Read or Listen to The Coddling of the American Mind

I really liked and strongly recommend The Coddling of the American Mind to everyone. If you're not interested in the entire book, it started off as an article in the Atlantic with the same title. It continues now as a website with a similar title, https://www.thecoddling.com/.

Below is an audio version of The Atlantic article to give a taste of the ideas. The website has a lot to offer too.

TheAtlantic · The Coddling of the American Mind - The Atlantic - Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

Conflict of Visions: Constrained vs Unconstrained

 “From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time”
― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Constitution Of Liberty

I like Tolstoy's idea again:

"The struggle between the old views and the new was long and stubbornly fought out... In the one case as in the other, on both sides the struggle provokes passion and stifles truth. On the one hand there is fear and regret for the loss of the whole edifice constructed through the ages, on the other is the passion for destruction."

I'm about 40% into Conflicts of Vision. I've only listened, and it's a tough listen. So I'm going to revisit in print form.

But the implication that conservatives are constrained and liberals are unconstrained seems absurd and a great use of selection bias. There are plenty of liberals considering unintended consequences. And conservatives get a giant pass for following tradition blindly. That's not constrained thinking. He is really just saying idealist are naive and or dumb which I'd agree. I was both when I was an idealist.

I think the distinction in visions is great.

That's my response until i revisit it.

Another quote:

"Whatever its mechanisms or details, social justice has been the dominant theme of the unconstrained vision... Like other forms of justice, it is conceived as a result rather than a process. But while the imperative of social justice pervades the unconstrained vision, it is virtually non-existent in the constrained vision. Social thinkers in the tradition of the constrained vision deal with issues of income distribution as a process, and consider its humane aspects as well as efficiency issues, but there is no implication that one income distribution result is more just than another. F. A. Hayek... [characterizes] social justice... as "absurd," a "mirage," "a hollow incantation," "a quasi-religious superstition," and a concept that "does not belong to the category of error but to that of nonsense."...

The concept of social justice thus represents the extremes of the conflict of visions- an idea of the highest importance in one vision and beneath contempt in the other."

UFOs for Dummies

I was recently sent an FBI file as evidence that UFOs are real and suggestive that aliens/life forms from another planet have visited Earth. You can click on the link to see for yourself. It is a real document from the FBI. Of course it's not readable which adds to the conspiracy.

UFOs are real. There are flying objects that people cannot identify, making those flying objects unidentified. You cannot prove that UFOs have or haven't visited Earth. And if you think the government is lying or covering up a conspiracy, then there is no way to falsify that belief. But if you are skeptical, logical, and scientific, you will agree that there isn't any reliable evidence that other lifeforms have visited Earth using a flying object during human's recorded history.

I don't want to spend too much time on this because I doubt the intended audience will either read it or considered the ideas.

Anyone who wants to have a serious talk about UFOs needs to consider the scientific explanations for UFOs and conspiracy theories in general.

One of my academic idols is Michael Shermer, and he loves the topics of UFOs and conspiracy theories. He had three UFO authors on his podcast recently. Here are the episodes I would recommend. I'd watch or listen to them in the order I shared.

Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO

The youtube video below starts ~24.5 minutes which is when the UFO discussion picks up. The guest/author is a religious scholar who was a ufologist. Dr. Halperin shares fascinating theories about Men in Black, witch hunts, and Atlantic Slave Trade's connections to UFOs.

American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology

Dr. Diana Pasulka is also a religious scholar.

They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers

The youtube video below starts at ~31 minutes which is most relevant to the FBI files, and they talk discuss it for about 15-20 minutes. The guest/author is a science journalist.