Culture – Page 184 – William M. Briggs

Guinness, Heineken, & Sam Adams Now Political Statements, Not Beer

I was on the edge of abandoning Guinness anyway. Bars in Manhattan have been selling 13 ounce "pints" of it---and charging for 16 ounces---for the past few months. (If the…

Culture Philosophy Statistics

It’s Time To Lynch Those Who Deny Climate Skepticism

Let us agree with the enlightened that the world is imperfect and ought not to be. The cause of imperfection is human error which ought to be eradicated with extreme…

Culture Statistics

It Was Right To Dumb Down The SAT

It's difficult to design a test such that all those taking it do not all do well nor all do poorly. For instance, suppose the SAT were to consist of…

Culture Philosophy

If I Must Sell, You Must Buy

Note that this is from Jim Fedako. If I were a business owner, must I sell to you? If you answer yes, you must balance that requirement with your obligation…

Culture

Death panels? Sure. The State? No Way

Note that this is from Jim Fedako. Death panels? Certainly. I sit on one, and am subject to another. But, today, it's all OK. How is that so? How are…

Culture Philosophy

Bake Your Own Damn Cake

A new joke. Setup: What do you call it when two guys head to City Hall and undergo a ceremony meant to tie their finances together until one of them…

Book review Culture Philosophy

You Can’t Get Something From Nothing: The Experience of God, Part II

Read Part I You can't get there from here It's difficult, thus far impossible, to get Enlightened persons to understand nothing. Lord knows it's been tried. Some physicists---Larry Krauss, Vic…

Culture Fun Statistics

Best Picture Oscar Winner: Model Prediction

For several years I have been predicting (with perfect accuracy) the best picture Oscar. (See this and this for past years.) The "model" pick for this year is Captain Phillips.…

Philip Rogan on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 29, 2026
Effective Altruism is something else I've never hard of but apparently has been infecting academic circles for decades. I took…
John M on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 29, 2026
Thanks for reminding me of that classic Klingon joke!
Rob Potter on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 29, 2026
Asimov's robot stories are the best example that an artificial intelligence is not intelligence. They were a fabulous way for…
John Pate on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 28, 2026
We should all re-read our Ted Kaczynski materials. A man ahead of his time.
Brian (bulaoren) on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 28, 2026
While in university, I took a class called "Symbolic Logic". Logic was then taught through the Philosophy department, which was…