Memories of the 28th Century

I just read an article about “The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories” (Karen M. Douglas, Robbie M. Sutton, and Aleksandra Cichocka), and I had been thinking about blogging on the philosophy and logic of conspiracy theories. The only place where I agree with this article is on this point” Our analysis suggests that conspiracy theories may satisfy some epistemic motives at the expense of others—for example, by shielding beliefs from uncertainty while being less likely to be accurate. The epistemic ...

Humans have been accused of having damaged the Earth in some ways, but the major alterations that humans have made to the Earth have been largely ignored, while trouble and noise has been put into climate, which is a perfectly natural thing, and while it is normal and natural for rivers to change courses, it isn’t natural for them to run on the high ground while a lower course is immediately available.

People have been altering rivers to suit them for more than six thousand years. ...

For some reason I started thinking about the Guelphs and Ghibellines, Tories, Know Nothings, Northern Leagues, and various other names that political parties have chosen. While some of the names were intended to show what the party was about, the stance of the party on issues and political preferences tend to evolve over time; thus the name might cease to be appropriate. And some of the names are just words that were applied to a political group.

Perhaps the most interesting terms ...