I’m rather under the weather, so please use this post to talk among yourselves, if you so desire.
Category: Administrative Page 28 of 35
Ok, after some hours of fun, fun, fun, posts should now show as soon as they are published and so should comments.
If they are NOT, please press ctrl-F5 (or command-F5 on Mac) and that should resolve it. For Chromebook, use Ctrl-Shift-r.
Comments were turned off; they are now turned on. If you have any problems, please let me know (comment below, or admin-at-ianwelsh-dot-net).
I hope you are of good cheer, healthy, and in no danger or meaningful deprivation.
I’m not celebrating this year, since my immediate family is dead and my extended family far away, but it’s a lovely day of rest, and I am happy if others are happy.
Regular posting will resume soon, there seems little point in anything extended right now. (One of the things daily traffic charts make clear is that people surf far more at work than home!)
Take care of yourself.
Competent and good are not synonyms.
Smart and good are not synonyms.
Evil and competent are not synonyms.
Virtues are not all moral virtues.
Bravery is a morally neutral virtue. It makes bad people worse, and good people better, and without it all virtues and vices are nearly meaningless.
Competence is morally neutral. It is how you use your competence that matters.
Next: Human Nature.
It is possible for people to be both good and bad. A politician may do something good, and then do something bad. It is even possible for a person who is evil overall (George Bush, Obama, Putin) to do the right thing, for the right reason. People can murder others one day, and rescue babies the next and rescue those babies out of the milk of human kindness.
If you do not understand any of the above, if you are not capable of disentangling your emotions or your tribal identities enough to reason like this, then you are incapable of rational thought when it matters.
Finally, if you do not like my writing, if it bothers you that I say that Trump is competent, or that Genghis Khan, though evil, was a great man, you do not have to read it. If someone is threatening you to force you read my stuff, please call the police.
Many people do not seem to know how to unsubscribe from the email list. The unsubscribe link is at the bottom of the email.
While, on occasion, I write to comfort people, I do not write to pander to people’s prejudices or tribal identities.
The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.
Sunday May 29th, I will be publishing a review of Saul’s book. Voltaire’s Bastards is about how reason has slain purpose, sense and effective democracy. It was first published in the early 90s, but the trends he was observing have only become worse–far worse–since then.
It’s an infuriating book in many ways, despite being well-written, precisely because the idiocy and corruption he documents continues apace, but it’s a book worth reading.
If you want to read it before the review comes out, you have till the 29th.
If you enjoyed this article, and want me to write more, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.