.

What I am trying to get at is that some progressives have shown frustration with democracy. They cant compel these changes that you write about, but they recognize their necessity.

Yes, and if one perhaps had an alternative to recommend to democracy, maybe it would be worth thinking about it, but probably not for me. Because, as the book points out, I grew up in Lexington, Mass., and I had the notion that democracy is important imprinted on me at an early age.

You start out the book with a very poignant image of what it was like to grow up there. Im guessing home prices have increased, well, not literally exponentially but considerably.

Id say literally. The house my parents bought for 30 grand, which was roughly 200 grand in todays dollars, it sold last year, and the last person who bought it paid a million dollars for it and immediately tore it down, and on this narrow footprint of land has built something that looks like a cross between a junior high and a medium security prison.

Exponential is the only word to describe how fast home price values have gone up. And thats the definition in a sense of unearned income. People just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

And what does that mean? What does the proliferation of wealth as represented by real estate and stocks, what does that do to society?

It makes permanent whatever divisions and inequalities were present when you got on the escalator. It makes sure that people who werent able to get on the escalator at the bottom, never catch up. The numbers are really quite remarkable about what happened to, say, the wealth gap between white and Black Americans over this period of time.

Are racial reparations necessary?

Yeah. I mean who knows what were going to call them? And Im well aware that to say that is a great gift to right-wing politicians. Do you talk about them? But in terms of justice, theres no question.

I think thats the underlying reason people are so crazy about having anyone teach about racism in the public schools. Its not because I think people are worried that their children are going to be burdened with guilt. Children are smart. Children have studied history for a long time and done just fine. Its because people are feeling guilty themselves and dont want to have to think about it. Because why would you want to think about it?

What would it tell you about this country if Trump or someone like him were elected in 2024?

The body rallied to fight off the virus once. But clearly it weakened us yet more to do it, and it doesnt feel right now like the body politic is especially strong or in a place to fight off those fevers again. We shall see. But, I mean, it would be a sign, I think that that fever had not broken.

Can you explain the relationship between cultural issues, the political issues you write about in this book and the climate work that youve been doing for many years now?

The ideological framework that weve been living in since Reagan was absolutely perfect for constantly expanding our demands on the environment and absolutely poisonous for figuring out a way to rein in the climate crisis.

These decades have been a period when the U.S. has uniquely possessed extraordinary leverage because of its wealth and superpower status. And all that leverage was used in the wrong direction when it came to climate change.

Are you pessimistic about the future?

Well, look, the title of the very first book that I wrote about all this back when I was 27 or something, it was The End of Nature. So Im not a Pollyanna. But Im also, you know, I spend all day as a volunteer and organizer, and I wouldnt do that if I had decided there was no use. Im not an idiot either. Ill keep it up as long as I can make a plausible argument to myself that its worthwhile, and if I cant, then I will retire to the back porch to drink bourbon.

What kind of bourbon do you like?

What do you got?

See the article here:

American culture is destroying itself, and the planet, says leading activist Bill McKibben - Yahoo Philippines News

[Editors note: Dr. Gorski is on vacation this week, and Dr. Howard has agreed to cover. Dr. Gorski will return to his usual slot next week.]

A core theme of my writing is that people who spread disinformation about COVID are protected from the consequences of their words. I previously noted this distance allows them to pontificate on the virus as if were a game, a brand-building opportunity. In contrast, someone who works in an ICU will have more patients if they successfully discourage vaccination in young people. Of course, an ICU doctor may be wrong, and a random internet commentator may be right. Evidence matters, not credentials. But healthcare workers have skin-in-the game, and that counts for something.

With this in mind, lets revisit my article about Objectivists and COVID. Ive since discovered that some Objectivists have said some wise things. For example, Ben Bayer, a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, wrote a staunch pro-vaccine article in which he said:

The biggest sign that many vaccine refusers care too little about their own interests isnt their attitude toward their health or the well-being of others. Its their attitude toward the truth. Its actually pretty dubious that many vaccine refusers think that Covid is dangerous but simply dont care enough to protect their or their loved ones health against it. Many dont want to get vaccinated because they really believe that Covid is not a serious threat compared to the risks of the vaccine in the first place. This is actually the deepest root of the moral problem.

Because of their beliefs, vaccine refusers dont see that theyre recklessly letting their guard down against a serious threat. Because of their belief, they even mount crusades to convince others to join them.

Exactly. Disinformation has significant real-world consequences for our patients.

He also penned an homage to healthcare workers titled If Youre a Doctor or Nurse, Dont Feel Guilty for Quitting in which he sympathized with burnt-out healers for the abuse theyve suffered at the hands of belligerent unvaccinated patients. He said to such workers:

If you cant find a way to make the joy of solving medical problems overcome the pain of being treated with disrespect, you shouldnt blame yourself if you want to quit. I, for one, wont blame you if you do quit out of righteous indignation for being treated like chattel. I still hope you dont quit: many others and I may need your help. But you dont owe it to us.

Exactly. Disinformation has significant real-world consequences for us.

Mr. Bayer gets it. This is not a game.

Not everyone gets it.

In retrospect, my prior article understated the degree to which other Objectivists advanced the myth that Covid is not a serious threat compared to the risks of the vaccine. I previously discussed the symbiosis between the Atlas Society, which claims to value rationality, and the Brownstone Institute, which has spread copious amounts of anti-vaxx rubbish, sanctified natural immunity, and issued oblique threats to behead people they disagree with. This article, which was also posted at the Atlas Society sans guillotine, lamented that

Pfizer and people like Anthony Fauci are demanding 3rd and now 4th shots. Shots without end, always with the promise that the next one will achieve the goal.

Its no surprise its author is favorably featured on the website of anti-vaccine supercrank RFK Jr.

Beyond this, the Atlas Society also amplified radiologist Dr. Scott Atlas (read this), writer Dr. Naomi Wolf (read this), and who knows which other superspreaders of anti-vaccine disinformation. These are the people the Atlas Society legitimizes and amplifies during a pandemic.

Clinging to my teenage hope that leaders of the Atlas Society might actually care about rationality, I shared my previous article with Dr. Stephen Hicks a philosophy professor and Senior Scholar there. Maybe hes unaware of who his organization is promoting? Maybe hell want to learn more. Maybe hell care and even try do something about it.

Reader, I actually believed that about him and a few other people there for some stupid reason. Thats how nave I can be.

Dr. Hicks did disappoint, and though he did so in eminently predictable ways, his responses contain an important lesson: denying reality never ends well. Indeed, Dr. Hicks first attempted to deny reality by saying that I (and pretty much everyone I associate with) am pro-vaccines and anti-mandates. Even if they rushed to get vaccinated themselves, no one who is pro-vaccine would provide a friendly, warm forum for influential and outspoken anti-vaxxers to disseminate their disinformation.

After being presented with evidence the Atlas Society has done exactly this, Dr. Hicks rapidly pivoted to a new position that can be summarized as: Yes, we provide a friendly, warm forum for these people and thats good. He claimed that though he is pro-vaccine, Any intellectually honest organization *debates* complex issues.

Apparently Dr. Hicks believes its a complex issue whether or not young people should left vulnerable to a virus that has killed thousands of them when a safe and effective vaccine exists. After all, several honored Atlas Society interviewees believe that unvaccinated young people should be exposed to the virus, and theyve been very successful in their mission with inevitable results. Like I said, denying reality never ends well, even though its often not the denialists who pays the price.

Moreover, Dr. Hicks feels this complex issue should be decided via a debate. He thinks that anti-vaxxers and doctors who treat COVID patients should duke it out in a performance of sorts, where who is right and who is wrong is determined by who puts on the best show. Did the flu really kill more children than COVID, as scholars at the Brownstone Institute often claim? Only a debate can settle which number is really higher, 25 or 1,500. May the most polished speaker win.

Of course, Dr. Hicks completely misrepresented what the Atlas Society actually does. They dont sponsor *debates* with anti-vaxxers. That would require them to provide a friendly, warm forum to a knowledgeable vaccine-advocate, something theyve not done as best as I can tell. I doubt they even know any. Instead, they hand dishonest anti-vaxxers a microphone to answer softball questions from a sycophantic interviewer who selects her guests because theyll say exactly what she wants to hear: COVIDs threat is overblown and those who try to limit it are stupid and corrupt.

Thats why she doesnt push back when her guests say wild and wacky things.

For example, what happened when Dr. Wolf said that thanks to Bill Gates and pharma, we were no longer free to say the pandemic is over? Nothing. What happened when she likened current anti-vaccination discrimination to the historical evils of racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism? Nothing. What happened when Dr. Atlas falsely claimed the Delta variant was less lethal and that high-risk people are the ones who die from the Delta variant, not anybody else? Nothing. What happened when he said that children die from the flu at a higher rate than from COVID? Nothing. What happened when he fear-mongered about boosters and opposed vaccinating children by saying, when people have a low-risk for an illness, I dont understand the case for giving them a vaccine? Nothing.

In the interviewers defense, she likely didnt know that Dr. Atlas was both making stuff up and plagiarizing Dr. Andrew Wakefields cult, merely substituting COVID for measles. She may not have known that his brand of COVID denialism is exactly why healthcare workers have been attacked and why many are quitting. However, she should have known that Dr. Atlas would spread disinformation to further his goal of infecting unvaccinated young people.

Like, what else would he do?

He doesnt hide his intentions. Early in the pandemic, he said, Those who are not at risk to die or have a serious hospital-requiring illness, we should be fine with letting them get infected. Even though effective vaccines are now available, he continues to worship at the altar of so-called natural immunity. To pick one example, he said:

To me, its unconscionable that a society uses its children as shields for adults. Children do not have a significant risk from this illness Are we [as] a society, a civilization going to inject our children with an experimental drug that they dont have a significant benefit from, to shield ourselves?

Dr. Atlas believes that if he says children do not have a significant risk from this illness enough times that means its true. He cant grasp the simple fact that some children do have a significant risk from this illness, and so we vaccinate children to protect children. Again, this is who the Atlas Society legitimizes and amplifies in the middle of a pandemic. Doctors who treat sick kids and provide accurate information are excluded from this echo chamber.

Thanks to the Atlas Society, some people now believe that more dangerous variants are less lethal, that 25 is more than 1,500, and that its a good when unvaccinated young people contract COVID. This is information pollution, and like someone blowing an air horn during a concert, it destroys our ability to debate complex issues. While debates in medicine are important and healthy, a precondition for any meaningful discussion is a shared commitment to honesty and reality. One cant debate the optimal interval for vaccine doses with a prevaricator who denies the virus impacts young people at all.

And lets be clear about a few obvious things regarding vaccines for young people. It doesnt matter whether the flu or COVID is worse. It doesnt matter that most kids will be fine, that other things kill more kids, or that old people have a much higher risk. None of these factoids is an argument against vaccinating children, though that hasnt stopped writers at the Brownstone Institute from using them. Normal people dont want any young person to suffer or die from a vaccine-preventable disease. Of course, young people should be vaccinated against COVID. This is not a complex issue. It is a very simple issue, and doctors with skin in the game should not debate very simple issues with sheltered fabulists whose deceptions have ensured their ICUs were stuffed with low-risk patients.

Trying to have it both ways, Dr. Hicks said it was immoral to lie about vaccines but also that We need to celebrate our generations gadflies. Youll recognize that bit of sophistry as the Galileo gambit. Naturally, Dr. Hicks wasnt saying we need to celebrate gadflies who are brilliant vaccine-scientists. The Atlas Society undermines these people.

Dr. Hicks was also much more concerned about decorum towards anti-vaccine gadflies than the immoral lies they spread. He was very worried that anti-vaxxers were denied civility, a predictable deflection technique used by those who seek to shutdown debate by focusing on manners, not substance. Its just not nice to call someone a liar, I suppose, even when they claim 25 is larger than 1,500. In fact, we should celebrate such people, even when their disinformation leads to doctors getting punched in the face.

Using a meme of himself, Dr. Hicks implied that those who refute anti-vaxxers are akin to Nazi and Soviet disinformation boards and that not amplifying anti-vaxxers was akin to censorship, another predictable deflection technique. If someone feels Im the next Goebbels because I think its a bad idea to debate the premise that 25 is larger than 1,500, then thats a criticism Ill have to learn to live with.

At least Ive never called scientists I disagree with evil, corrupt, and criminal. I never said they were backpedaling and confessing to get ahead of the indictments. Dr. Wolf said all that and more that during her interview with the Atlas Society. Elsewhere, she claimed Dr. Fauci works for Israel, not Americans, something that could be straight out of a Nazi disinformation board actually. More recently, in an article at the Brownstone Institute of course, she revealed her fantasy to shave peoples heads and march them through the town square. She spoke about the need for Nuremberg Trials for Americas quislings and collaborators, noting that There is a reason treason is a capital offense.

Again, this is who the Atlas Society legitimizes and amplifies in the middle of a pandemic.

Unfortunately, Dr. Wolfs message resonates with a lot of angry, armed people. As a result, terrified public health officials have censored themselves by quitting en masse. Dr. Fauci has needed personal security from law enforcement at all times, including at his home. So have his daughters. If youre wondering about a source for such hatred towards Dr. Fauci, I suggest reading the article Who Will Be Held Responsible for this Devastation? on the Atlas Society webpage. It said that The carnage of lockdowns and vaccine mandates is unspeakable and will last a generation or two or more and asked Who is left to blame?

The most likely candidate here is Fauci himself. But I can already tell you his excuse. He never signed a single order. His fingerprints are on no legislation.

Anyone who actually cares about civility and opposes censorship knows that cranks who incite credible threats against scientists need to be exposed and marginalized, not amplified and celebrated.

Dr. Hicks further engaged in bothsideism by asking, How do we tally the costs/benefits of mistakes and lying on both sides? Apparently he sees little difference between Dr. Peter Hotez, who has received countless, vile threats for his vaccine-advocacy, and the anti-vaxxers who make and occasionally act on such threats. According to Dr. Hotez, the hate mail he received was filled with all sorts of Nazi imagery, Nuremberg hangings and terrible, terrible stuff. It was pretty upsetting. I wonder if any of the people who messaged Dr. Hotez heard Dr. Wolf call him a conflicted pharma shill during her interview with the Atlas Society.

Both sides, you see.

As a last resort, Dr. Hicks nursed grievances, saying he was a victim of a guilt-by-association. To paraphrase an assertion he made on multiple occasions: I never said anything about time-traveling via vaccine nanopatticles. So why should I be held accountable as a senior leader of an organization that legitimizes people who say such things?

Is this how Howard Roark would react if lazy workers with poor craftsmanship used the shoddiest materials to construct one of his buildings? As it crumpled to the ground, would he say, Hey, dont look at me, bro. I just made the drawings?

I dont think so.

These deflection techniques are very familiar to regular readers of SBM. However, it was what Dr. Hicks said at the end of the conversation that inspired this essay. Reflecting on the discussion, he said the whole thing was just a mostly fun Twitter thread on Covid and that he mostly enjoyed the wide-ranging discussion today.

And there is it. It was just a game the whole time.

Indeed, the pandemic has been little more than a game and brand-building opportunity for amoral disinformation groups and the grifters they promote. Having been informed that over 300,000 Americans died due to the type of anti-vaccine disinformation his organization legitimizes, Dr. Hicks could only reflect on how entertaining the whole spectacle was. The greatest mass death event in American history is just an intellectual puzzle, discussed in a state of purposeful ignorance regarding the real damage caused by some of its players.

Multiple people tried to impress upon Dr. Hicks that this wasnt just a conversation about which superpower is best. Despite our efforts, like all the people I write about, Dr. Hicks never showed any recognition that flesh-and-blood people, including children, have suffered as a consequences of anti-vaccine disinformation. I discussed previously how some contrarian doctors even shame those who dare to acknowledge any individual child lost to COVID.

In contrast, I believe that individuals matter, and so Ive made a point of recognizing them, including doctors who were friends and teachers of mine. I make an effort not treat people as mere numbers on a government website. Speakers at the Atlas Society do that.

Though the experience was mostly fun for Dr. Hicks, I dont think anyone else felt that way, especially the healthcare workers. They are burnt-out and checking-out as they are fed up with having to mop up the mess created by disinformation superspreaders. They are tired of sheltered talkers treating their lives and the lives of their patients as mere pawns on a chessboard, whose value must be weighed against the harms of offending delicate anti-vaxxers. I previously noted the irony of competent people quitting their jobs not despite Objectivists, but because of them. (Not you, Mr. Bayer).

At least I learned something valuable: Its a waste of time to engage with someone who treats healthcare workers like game pieces for their intellectual entertainment. I wont do it again. I certainly didnt have fun talking with Dr. Hicks. Not only did I grasp the stakes involved, but I was also frustrated that he was willing to debate anything except the only thing that mattered: Is it ethical to legitimize and amplify only dishonest anti-vaccine voices in a pandemic where over 1 million Americans have died?

I dont think it is.

Though I wont interact with Dr. Hicks on social media, Im always open to different perspectives. So, I really hope he pens a rebuttal to my piece titled: Those Who Believe in Time-Traveling via Vaccines With Nanopatticles and Other Essential Pandemic Voices. You see, I dont believe in time-traveling via vaccines with nanopatticles, my essays dont have pictures of guillotines, and Ive treated many COVID patients. If these character flaws arent disqualifying, Id be thrilled to give a talk at the Atlas Society titled This is What Ayn Rand Warned About.

And while its unlikely theyll platform someone whos willing to stand alone against a group, Im glad that Dr. Hicks and one of his critics found some common ground.

Dr. Jonathan Howard is a neurologist and psychiatrist based in New York City who has been interested in vaccines since long before COVID-19.

View all posts

Read the original here:

Is Discussing the Consequences of Anti-Vaccine Disinformation Fun? - Science Based Medicine

THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION has somehow found its own answer to those graft-ridden red-light cameras that plague the streets of select municipalities.

For lack of a formal phrase, call it a "remote, electronic, delayed overturn" ("REDO").

Sunday night, all a REDO did was non-mirthfully wipe out a 3-point basket by Miami's Max Strus long after the points were registered.

That delayed third-quarter camera consciousness ultimately enabled the Boston Celtics to hang on for a 100-96 win in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. It also made winners of BOS backers, who laid either 2 or 3 points.

The Celtics will open the NBA Finals vs. cuddly Golden State Thursday (ABC, ESPN2; 8 p.m., Mike Breen or Mark Jones, Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson and a cast with far too many mediocrities).

THERE WAS NOTHING CUDDLY about the call that victimized Strus -- or everyone even minutely siding with the Heat and the bed-panning organic integrity of the NBA.

Miami played a flat first half. Strus appeared to have helped flip the energy level less than a minute into the third period with his bomber.

Close to three full playing minutes later -- later! -- play-by-play man Jones informed that a replay decision by NBA HQ (monitoring from Secaucus, N.J.) wiped out the basket because Strus's left heel had touched a sideline.

The call wasn't big. It was HUGE!!!

Competitive and Vegas Huge.

THE PICTURES FLYING THROUGH the weird air proved decisive late when the phenomenal Jimmy Butler made the empty-hero decision to try a trey over Al Horford on the fly with 16.6 remaining and the Heat behind, 98-96.

He had clear sailing to the basket but his flare missed.

Boston rebounded. Two free throws later, the Celtics were Golden Gate-bound and the Heat were toastado.

THE NBA'S INTENT WITH the full-game monitoring out of Secaucus is sincere.

Besides providing a deep-safety net for challenged calls and late-game reviews, it also in concept attempts to assure more universal management of periodically subjective statistics including assists, rebounds, blocks and all.

But to arbitrarily wipe out a mood-swinging, midgame call minutes after it's in the books and on the scoreboard?

And -- gasp -- alter payouts to gamblers?

What do they think this is?

The Kentucky Derby?

STREET-BEATIN': On the subject of the current NBA, James Worthy's words to a Detroit sports talker continue to resonate: "Guys are coming into the league who are not fundamentally sound. All they do is practice '3s,' lift weights, get tattoos, tweet and go on social media. That's it." (Michael Jordan always hated when he was interrupted while reading Camus or Ayn Rand.) ...

Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus will make a public debut of sorts during the Bears Care Gala at Soldier Field Saturday night. Jeff Joniak hosts and Tom Thayer will call the charity auction. Ryan Pace is not expected to be bid on. Tickets remain available with full info at ChicagoBears.com/BearsCareGala. ...

The elevation of Kaitlin Sharkey and Chris Boden to replace Dan Roan at WGN-Channel 9 underscores the fact that there are no longer any stars in nightly TV sports on Chicago stations. Sharkey should continue making her bones and move on to bigger things; The landscape is now festooned with low-budget, low-impact types. ...

Not that many noticed, but Jason Benetti had to ditch an assignment on Peacock's "MLB Sunday Leadoff" last weekend because his South Side bosses wanted him to work the Sox-Cubs game. Endurable Jon Miller filled in on the Reds-Giants tilt and Benetti got to call a fluky 5-4 Tony La Russa Machine Shop win. ...

Allstate Arena will be the scene as Stefan Noesen and the Chicago Wolves open the Western Conference Finals vs. the visiting Stockton Heat Friday at 7 p.m. (AHLTV.com). Word on Mannheim Road is that if the Wolves don't win the Calder Cup, their practices next season will be moved to The Donald E. Stephens Museum of Hummels in Rosemont. ...

Sports maestro Rick Sorci and his Cave Dwellers perform at Dunkley's Tavern in Addison Saturday night. (The longtime hustler was once one of the most formidable Big Game tabletop hockey players in the Midwest; Mike Adamle was a level or two below.) ...

And Bob Brooker, on news that John Madden will grace the cover of Madden NFL 23: "Wasn't Cody Whitehair available?"

Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.

Read the original:

O'Donnell: Will the NBA's new red-light camera calls ruin The Finals for ABC/ESPN? - Daily Herald