- How Ayn Rand Helped Turn the U.S. Into a Selfish, Greedy Nation: “The ‘Atlas Shrugged’ author made selfishness heroic and caring about others weakness.”
- Turning Science Into the New Welfare Queen: “Ronald Reagan created a mythological character — the “Welfare Queen” — and taught America that it was OK to be racist, OK to hate poor people, and OK to resent paying taxes. More than 30 years later, a substantial number of Americans still believe that lazy black women make millions of dollars a year by popping out babies and signing them up for welfare.” This model is now being applied to scientific research as a whole – and is aimed at the NSF.
- Why I Am Not a Maker: By Deb Chachra. “When tech culture only celebrates creation, it risks ignoring those who teach, criticize, and take care of others.”
- Infamous, Thoughtless, Careless: A 3-part series by Mark Bernstein on Wikipedia’s recent #GamerGate banhammer on feminist editors.
- Reinforcing Other Axes of Oppression Isn’t “Punching Up”: Self-explanatory title.
Category: Advocacy
On Wisdom.
1. Know Thine Enemy.
“Learn the ancient art of rhetoric. The elements of rhetoric, in all of their forms, are what make the world go around—because they are what prompt the decisions people make. If you develop an understanding of how they work, while everyone else is frightened by flames and booming voices, you will be able to see behind veils of communication and see what levers little men are pulling. Not only will you develop immunity from all manner of commercials, marketing, hucksters and salesmen, to the beautiful speeches of liars and thieves, you’ll also find yourself able to craft your speech in ways that influence people. When you know how to speak in order to change someone’s mind, to instill confidence in someone, to quiet the fears of a child, then you will know this power firsthand. However, bear in mind as you use it that your opponent in any debate is not the other person, but ignorance.”
-Justin Freeman, on the top 10 things we should know about in life.
3. Simple Truths.
“We will sometimes make people upset. That is ok, because we are right and they need to learn.”
-a dear friend“While the world of public opinion may lean toward viewpoints that trivialize, slander, and demonize the experiences of marginalized populations, it’s important to note one key thing; They are wrong.”
-me (damn right I quoted myself)