Category Archives: Communication

Free speech

Posted on Mar 26, 2020 by

Free speech laws benefit everyone who can stomach opposition. Hate speech laws benefit only those in power—who then suppress their opposition. — Benjamin Boyce                      

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Order of English adjectives

Posted on Mar 12, 2020 by

I think I knew this, but didn’t actually know this; adjectives in English are used in this order: quantity-opinion-size-temperature-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose So, you can have a big brown cat, but not a brown big cat. Or, as the example I saw put … Continue reading →

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Why we can’t trust the press to protect us

Posted on Mar 11, 2020 by

In a Danish news article about the US Democratic Party primaries, a journalist again fell into the Trump trap; letting Trump set the agenda and control the narrative. Just because he says something doesn’t mean everyone has to repeat and … Continue reading →

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Standard responses to online discourses

Posted on Mar 6, 2020 by

Helen Pluckrose has a nice thread on Twitter about standard responses to people that you should ignore for the sake of your own mental health. They are gold: A thread on people who should be ignored on Twitter for the … Continue reading →

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ok

Posted on Feb 10, 2020 by

Link, if you lack the reference.              

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Multilingual USA

Posted on Jan 29, 2020 by

In Nebraska, as central a state as any in USA, the third-most spoken language is Nepali. Tagalog (from the Phillippines) in California and Nevada, Somali in Minnesota and the Vietnamese in a number of states surprised me. I didn’t know … Continue reading →

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Facebook PR vs. reality

Posted on Jan 22, 2020 by

The illustration was meant as a joke, but is it?

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Opinions set in profits

Posted on Jan 12, 2020 by

Upton Sinclair, 1934: It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it! William Jennings Bryan, 1893: It is useless to argue with a man whose opinion is based upon a … Continue reading →

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Trolls and Troll culture

Posted on Dec 27, 2019 by

From Mikhaila Peterson: So how did we get here? Well, a couple of things have led to this troll culture we live in. The first was the uniting power of the internet. Most people are fairly agreeable, or society wouldn’t … Continue reading →

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Stop shouting

Posted on Dec 21, 2019 by

Two important points from Benjamin Boyce: Grand Enemy politics needs to be tempered with Grand Unity politics if it’s to outlast the inevitable infighting. Unifying the people’s will via wrath is all too easily corrupted from without as well within … Continue reading →

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