2023-02-15

Worthy

Contra Kavanagh On Fideism - by Scott Alexander

This is an admirably concise encapsulation of everything I despise, so I want to respond.

The ivermectinist slogan is “do your own research”. Kavanagh’s apparent slogan is “don’t do research” - even if you get it right, having tried it at all makes you impure. If there’s some argument I know nothing about - pro- vs. anti- skub, perhaps - and all I’ve heard is that the pro-skub people say that you should look at evidence and decide rationally based on your best judgment, and the anti-skub people say you should never look at evidence and have to trust them - I’m already 90-something percent sure pro-skub are the good guys.

Man who stole 200k Cadbury Creme Eggs convicted
Ohio cleaning up toxic train derailment as pollution 'plume' moves downstream
- HN comments
- Aaand it's Trump's fault; so don't talk about the rail strike 3 months ago where safety was an issue the workers wanted raised and Congress said "no".
- "Dioxin" has become a whole broad family of chemicals now, apparently: Palestine, Ohio train wreck: It's the dioxin
Americans Are Increasingly Single and OK with It

Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, dies at 97
Captain of Thai Soccer Team Who Survived Cave Rescue Dies in England - The New York Times

Duangpetch Promthep, 17, was a member of the soccer team that made an extraordinary escape from a submerged cave in Thailand in 2018. The cause of his death was unclear.

Why you can't trust the media - by Matthew Yglesias

But some of the most striking examples from this period are stories that were less policy-oriented: journalists didn’t report on JFK’s affairs, and they didn’t report on FDR’s paralysis. Only someone whose brain has been totally poisoned by the discourse could truly believe that contemporary mainstream media institutions would sit on stories of that magnitude, even about a president they liked.
- I must have been poisoned, then; because I recall many recent instances of major media unity in misinforming us about stories of far greater immediate import.
Disinfo black ops: exposing the companies and states spreading false information

Trump 2024: Use Firing Squads, Group Executions for Death Penalty – Rolling Stone

The former president, if re-elected, is still committed to expanding the use of the federal death penalty and bringing back banned methods of execution, the sources say. He has even, one of the sources recounts, mused about televising footage of executions, including showing condemned prisoners in the final moments of their lives.
Unchastened by Russiagate, the NY Times Doubles Down in Its Special Counsel Coverage | RealClearInvestigations

The Politicization of Social Science — The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

You may think that academics couldn’t all be filtering facts to fit a belief system. You may call me a conspiracy theorist. I would have agreed with you when I was young, but, after decades as a college professor, I’ve seen the research process up close. I’m like the person who visits a sausage factory and then refuses to eat sausage.