Bertrand Russell is the Pope
The story goes that Bertrand Russell, in a lecture on logic, mentioned that in the sense of material implication, a false proposition implies any proposition.
A student raised his hand and said "In that case, given that 1 = 0, prove that you are the Pope."
Russell immediately replied, "Add 1 to both sides of the equation: then we have 2 = 1. The set containing just me and the Pope has 2 members. But 2 = 1, so it has only 1 member; therefore, I am the Pope."
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Africa Risen
Africa Risen by
A book of short Afro-futurism stories. I bought this on Kindle with some Amazon gift money. Last night I read the first story, "The Blue House" by Dilman Dila which was fantastic if a bit somber and sad.
Looking forward to diving into more of these stories as I have stepped away from Isaacson's "The Code Breaker" which is a big book.
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"Officials say US forces killed almost 700 suspected ISIS members in 2022"
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a release on Thursday that it conducted 313 operations against ISIS over the past year, killing 466 operatives in Syria and at least 220 operatives in Iraq. Officials also detained 215 operatives in Syria and 159 operatives in Iraq.
The release states that no U.S. forces were injured or killed in the operations, a majority of which were conducted with the United States's allies in the two countries.
It seems notable to me that none of these were done in Afghanistan. I mean, it makes sense, given the whole debacle as we left the country, marching back in to do these operations would not seem sound geopolitically - but, still, given the fact we invaded the entire nation in this godforsaken War on Terror, I thought it notable.
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Scientists exhumed Gregor Mendel to sequence DNA to mark his bicentennial
Exhuming Mendel from his grave in Brno and running genetic tests on his remains turned out to be a doable project – so long as they could get permission from the Augustinians. That's the religious order that Mendel belonged to, and with which he remains: The Augustinian tomb in the city's central cemetery was thought to contain Mendel's body.
Local religious leaders consulted with Augustinians in Prague, their bishop, and finally Augustinians in Rome. Eventually, permission was granted.
"No one at the time, including Mendel, I think, suspected that his work would be so groundbreaking in terms of being a major scientific theory," says Daniel Fairbanks, a plant geneticist and author of a book called Gregor Mendel: His Life and Legacy.
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"If Andrew Tate is Your Hero, I Feel Bad for You"
Andrew Tate is an awful person. And I made my opinion of him known in this post on Mastodon. This Doomer post is excellent in the intro of who this dipshit is, and also delving into the incel movement and the people who are easy marks for Tate.
Maybe you're wondering, who's Andrew Tate? Well, he's a misogynist who made his first millions by hiring camgirls to talk to men. He ran a studio for them, but took more than half their earnings.
From there, he started promoting himself as a wealth coach.
The only thing worse than Andrew Tate is the litany of praise from his fanboys (and occasional fangirls). Let's face it, he has massive influence. Even after learning that Tate basically runs scams, his admirers say things like, "the marketing and his business model are solid." When Tate makes sexist remarks they say, "He's just kidding. He's doing that for shock value." They call him a marketing genius. They describe his wealth as inspirational, even if he makes it by running ponzi schemes and human trafficking rings. They shrug at his climate denial. When he calls the pandemic a hoax, they look the other way.
To them, it's all about the money.
It excuses everything.
And on Incels:
Millions of young men have convinced themselves they'll never attain the kind of life they want. They look to figures like Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson, who offer them all the wrong answers. Instead of focusing on the ways that predatory capitalism has largely destroyed their future, the Tates and Petersons of the world swoop in like vultures to profit off them further. They sell them books, courses, memberships, and conferences that promise to help them redeem their masculinity and grant them access to some kind of secret brotherhood.
They convince these men to blame women for all of their problems. It's not the corporations ruining their lives, it's women with college degrees. They're the real threat. This brand of toxic masculinity markets the debunked idea of the alpha male as the solution. If you simply act like a sociopath, then your wildest dreams will come true. You'll get the anime girl.
Men like Andrew Tate don't understand self-esteem. If they do, then they're lying to their fans. They treat it like a zero-sum game. To them, you can only create self-worth by depriving someone else of theirs. That someone else is usually a woman, or another man further down the hierarchy. Likewise, you can only make money by taking it from peasants and slave minds.
That's what these men sell in their online courses. You gain wealth by exploiting others. It's what they promote. It's why Andrew Tate trolls for attention, and why he acts out when it backfires.
It's not marketing genius.
It's cruelty.
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Apple and their cords
I have to take a moment and marvel at the tomfoolery on Apple's part. My mother-in-law has had an iPad we bought her last year. This trip she decided she wanted an iPhone and airPods. After a trip to the Apple store yesterday we acquired both, and I began the process of educating her. In doing so I discovered that each of her devices has a unique cable.
Her iPad has a USB-C to USB-C connecting cable. Her iPhone has USB-C to Lightning. And her airPods have USB-A to Lightning.
Just imagine, if they didn't try to carry forward their own unique connector, how simple things could be.
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