- Six documentaries that were shockingly full of crap. I find #4 most interesting because I’ve encountered this argument that Jesus is just a retelling of ancient stories. After some research I found that the similarities between Jesus and others were either A) very broad (Performed Miracles), B) not actually similar except for absurdly broad interpretations (Mithras born from a rock is the same as born of a virgin) or C) revised by the Romans after Jesus (five loaves two fish). Just like Christians who claim that Darwin repented and renounced evolution on his deathbed, many atheists just believe what they like too.
- Can we double McDonalds worker wages by paying a 17% premium? If it sounds too good to be true it is. Consider; at twice the wage most McDonalds employees would be outcompeted by better workers. How would McDonalds workers fare competing against waiters and waitresses? Moreover, the 17% is a dubiously low number (we kept labor at something like 30% when I worked for Taco Bell). And consider how many poor people, the very demographic you are trying to help, are paying this premium when they eat at McDonalds.
- Owen Anderson asks, is self-deception healthy? Assume that true hope does not exist. Two opportunities emerge; false hope (e.g. fideism) and true hopelessness (e.g. skepticism). Since certainty of hopelessness is never the case because it could be that you just haven’t looked hard enough, the best response is to continue seeking true hope. Even until the day you die. Hope for hope. Seek and you shall find, but don’t self-deceive yourself into thinking you’re seeking when you aren’t.
- David Friedman and Michael Huemer participate in a Google Hangout discussion about Diamonds. They refer to a popular story that Diamonds became a popular engagement item because of a DeBeers advertisement. I’m initially very skeptical of stories which confirm popular biases against advertising. David Friedman points out a different paper which concludes that demand for diamonds started going up four years before the marketing campaign. Michael Huemer points out what should be obvious; you can’t just tell people to buy something and they buy it. Huemer is proceeded by some woman who represents popular biases by claiming that advertising are very powerful (and so it makes sense that DeBeers invented demand out of advertising) I guess somebody should have told all of the business failures that advertising is a magic wand that makes consumer buy useless products.
David Friedman nailed it at the end when he says that Diamonds should be thought about kind of like language. There isn’t any particular reason why a word means what it means, just like there’s no particular reason why diamonds have come to signify what they signify, but there’s a need for something and that something tends to stick to social norms. - This guy sings five octaves on the piano. It must be faked.
- Chuck McKnight is interviewed on Rethinking Hell about his conversion to the view that there is no inherent personal immortality (Conditionalism), and how he was fired from Answers in Genesis for this view and its implications on hell.
And a picture of a booshie
