Category: critical thinking

11 So what kind of week has it been?

February 1, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · conservativism · forces of stupid · politics

Have you ever noticed that sometimes things seem to happen all at once? You know how it is – your boss compliments your work on the same day that you find a pair of jeans that fit perfectly on the same day that the radio plays all your favourite songs? Then a week later, your boss forgets your name, you spill bleach on the jeans, and your radio stabs you in the kidneys with a switchblade*.

You all know what I’m talking about, right?

Some times we have really good weeks, and some times we have terrible weeks. Most of the time it’s a mixed bag, but there’s those occasional periods where the scales seem to be tipped predominantly in one direction. So… what kind of week has it been?

Costly federal appointments office has nothing much to do

In the six years since the Harper government came to power, Canadian taxpayers have spent millions of dollars on supporting a federal appointments commission that doesn’t exist. The money has disappeared into a bureaucracy set up to support the commission — a bureaucracy that seems to have just about everything except a commission to support.

So you know the old trope about conservatives being in favour of ‘small government’ and cutting ‘wasteful’ spending (by which they mean things they are ideologically opposed to)? Yeah… it seems as though the evidence continues to mount that the supposed fiscal restraint associated with the right wing is as illusory as the moral superiority their base keeps talking about. This isn’t the only ghost department that the Harper government has created, mind you:

A federal agency created by the Harper government with great political fanfare in 2008 is costing millions of dollars to achieve pretty much nothing. The Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board has just about everything a budding government agency could want.

So far, it has spent over $3.3 million for new offices, computers and furniture, well-paid executives and staff, travel budgets, expense accounts, board meetings, and lots of pricey consultants. All that’s missing is a reason for it to exist at all. … Continue Reading

2 Empowered Health: Week 2

January 31, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · health · health care · medicine · skepticism

So the Vancouver Sun is still forging ahead with it’s largely useless feature called Empowered Health. The general bent of the pieces seems to be that a healthy diet and an active lifestyle are good ideas (whoops, spoilers!), but as is the pattern with woo-friendly journalism, they sneak in a bunch of counterfactual nonsense in there as well under the guise of “alternative” practices. They are an alternative – an alternative to stuff that might actually work.

Let’s forge ahead, shall we? … Continue Reading

33 Trying to tread privilege

January 30, 2012
by Crommunist
· anti-racism · blog · critical thinking · crommunism · feminism · privilege · skepticism

One of the most frustrating phenomena in the realm of talking about out-group discrimination, whether that be racial or gender or otherwise, is the common appeal to “some”.

“Why do you say ‘white people’ have privilege? Not every white person has racial issues! Shouldn’t you say some white people?”

“Why do you say that men objectify and abuse women? Not every man does that! Shouldn’t you say some men?”

“Why do you say that atheists have to be more welcoming to women? Some atheists are women! Shouldn’t you say some atheists?”

It is a particularly stubborn and tedious argument to have. A large chunk of it is people’s failure to distinguish between universal and general statements. This is a very superficial explanation, though. After all, we have no problem when someone on the news says “New Hampshire went to the polls today.” There aren’t any pedants who jump up and down screaming “don’t you mean some people in New Hampshire? Not everyone in the state votes!” … Continue Reading

27 Petition: Make stupid American school stop being morons

January 27, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · forces of stupid · religion · skeptivism

COMMENTER UPDATE: The preamble now says (presumably an update):

“I’d like to thank everyone for their support. I never imagined that the petition would gain so much attention. However, this whole situation has been a large misunderstanding between myself and the administration. I never meant to shed Paradise Valley in a negative light. PV is an accepting community of diverse students and staff. I have met with my principal and this situation has been resolved. The misunderstanding was completely on my end of things. Again, thank you all for your activism and support.”

That doesn’t sound coerced at all, but whatever.

Ugh. I know how incredibly awful it is to say that someone is “asking for it”, in light of how often that canard is used to excuse horrible violence against women, but really… these guys are asking for it.

The administration at Paradise Valley High School in Arizona has apparently asked students wanting to start a secular club to get signatures in support before they’ll allow the club.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/allow-the-secular-student-alliance-at-paradise-valley-h.html

This is, of course, illegal as all hell. Under the Equal Access Act, if your school is an open forum (a status achieved by having a single non-academic club) you must allow all clubs. The signatures are irrelevant.

So fly, my moderate number of minions! Sign the petition and teach the administrators what it means to fuck with the godless. Show them that young atheists seeking to organize have a shit-ton of backup, even if they live in Arizona. Show them that this kind of stuff can’t be swept under the rug anymore.

Dear Arizona: We see you.
Signed, people you DON’T want to fuck with

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26 Republicans, Racism, Religion, and Revulsion

January 26, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · conservativism · forces of stupid · politics · racism

You may not find it odd that I haven’t yet said anything about the ongoing race for the GOP primary, but I do. After all, I talk about politics all the time, and every media outlet has something about the nomination fight up on an ongoing basis. I don’t know if there’s any particular reason I haven’t felt like writing about it – I’ve certainly been following it. If anyone’s curious about my thoughts on the whole situation, I’ll try to provide them to you briefly.

1. Everyone in the race is the worst human being I’ve ever seen

I have a strong dislike for conservative ideology. I have an even stronger dislike for whatever you call the Republican ideology. The Republican party resembles to me a wholly-owned subsidiary of feckless pandering to the worst and least informed instinct in all of us, and naked avarice. While it has become fashionable to say “well both parties are bought and paid for”, the fact is that the Republican party is far and away the most egregious sinner. … Continue Reading

20 Religious tolerance

January 26, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · psychology · race · racism · religion · science · skepticism

We are led to believe that religion makes people better. That following the moral instructions laid out in this holy book or that one will provide us all with the information necessary to live decent, ethical lives. We are even told – most of the time through blind assertion – that the existence of any kind of human morality requires a deity. That without religious instruction, the world would quickly descend into amoral anarchy full of murder and sex acts so bizarre, Rick Santorum would need 5 or 6 additional surnames just to describe them all.

We also know that racism is fundamentally wrong. Prejudice based on something as arbitrary and biologically meaningless as socially-constructed ethnic groups is part of a dark chapter of the human experience that we are all working feverishly to finish and close forever. Thanks to great strides we have made as a society, we can be confident that anyone can recognize the simple moral truth of the need to treat each other as equals, regardless of their heritage.

As a result, we might have a tough time explaining this: … Continue Reading

6 The religion that cried “wolf”

January 25, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · forces of stupid · race · racism

Those of you new to the blog may be unaware that I also contribute to Canadian Atheist, a group blog made up of a diverse group of atheists from across the country. It’s a good group, and I often get a chance to go full anti-theist and vent there in a way that I don’t like doing here. Today, I wrote this:

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous now. Those of you that know me best from my work decrying racist attitudes and unraveling the code of “politely” racist statements know that I have a fairly well-developed radar for bigotry. I am not one to shrink from making the call, even in those circumstances where the room is against me and I am forced to explain myself in excruciating detail. Racism is a serious problem, and I think we should be devoting more time and attention to it, not less.

If you’ve been involved in discussions of race-based (or really, any other kind of) bigotry, it’s a good chance that you’ve been accused at some point of being “the real racist”. The argument goes something like this: if everyone just acted like race wasn’t important, it would all of a sudden cease to be a factor. I will not bother detailing the number of reasons why this position is stupid – it’s the Wile E. Coyote school of debate…

Go read the rest of the article, and be sure to check out the high quality contributions of my co-authors. Since I don’t have to be impartial, I will take this opportunity to give a particular shoutout to Ian Bushfield, a fellow Vancouver skeptic whose writing I always find insightful and persuasive.

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13 Empower Health: Week 1

January 24, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · health · health care · medicine · science · skepticism

So last week I noticed, with more than a little consternation, that the Vancouver Sun has begun publishing a feature it calls Empower Health:

Better health is not a destination. Your health is a journey of small steps, things you can do to improve your mental and physical well-being.

Empowered Health is a new locally produced television program that shows you the path to better health with weekly tips on eating better, improving your fitness and navigating the minefield of the health care system and the dozens of complementary and alternative therapies and practices.

Those of you who don’t know much about Vancouver aside from the excellent work that the Vancouver Skeptics do here may be unaware that it is a city full of woo-woo nonsense. One can’t walk a city block without stumbling over a reflexologist or a chiropractor or some other snake-oil peddler trying to separate fools from their money. Because Vancouver has a large population of young, well-educated and upwardly mobile people, it has succumbed to the stereotypical west-coast syndrome of buying wholesale into “alternative” practices. Add to that a large immigrant population bringing practices from their countries of origin and a well-developed sense of fascination with anything “exotic”, and you have a perfect recipe for this kind of hucksterism.

Now, ordinarily the only thing I read the Sun for is local news and Canucks coverage, but I figured I wouldn’t be doing my duty as a local skeptic if I didn’t take a swing at the glass jaw they’re dangling out there. So I will try, every week, to digest the claims made in these articles. … Continue Reading

13 Economists and Ethics

January 23, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Brian Lynchehaun · crapitalism · critical thinking · ethics · philosophy

It’s something of an inevitability that when the various heinous acts of corporations are brought to light, the Economists march out in lock-step to explain to the dissenters A) how emotional and irrational the dissenters are acting and B) sure, isn’t this the best possible thing that could be happening for ‘those people’?

This line of thinking was most recently articulated by Paul Krugman in The Slate. I want to focus on the two main points of this article: 1) the lie being presented that this is the best possible choice we could make given “the alternative”, and 2) the objection to this is being made on purely emotional grounds (i.e. there are no rational grounds to this objection) … Continue Reading

20 Standing on the shoulders of assholes

January 23, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · crommunism · forces of stupid

First of all, I need to apologize for the visual that is now in your head (or will be shortly) of an asshole with shoulders. It’s an unfortunate byproduct of colliding metaphors. Here’s something to cleanse your mental palate:

Many of us (myself included) have had the decidedly unpleasant experience of expressing the unpopular opinion in the room and getting just piled on by dissenters. You think that there may be a position that deserves exploration, that isn’t being discussed or considered. There’s a gaping hole in the logic of the room, and you’re apparently the only person who sees it. This group-think, by circumventing your clear counter-example, is leading people to draw erroneous and potentially harmful conclusions about the topic at hand. It’s up to you to show the room the error of their ways, so you carefully craft a bulletproof refutation of the central tenets of the argument, or provide an insightful counterexample that is sure to immediately change everyone’s minds. Then you sit back and let the accolades for your erudite and clear thinking roll in. … Continue Reading

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