Statistics

Insanity & Doom Update XLVI

A special all-reader-contribution edition of Doom!

Item WeWork will stop serving meat at company events in effort to reduce environmental impact (Thanks to Sheri for the link.)

The co-working startup WeWork says it will stop serving meat at company events in an effort to reduce its environmental impact.

The firm, which has shared workspace locations in 22 countries, informed employees in an email last week that in addition to not serving meat, it also will not reimburse workers for meals with meat.

We should encourage the company’s leaders to reduce their “impact” to zero—the true minimum. Barring that, we should encourage them to eat nothing but soy. Which eventually will have the same effect.

Item Why We Lie: The Science Behind Our Deceptive Ways (Thanks to Jim Fedako for the link.)

While parents often find their children’s lies troubling—for they signal the beginning of a loss of innocence—Kang Lee, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, sees the emergence of the behavior in toddlers as a reassuring sign that their cognitive growth is on track. What drives the increase in lying sophistication is the development of a child’s ability to put himself or herself in someone else’s shoes.

Known as theory of mind, this is the facility we acquire for understanding the beliefs, intentions, and knowledge of others. Also fundamental to lying is the brain’s executive function: the abilities required for planning, attention, and self-control. The two-year-olds who lied in Lee’s experiments performed better on tests of theory of mind and executive function than those who didn’t. Even at 16, kids who were proficient liars outperformed poor liars.

If this is so, then the best among us must be politicians, journalists, used car salesmen, and lawyers.

Item Children at ‘Commie Camp’ design dozens of Antifa flags, learn about ‘social justice’ (Thanks to Dave Legates for the link.)

Children attending a social justice-themed camp in Massachusetts — which has been dubbed the “Commie Camp” — designed their own Antifa flags this week, pictures posted to social media show.

Kids at Camp Kinderland in Tolland, Massachusetts, which bills itself as the “summer camp with a conscience,” designed nearly 50 Antifa flags, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

Flags are a good start. But parents should be advised the Advanced Gulag Training, Denouncing of Colleagues, and How To Form an Efficient Execution Squad hideaway at the end of the summer might lead to injury or to permanently missing children.

Item U. of Oklahoma Official Hired in Wake of Racist Fraternity Chant Says He Was Forced Out (Thanks to Kent Clizbe for the link.)

A vice president at the University of Oklahoma who says he was forced to resign after being accused of improperly using a state vehicle for personal reasons denied the charge on Thursday. The real reason Jabar Shumate contends he was forced out involved his opposition to a fraternity whose racist chant three years ago plunged the university into turmoil and led to the creation of his position…

On Wednesday, Shumate held a news conference with his lawyer, Lindsey Mulinix-Ewert, to say that the university was going to make false accusations against him to justify what he called his “high-tech lynching.” He had been given an ultimatum, he said: resign or be fired…

A report on the audit, released by the university in response to media inquiries on Thursday, found that Shumate had violated a state law that prohibits employees from making personal use of state vehicles, including parking overnight at their homes. The Tahoe was parked outside his home, in Norman, Okla., 124 times between July 2017 and March 2018, the audit found. He also used it for personal trips to Tulsa, where he formerly lived, and made false travel-expense claims, the report said.

But, hey, he might as well try screaming “Racism!” It nearly always works at universities. Since our goal here at WMBriggs.com is to see the universities purged so that they can be rebuilt, I hope Jabar Shumate gets away with it. And not only gets away with it, but forces the university to give him a free truck, lifetime gas included, so that he can patrol the State for “racists”.

Categories: Statistics

5 replies »

  1. I conscientiously worked to teach my children to lie better as they were growing up. I explained to them that it was an important social skill. I also taught them that if I caught them lying to me, that the punishment was far more severe than it would have been for whatever it was they were trying to hide.

    From a very early age, my wife and I were careful to tell the children, when they were doing something naughty, either “Don’t do that again!” or “Don’t let me catch you doing that again!”, as appropriate to the situation.

    Sneaky can and should be taught.

    Related – there is a belief in linguistic circles that the human ability to speak was developed so that we could lie to each other more proficiently. Modern English developed as a trade language, almost perfectly designed to facilitate obfuscation, misdirection and double dealing.

  2. Last night I discovered a little sign on the table of a restaurant proudly proclaiming it had abandoned the serving of plastic straws for the purpose of saving ocean wildlife (it was a seaside place). Fortunately for them I did not have a pen with which to debunk the meme. Fortunately for me a straw was unneeded for my Guinness and a superb calamari dish.

  3. ”Flags are a good start”

    Much better than what fascist, whit supremacist and sovereign citizens chooses, ie murder.

    McChuck,

    I pity your children

  4. “A special all-reader-contribution edition of Doom!’ Nothing new there then.

    If this is so, then the best among us must be politicians, journalists, used car salesmen, and lawyers.
    and statisticians who believe in fortune telling!
    Charlottens, all.

  5. Sylvain – Get off my lawn, you commie pinko hippie.

    There, see? I can make insults devoid of any intellectual comment, just like you can.

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