Binary thinking

If you read here regularly, you’ve probably encountered me dismissing those prone to attempting to divide everything into very simple conceptual poles. This is not to say that pure right and wrong do not exist, or that it is always inappropriate to apply Abelard’s straightforward heuristic of “It is so or it is not so”, merely that one cannot reduce all complex matters to such a simple binary equation.

So, it was interesting to discover, when re-reading a relatively new translation of Siddhartha, to see Herman Hesse portraying the protagonist referring to a concept that is not entirely dissimilar.

I have found a thought, Govinda, that you will think neither a joke nor foolishness, it is my best thought. It says: the opposite of every truth is just as true! For this is so: A truth can always only be uttered and cloaked in words when it is one-sided. Everything is one-sided that can be thought in thoughts and said with words, everything one-sided, everything half, everything is lacking wholeness, roundness, oneness. When the sublime Gautama spoke of the world in his doctrine, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth, into suffering and redemption. This is the only way to go about it; there is no other way for a person who would teach. The world itself, however, the Being all around us and within us, is never one-sided.

Now, I certainly disagree with the surface meaning of the original thought; the opposite of every truth is simply not true or it would not be the opposite. But while that particular meaning is obviously incorrect, I think the subsequent statements are true in a slightly different sense than Hesse may have intended… or perhaps the translator messed it up somehow. I will have to review the original German to reach an opinion one way or the other. Regardless, that is neither here nor there, the point is that the world observably contains both the truth and the falsehood; to speak of what is necessarily implies the conceptual existence of what is not.

This is the true multiverse; it is conceptual, it is not material. There may be various levels of reality, there may be multitudes of realities in the way that even in our single material reality contains millions of simulated sub-realities and we are no more capable of proving that ours is the bottom turtle any more than an AI-controlled character in World of Warcraft can. But this conceptual whole is relevant for deeper understanding, for just as one cannot understand the concept of white when one has no ability to perceive the not-white of black, one cannot understand the concept of truth unless one is familiar with the not-truth of falsehood.

In the same way, we cannot grasp the essence of grace without an awareness of the not-grace of being sinful, and we cannot understand the importance of Jesus Christ or the reason for his sacrifice without an awareness of evil, both our own and the world’s. This need to know both the truth and the various not-truths in order to understand something is why binary thinking is not merely limited, it is crippling.

London killing

London’s murder rate has increased to the point that it has surpassed New York City’s. I wonder what might have caused that? Other than immigration, of course, which we are reliably informed does nothing except benefit the economy.

London’s murder rate has overtaken New York City’s numbers for the first time ever, according to a new report.

February marked the first month in history books that London had more murders than the American city with a total of 15 homicides. Out of the 15 killed, nine were aged 30 or younger.

In March, there were 22 murders, which is likely to match if not beat out New York’s numbers.

The victims:

  • Sadiq Mohamed, 20, Kentish Town
  • Abdikarim Hassan, 17, Kentish Town
  • Josef Boci, 30, Greenwich
  • Seyed Khan, 49, Ilford
  • Rotimi Oshibanjo, 26, Southall
  • Promise Nkenda, 17, Canning Town
  • Sabri Chibani, 19, Streatham Common
  • Lewis Blackman, 19, Kensington
  • Hasan Ozcan, 19, Barking
  • Hannah Leonard, 55, Swiss Cottage
  • Kwabena Nelson, 22, Tottenham
  • Mark Smith, 48, Chingford
  • Bulent Kabala, 41, Enfield
  • Saeeda Hussain, 54, Ilford
  • Juan Olmos Saca, 39, Peckham

 I can only conclude that it must be the evil guns. Or racism. But regardless of what the cause might be, it is rather remarkable to observe how people continue to be genuinely surprised at yet another failure of the Magic Dirt to transform human behavior.

Fortunately, the inhabitants of Londonistan can be secure in the knowledge that their city is increasingly diverse, and therefore, stronger. And speaking of the joys of vibrancy and diversity, Germany is growing stronger as well:

Horror on streets of Germany: State of emergency declared as 80 men brawl with MACHETES. Police were called to the Altmarkt area of the city over reports of the mass bawl. Officers used CS gas to control the brawling men.

The scores of men were also using telescopic batons in the fight in Druisburg, which is on the west of Germany. Police said they were spat at and had objects hurled at them. Around 50 people were arrested and onlookers captured the brutality in shocking photos.Those arrested refused to explain what sparked the fight and 30 people were later released.

A police official told the newspaper Der Westen: “There are three rival groups. It may be a conflict between Turks, Lebanese and Kurds. “Unlike with a demonstration of that size, we do not have a contact person, nobody wants to talk to the police.”

Christ is risen

And, as he warned, the world continues to hate him and those who follow him.

As Christians around the world prepare to observe the holy weekend of Easter, many will be asked at their services to pray for the persecuted around the world. After years of advocacy groups raising awareness, the plight of the Christians of the Middle East, particularly in the former Islamic State territories, has become common knowledge among American Christians. Yet they are far from the only group that will celebrate Easter this year in defiance of state persecution, mob violence, and repressive cultural norms imposed by groups threatened by the spread of the Christian faith.

Below, six countries where Christians struggle to practice their faith freely against systematic institutional and cultural pressure.

China: Xi Jinping has led a systematic crackdown on “unauthorized” Christianity that has worsened year after year since he became “president” in 2013. Xi has led a movement to “sinicize” Christianity, forcing the legal Christian churches to deliver sermons extolling the virtues of his regime. “Unauthorized” Christianity is deemed a “national security threat,” and Christians who dare worship in their homes face severe law enforcement reprimand.

Venezuela: Dictator Nicolás Maduro and his subordinates have struggled for years to submit the Christian faith to their whims – publishing socialist Christmas carols, identifying their policies with the Gospels, and proclaiming that “Christ is Chavista.”

India: In India, the repression faced by many Christians is not at the hands of the government, but at the hands of violent Hindu nationalist mobs. According to Open Doors, an organization that tracks the persecution of the Christian faithful worldwide, the permissive attitude of a Hindu nationalist government has allowed for the exacerbation of violence against these communities, some of the oldest Christian congregations on earth. In one incident this year, a mob tortured and hanged a Christian pastor after six months of loudly disturbing Sunday services. Local police ruled the death a suicide, triggering thousands to protest for justice.

Nigeria: Nigeria’s population is 40 percent Christian, with many practicing freely in the nation’s south. In the north, however, Christians face severe persecution from jihadist groups like Boko Haram and violence by the majority-Muslim Fulani herdsmen against Christian farmers. The herdsmen are believed to be conducting raids targeting Christians and have killed an estimated thousands of civilians.

Sudan: Sudan, a nation run by Muslim tyrant wanted for genocide, is one of the most repressive states in the world, a Muslim-majority tyranny where Christians face destruction of property and arbitrary arrest if they are too visible. Open Doors ranks Sudanese Christians in the top five most persecuted Christian nationalities in the world.

Indonesia: Indonesian Christians are under growing public scrutiny. While Christians have long coexisted in the world’s most populous Islamic country, they have increasingly fallen victim to radical Islamic mobs.

Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
– Luke 6:22

“several months prior”

The “March For Our Lives Demonstration”, which was supposedly inspired by the so-called Parkland school shootings, was planned “several months prior” to the drama performed at the Florida school

Everything about that “school shooting” was fake. Everything. It is beyond reprehensible that no one in the mainstream media will do any investigatory reporting.

Stopping harassment at Google

Well, this project sounds promising. After all, we know all about the terrible atmosphere of harassment at Google, where employees have been known to blacklist and physically threaten other Google employees on the basis of their opinions, right?

About 100 Google U.S. employees concerned about cyber bullying inside the company have organized into a group proposing new policies for conduct at the unit of Alphabet Inc, five people involved in the effort said in recent interviews.

Three current employees and two others helping to organize the group said it formed last fall. They said that among its proposals, which have not previously been reported in detail, are that Google should tighten rules of conduct for internal forums and hire staff to enforce them.

They said they want to stop inflammatory conversations and personal attacks on the forums and see punishment for individuals who regularly derail discussions or leak conversations. The group also wants Google to list rights and responsibilities for accusers, defendants, managers and investigators in human resources cases.

That sounds pretty reasonable, I have to say.

The group also desires greater protection for employees targeted by what it views as insincere complaints to human resources used as a bullying tactic and goading. The organizers said Google should be more attuned to when people seeking to stir animosity or expressing views opposite the company’s stated values try to take over discussions about race, gender and other sensitive subjects. 

Wait a minute…

“My coworkers and I are having our right to a safe workplace being endangered,” said staff site reliability engineer Liz Fong-Jones, one of the lead organizers. She said employees experience stress and fear of physical reprisal when internal conversations are leaked to media, sometimes with writers’ names. 

Oh. It’s just the usual suspects crying to the media again.

You know, I expect criminals also experience stress and fear of physical reprisal when their crimes come to light. By Google SJW logic, newspapers should stop reporting on crime for fear of causing stress to criminals.

No longer the media’s darling

Sam Harris learns what happens when the media’s Narrative moves on and you are no longer one of its favorites:

In April of 2017, I published a podcast with Charles Murray, coauthor of the controversial (and endlessly misrepresented) book The Bell Curve. These are the most provocative claims in the book:

  • Human “general intelligence” is a scientifically valid concept.
  • IQ tests do a pretty good job of measuring it.
  • A person’s IQ is highly predictive of his/her success in life.
  • Mean IQ differs across populations (blacks < whites < Asians).
  • It isn’t known to what degree differences in IQ are genetically determined, but it seems safe to say that genes play a role (and also safe to say that environment does too).

At the time Murray wrote The Bell Curve, these claims were not scientifically controversial—though taken together, they proved devastating to his reputation among nonscientists. That remains the case today. When I spoke with Murray last year, he had just been de-platformed at Middlebury College, a quarter century after his book was first published, and his host had been physically assaulted while leaving the hall. So I decided to invite him on my podcast to discuss the episode, along with the mischaracterizations of his research that gave rise to it.

Needless to say, I knew that having a friendly conversation with Murray might draw some fire my way. But that was, in part, the point. Given the viciousness with which he continues to be scapegoated—and, indeed, my own careful avoidance of him up to that moment—I felt a moral imperative to provide him some cover.

In the aftermath of our conversation, many people have sought to paint me as a racist—but few have tried quite so hard as Ezra Klein, Editor-at-Large of Vox. In response to my podcast, Klein published a disingenuous hit piece that pretended to represent the scientific consensus on human intelligence while vilifying me as, at best, Murray’s dupe. More likely, readers unfamiliar with my work came away believing that I’m a racist pseudoscientist in my own right.

After Klein published that article, and amplified its effects on social media, I reached out to him in the hope of appealing to his editorial conscience. I found none. The ethic that governs Klein’s brand of journalism appears to be: Accuse a person with a large platform of something terrible, and then monetize the resulting controversy. If he complains, invite him to respond in your magazine so that he will drive his audience your way and you can further profit from his doomed effort to undo the damage you’ve done to his reputation.

It’s mildly amusing that Harris is only discovering now that the media in general, and Ezra Klein in particular, is disingenuous and utilizes character assassination as its stock tool-in-trade. Imagine what it is like for those who can be disemployed as well as discredited, Sam!

Well, you do not cease to amaze… “Junk science” is in the title of the article, and I “fell for it” (subtitle), because I didn’t do my homework (the thrust of the entire piece). Whereas in reality, you have been shown ample evidence that the science is mainstream, that I represented it accurately, and that your authors were cherry-picking it for ideological reasons.

Unfortunately for Sam, he has discovered how little interest those on the Left have in either the truth or in science, whether they are editors, reporters, or readers. The Narrative has moved on and Sam has been left behind, much to his surprise.

Judging from the response to this post on social media, my decision to publish these emails appears to have backfired. I was relying on readers to follow the plot and notice Ezra’s evasiveness and gaslighting (e.g. his denial of misrepresentations and slurs that are in the very article he published). Many people seem to have judged from his politeness that Ezra was the one behaving honestly and ethically. This is frustrating, to say the least.

Many readers seem mystified by the anger I expressed in this email exchange. Why care so much about “criticism” or even “insults”? But this has nothing to do with criticism and insults. What has been accomplished in Murray’s case, and is being attempted in mine, is nothing less than the total destruction of a person’s reputation for the crime of honestly discussing scientific data. Klein published fringe, ideologically-driven, and cherry-picked science as though it were the consensus of experts in the field and declined to publish a far more mainstream opinion in my and Murray’s defense—all to the purpose of tarring us as racists and enablers of racists. This comes at immense personal and social cost. It is also dishonest.

It sounds like Sam very much needs to read SJWs Always Lie.

The death of a thousand leaks

Facebook is now facing the same problem that Google has been dealing with for the last year, which is whistleblowing employees who are willing to expose the problematic behavior of their colleagues and superiors. Perhaps the loyalists should get in touch with Wired, so they can complain about how terrible it is that their threats and other misdeeds are being exposed to the public.

According to two Facebook employees, workers have been calling on internal message boards for a hunt to find those who leak to the media. Some have questioned whether Facebook has been transparent enough with its users and with journalists, said the employees, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation. Many are also concerned over what might leak next and are deleting old comments or messages that might come across as controversial or newsworthy, they said.

I have no doubt that the so-called “Ugly Memo” is neither the last nor the worst thing we’re going to see coming out of the Facebook internal messaging boards.

Pity the poor refugees

Mr. Netanyahu, tear down that wall!

Friday’s demonstrations mark the beginning of the Palestinians’ return to all “Palestine,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a speech at the scene of the mass protests in the Gaza Strip.

“We are here to declare today that our people will not agree to keep the right of return only as a slogan,” he said. Haniyeh said that the March of Return was also aimed at sending a message to US President Donald Trump that the Palestinians will not give up their right to Jerusalem and “Palestine.” There is no solution without the right of return, he added.

The Palestinians “will never recognize the Zionist entity and will never give up on Palestinian land, and on Jerusalem; [the city] is ours and there is no solution [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] without the ‘right of return,’” Haniyeh said, according to a Hebrew translation by the Walla news site.

Haniyeh was speaking during a mass demonstration along the Gaza security fence with Israel, ahead of a planned six-week tent protest. Dubbed the “March of Return,” it coincides with Land Day, when Palestinians commemorate the Israeli government’s expropriation of Arab-owned land in the Galilee on March 30, 1976, and ensuing demonstrations in which six Arab Israelis were killed.

At previous peace talks, the Palestinians have always demanded, along with sovereignty in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Old City, a “right of return” to Israel for Palestinian refugees who left or were forced out of Israel when it was established. The Palestinians demand this right not only for those of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who are still alive — a figure estimated in the low tens of thousands — but also for their descendants, who number in the millions.

How can Israel possibly deny itself the manifold benefits of these millions of New Israelis, who are every bit as Jewish and Israeli as every current inhabitant of Israel? All they are seeking is a better life for themselves and their children, after all.

Don’t the Israelis understand that their economy will benefit incredibly from all these potential immigrants? Don’t they realize that they have a moral duty, under Jewish law, to tikkun the olam by providing a safe home for all of these poor, desperate refugees? Have they forgotten the sacred lesson of Ellis Island? Have they forgotten that once they were visitors in Egypt?

I understand there are also more than a few refugees from Syria who desperately need a safe haven as well. Perhaps they could become New Israelis by immigrating to the Golan Heights.

The ‘Great March of Return,’ orchestrated by Hamas, draws thousands of Palestinians to the Gaza-Israel border; riots ensue, prompting IDF snipers to shoot at main instigators; Defense Minister Lieberman warns anyone who approaches security fence is putting his life in jeopardy.

For shame! The Israeli border guards have killed 1216 New Israelis already. That is not who we are! Those are not Israeli values! What is Israel, after all, if not a nation of immigrants?

She should have read SJWAL

ML is not exactly surprised by David Hogg’s rejection of Laura Ingraham’s apology:

David Hogg is predictably still calling for boycotts of Ingraham’s advertisers, calling her apology inadequate. It’s a shame she didn’t read your book.

At this point I can safely state, without any sense of exaggeration or modesty, that if you have anything to do with the media or politics and you do not read SJWAL, you will fully merit the treatment that you’re going to get from SJWs sooner or later. Conservative commentators continue to demonstrate that they never learn anything from the various defenestrations that preceded their own, as they insist on demonstrating every single time one of them comes in for targeted public criticism.

Laura Ingraham rightly made fun of David “Totally Not a Crisis Actor” Hogg because he’s been getting rejected from various universities, then promptly backed down and apologized when the media’s little darling affected to have gotten his feelings hurt. As you can imagine, her apology completely resolved the situation, because SJWs always refrain from taking advantage of an apologetic conservative rolling over and showing his yellow belly.

Advertisers – including TripAdvisor, Nestle, Wayfair and Hulu – are dumping Laura Ingraham after she slammed Parkland survivor

TripAdvisor will pull its advertisements from right-wing television host Laura Ingraham’s Fox News program.

In a tweet, Ingraham mocked a survivor of the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting in February that left 17 students and adults dead. The survivor-turned-activist, David Hogg, responded on Twitter by calling on his followers to contact Ingraham’s top advertisers. Ingraham later tweeted her apologies “for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland.”

Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111.  On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland. For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David immediately after that horrific shooting and even noted how “poised” he was given the tragedy. As always, he’s welcome to return to the show anytime for a productive discussion. 

What a brave opinion leader! The complete spinelessness and stupidity demonstrated by the hapless Ingraham aside, this episode demonstrates how fragile the Right is when it relies upon the Left’s infrastructure. Even a not-very-bright high school student can effectively take down a major conservative media figure with nothing more than a well-targeted tweet.

But there is a more important point here than the obvious question of “what part of ‘never apologize’ did you fail to understand?” If you live by advertising from converged corporations, then you can safely expect them to cut you off the moment someone complains that you are violating the current Narrative.

Ingraham’s cringing self-implosion demonstrates why it is so terminally short-sighted for conservatives to insist on continually maximizing their short-term interests in exposure over their long-term interests in a solid non-converged infrastructure. This is why I wouldn’t accept a television show on Fox News or CNN even if one was offered to me on a silver platter, as while such a show would be of significant benefit in the short term, it would vastly increase my fragility, whereas continuing to build up Infogalactic, Voxiversity, and other platforms will likely prove more beneficial to me and many others in the long run.

I have no sympathy for the talking heads who are shut down by their advertisers or the self-published authors who are shut down by Amazon. These are known risks and they cannot come as a surprise to anyone who has been conscious for the last four years. While you’re not necessarily part of the problem if you’re not helping build alternative platforms, you also are not part of the solution, and can’t expect much in the way of support or sympathy if you find yourself being deplatformed in the future.

Antipope Francis

Many, if not most Christians have been extremely dubious about the legitimacy of the so-called Pope Francis. Now there are serious questions, even among Catholics, that concern whether the man is even a Christian at all:

Scalfari: “What about bad souls? Where are they punished?”

Bad souls “are not punished,” Pope Francis is quoted, “those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”

On the first Holy Thursday, Judas betrayed Christ. And of Judas the Lord said, “Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man shall be betrayed; it were better for him if that man had never been born.”

Did the soul of Judas, and those of the monstrous evildoers of history, “just fade away,” as Gen. Douglas MacArthur said of old soldiers? If there is no hell, is not the greatest deterrent to the worst of sins removed?

What did Christ die on the cross to save us from?

The Vatican swiftly issued a statement saying the pope had had a private conversation, not a formal interview, with his friend, Scalfari.

The Vatican added: “The textual words pronounced by the pope are not quoted. No quotation of the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father.”

Sorry, but this will not do. This does not answer the questions the pope raised in his chat. Does hell exist? Are souls that die in mortal sin damned to hell for all eternity? Does the pope accept this belief? Is this still the infallible teaching of the Roman Catholic Church?

This is not Christianity. These are not Biblical teachings. In fact, this is not even religion. This is John Lennon’s Imaginism elevated and amplified by an extremely silly and not particularly intelligent man who has accidentally revealed his true thinking.

The Vatican’s attempt to sweep these uncomfortable opinions under the rug as being non-ex cathedra personal discourse on the part of an individual who merely happens to be the Bishop of Rome is not conclusive, but it certainly is damning by faint and evasive defensiveness.

Pat Buchanan is absolutely right to note the central question this raises. After all, if there is no Hell and there is no sin, then there was never any need for Jesus Christ to die on the cross. And yet, we observe daily the ways in which people are sinful, that evil exists, and that Man needs Jesus Christ.

That being said, don’t even think about trying to divert this into Protestant vs Catholic, Round 475,838. Any commenter who attempts to do so will be summarily spammed.