Memories of the 28th Century

Aging is a more interesting subject than critical judgment, so I'll forget the other one for now. Have you noticed that some people look old before they hit forty, while others look youthful into their seventies? Even more interesting, some parts of bodies age faster than others. We all know about telomers, but this link tells of methylation of genes, as part of the aging process in addition to stopping the activity of genes, and it also tells of differential aging rates. http://io9.com/scientists-discover-p...ffn-1449085569 ...

I just read an article about internet connected things, gadgets, tools, refrigerators, people, cars, etc., and it reminded me of the relative emptiness of virtual life, a metaphor for living through things, rather directly with other people. Humans for all their strangeness are still just relatively naked apes, and apes are extremely social animals. Chimpanzees spend a very large part of their time grooming each other, when they aren’t engaging in sexual intercourse. They do take breaks for food ...

What has been the effect of the dramatic decrease in tobacco smoking in the last few decades? Smoking makes people happier. Has a decrease in smoking made people collectively less happy? Has the decrease in smoking done anything for anyone?

I don't recall having seen anything on this matter before, but let's take a little look at the aggregate, since looking at individuals will just tell us about a few individuals. I just search for online information about the campaign against smoking ...

There seem to be people who think that liberalism is a synonym for socialism, and that people like Ted Kennedy and Obama et alia were or are liberals. Sometimes it seems like people think that liberalism and state socialism are the same things. Nothing could be further from the truth. Liberalism is about freedoms: s free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and private property, free thought, etc. It is a philosophical movement that began with ...

I just saw an article that suggested that the Malaysian airliner (MH370) that disappeared was stolen by aliens (link below), and that reminded me of other examples of aliens being used as scapegoats for things that some people are too lazy to understand, and for things where there is no evidence of anything. That is very lazy thinking. I don’t know when the first alien abduction was claimed, but there has not been any definite evidence of alien abduction yet. There have only been wild claims, naked ...