Blogs I like...

This will be useful when I'm not at my computer. Generally I don't feel like I'm wasting my time if I'm reading something on these blogs because I learn something new.

Science Related:
Neurologica Blog
Frontal Cortex
Evolutionary Psychology Blog
Political:
Ezra Klein
The Monkey Cage
Randomness:
The New Yorker Blogs
The Daily Dish

Always validate your prejudices always.

Please forgive me for my previous posts. I understand that they were very "2009" and did not follow the "retro" look that this blog is "going for". I wish you knew how funny I think I am.

So, as I have "grown up", mostly starting around 2006 (probably), I have practiced critical thinking and have significantly dropped my prejudices. My previous feelings or beliefs weren't influenced by any one person, I wasn't preached hate or encouraged to judge people. However I heard everyone's subtle racism and sexism and I was absorbed in TV and music that fed those prejudices. I never felt that I was significantly better than another "race" or gender, but I definitely thought I was somewhat better, whether I would admit it or not.

The biggest observation I have made by just listening to people talk, is that the majority of people don't consider themselves racist. They will just make remarks like "it is what it is", or "thats the way things are". What these people are not realizing is that they are constantly validating their negative feelings towards other groups of people. You might not think that you do this sort of thing, but ask yourself what happens when a woman cuts you off in traffic. What if it is an Asian person who cut you off? You will definately make a note, likely verbally, about the person who did this and how their physical appearance ties in to the decision that they made. You will add this to your fucking bank of "See, (insert defining human characteristic) can't drive!!!" Now what happens when someone just like you does the same exact thing. You will likely say "What a dick!". You will not consider this at all as a reflection of this persons skin color or age or gender, because they are just like you and you don't possess any traits that make mistakes such as this!

A bigger problem is when there seems to be "proof" for why you feel a certain way. I immediately think about white people who will make statements about the crime rate and prison populations of "those blacks". This is where critical thinking is very important, you don't believe any stat that you hear at face value. Just because these statements are true, it does not accurately reflect the true nature of any black person. There are variables that produce this outcome. Generations of people born into poverty and crime, you were lucky enough not be one of them, who do you think you would be in those conditions? If you think that the Civil Rights Act of 1968 means everybody starts living on a level playing field in "nice" neighborhood and can now get good education and good jobs, than you are incapable of critical thinking. If you understand the recent history of the United States of America, you will surely understand why those numbers exist.

Maybe another time I can write, "If you born as black inmate #3, you would surely be black inmate # 3, you are not special".

Random People

After deleting (editorial decision from my corporate overlords) Shane's last post, I'll be continuously updating this useless post (probably).

Randomly thought of people:
Charles Ferguson
Matt Dillahunty
Richard Feynman
Malcolm X
Dexter Filkins
Bill Easterly
Carl Zimmer
Bertrand Russell
Zainab Salbi
Noam Chomsky
Atul Gawande
George Packer
Robert Sapolsky
Jane Meyer
Frederick Douglass
Paul Krugman
Carl Sagan
Peter Singer
Robert Crumb
Matt Taibbi
Jennifer Michael Hecht
Bill Moyers
Cass Sunstein
David Foster Wallace
Andrew Bacevich

Techno-triumphalism!

Awesome series on the perils of relying solely on "rational" or "technological" systems to dictate decision making on a whole societal scale:

Pandora's Box (1992) BBC

Part 1 details the Soviet Union's massive Stalinist techno-bureaucracy and the resulting tragic comedy of wholly top-down planned economies. Teh world.

Look at this child...

The 65-year old "dude" behind Abercrombie & Fitch.

From a Salon.com article:

He wants desperately to look like his target customer (the casually flawless college kid), and in that pursuit he has aggressively transformed himself from a classically handsome man into a cartoonish physical specimen: dyed hair, perfectly white teeth, golden tan, bulging biceps, wrinkle-free face, and big, Angelina Jolie lips...Jeffries wouldn't discuss any of that with me, and he fidgeted nervously and grew visibly agitated when I asked about several of the many controversies and lawsuits he has weathered in his 14 years at the helm of A&F. Our first bump came when I mentioned the 2002 uproar over the company's thongs for middle-school girls, which had "Eye Candy" and "Wink Wink" printed on their fronts. "That was a bunch of bullshit," he said, sweating profusely. "People said we were cynical, that we were sexualizing little girls. But you know what? I still think those are cute underwear for little girls...As far as Jeffries is concerned, America's unattractive, overweight or otherwise undesirable teens can shop elsewhere. "In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids," he says. "Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.

He's been amazingly successful at his job, but in 2009 he got paid $71.8 million dollars while his company made $254,000 total (compared to $273 million in 2008).
Why did this company have to exist when I was in middle school?

21st Century Blogging Criteria. June 2002 updated update.

Bozo.

Bozo.

Live with and die from the

Bozo.

Feel Free in your thoughts
Feel Free in your body(s)
Live Free or die changing your mind.


Give all you have to yourself.
This is blueprint to European success.


Get away from it, separate for now.
Come back after apocalypse.

The honorable pastor Manning...

The real life uncle ruckus.

New season of Boondocks starts May 2nd.