Empathy in animals

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_in_animals#Primates

Basically humans are nothing more than an exaggeration on what exists in other species. They feel emotions. Were it not so, I think cats who have grown friendly toward me would scratch my face more readily. They seem to care somewhat. Take away the rewards, and studies show rates can be trained to still feel empathy….perhaps solidiary is an evolved trait.

This suggest humans need to be trained to feel empathy too. Do we need to be forced to suffer as part of our education? Is a little corporal punishment actually good? (It would make you feel sorry for someone who was struck wouldn’t it?) Will kids someday be subjected to a brief amount of torture at school, so that no one except the biggest psychopaths would  ever want to torture anyone? Is this why all people around the world should have to serve in the military, so we stop pushing for stupid wars? Do women need to get into more fights? How can we increase empathy and also teach it to the conservatives and silicon valley elite who often lack it?

At the very least all rich people need to spend some time in third world countries, and all people need to occasionally visit them so they dont forget how bad some people have it. We need to fix those problems, and we need to fight the people who say trying to be “woke” is a bad thing.

Atlantic: rebel kids

Hmm, the Atlantic has some pretty cool videos. I hope my kids will be rebels.

Observed a fellow Rika Furude fan

https://youtube.com/user/esfelectra/videos
https://twitter.com/mr__cynical?lang=en
I just discovered that Mr Cynical (aka “the invisible anchor”) from Twitter who is an anime blogger that also likes Rika a lot.

Dawkins attacks Japan for whaling

I am inclined to agree with Richard Dawkins and think this could hurt the ecosystem. It is unbelievable they would simply pull out of the IWC agreement, but maybe they felt they could while Trump is destroying all the organizations and people are clamoring for more realpolitik.

‘Japan’s contemptible decision to leave the IWC and resume commercial whaling shows up the hypocrisy of the so-called “scientific” whaling policy that they have been dishonestly pursuing for years.’

When Philip Pullman argued the USSR (or Marxism) was a theocracy

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/nov/06/usa.politics

>’There is the concept of heresy and its punishment: as it might be, Trotskyism.’

I heard Christopher Hitchens arguing as Pullman does, and it’s quite nice to see a nicely written article which might have influenced Hitchens. I honestly like the author, although I would be skeptical of his economic views if he’s actually a neoliberal, a libertarian, or completely opposed to any kind of socialism or “marxism.” What if his views there are stuck in the past with JK Rowling? (I’m surprised he says he hasn’t been following the trans debate, and I kind of wish his books had characters that touched on that.) Glancing at his twitter he seems to want more funding for education, and opposes Brexit, so he’s definitely a liberal.

Eventually subsequent generations will have wider eyes than him, and we’ll just have to learn how to write stories that are even more liberal than what he wrote.

Thunderf00t destroys climate change denier

Well, Thunderf00t did a good job of showing global warming is real and a danger. I liked his section where he pointed at Venus and showed climate change deniers can’t explain how hot that planet is if greenhouse gasses don’t cause global warming. That has also been my default way of ripping the deniers apart.

Translation:

Don’t take Steven Milloy the founder of Burnmorecoal.com seriously, he’s a lying piece of shit just like most of the pundits on Fox News.

Sam Harris (secretly?) Resents Millennials; (Exits Patreon)

“I can’t allow any significant amount of my podcast funding to exist at the pleasure of a bunch of millennials who can’t figure out which way is up, whenever someone utters a bunch of taboo syllables.” (Sam Harris @ 10:00 in.)

It annoys me is how he calls the CEO of Patreon a millennial like a slur, but never slurs the Baby Boomers or even criticizes them in the the way that Christopher Hitchens did. In that case, Sam Harris you’ve been acting like a stupid Boomer for the last few years. Your choice of company is pathetic (Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson, Eric Weinstein, Travis Pangburn, and a host of other conservatives and very boring people.)  You’re nothing like Christopher Hitchens, you’re not as open-minded as he was at all.

Why I don’t support revolutionary change

>”I could go on, but what needs to happen in the U.S. is a Revolution by the people against the Establishment System to bring it down to the ground and to build a new System based upon honesty and integrity in its place.”

“A revolution to create a new system based on honesty and integrity” really is a fool’s dream. In all of that chaos how are you going to create a better society? Most of the country cannot even agree on democracy, universal liberal values, or shared power anymore.

The South specifically wants to build a racist segregated theocracy where white Christians hold the power; Silicon Valley has been conditioned by years of libertarian propaganda to want technocracy with a few giant companies who can control all the information and manipulate our psychologies; Portland can’t agree on what form of anarchy they want but they’re with Anti-fa; the middle of the country are hicks who just want to keep their church and their guns and for the federal government to leave them alone. Hardly anyone is pro-establishment or pro-government anymore, but I don’t see a good alternative. (And don’t forget that Russia and China would try to sabotage any revolution by promoting the parties and players that you don’t want to control us.)

Stupid Christian family tall tales

Why are Christians obsessed with sharing these clearly bullshit stories like this on [insert social media]?

Speaking of military miracles, my family passed down one that is fucking dumb.

Supposedly my great great whatever grandpa was a Union solider who was imprisoned at Anderson prison in the South, where he was malnourished and thirsty. He prayed to God and suddenly a spring appeared and flooded the prison, and he just swam out of the prison and escaped.

Then my cocky relatives grin and say it’s a family miracle, and the evidence is there’s a real Anderson prison, but that on the official records no one has ever escaped from the prison, but it must be true because one of our dead relatives said it happened and otherwise he wouldn’t be alive.

Since it was supposed to be a family secret it was more persuassive and made me think miracles were happening all around us when I was growing up. It never troubled me that I’ve never even met the dead guy, or seen the miracle firsthand, because I heard so many miracle stories that I became credulous to miracles.

I used to hear the story a lot, but I heard a variant online, and now I think it’s a tall tale some deceased liar in the family must have heard and then narcissistically claimed he was a part of.

Chaser John Doe

Seriously, I love this character from Yumekui Merry, and I’m pretty sure he’s a fedora too. I’m not so sure about Merry, but she is oddly fixated on her hat.