The top ones that prevent us from being rational.
All posts by Rand Simberg
Obama’s Presidency
The day it died:
Let us now return to Parshall’s observation that ”all military failures fall into three basic categories: failure to learn from the past, failure to anticipate what the future may bring, and failure to adapt to the immediate circumstances on the battlefield.” It’s possible that Obama did exactly that on the night of September 11, 2012. He didn’t see the double cross coming; he had no Plan B for Syria, for al-Qaeda, having bet the farm on Plan A and he covered failure up.
He went and committed all three categories of failure. ”Finally, at the apex of failure stand those rare events when all three basic failures occur simultaneously-an event known as catastrophic failure. In such an occurrence, the result is usually a disaster of such scope that recovery is impossible.”
And now he’s living with the consequences of having to pursue a strategic assumption he knows is wrong but does not dare denounce.
It’s going to look worse and worse as time goes on.
Samuelson On Climate Change
“We have no solution.”
I’d go further, and say it’s not even clear that we have a problem that requires one.
Virgin Galactic And Google
Will they team up?
A World Without Humans
We don’t worry enough about it.
I think that AI is a much bigger danger than “climate change.” Of course, some people dream of the end of humanity. Many of them are the same ones who worry too much about climate change.
[Update a few minutes later]
Peripherally related: More thoughts on much of the Left’s apparent hatred of humanity:
You know, it’s almost as if, having lost the doctrine of original sin and Christian forgiveness, these poor women are left with nothing but the free-floating, universalized guilt that makes them hate themselves and life. Maybe that’s unfair. I don’t know these ladies. But life hatred — humanity hatred, self-hatred and ultimately God hatred — seem to permeate so much of radical leftism. Feminism and Marxism with their revulsion at human nature, environmentalism with its elevation of greenery over humankind, radical groups like PETA that put the love of animals before the love of neighbor, the sweaty insistence on self-esteem and feeling good about yourself, giving praise, praise, praise for nothing, nothing, nothing, the ceaseless need to define your opposition as hateful… and abortion as a positive. It all smacks of self-hatred, doesn’t it? The love of death over life.
Actually, Bob Zubrin wrote a good book
The Kidnapped Girls In Nigeria
…may have already been genitally mutilated.
Sadly, that’s the way to bet. But don’t call them Islamic terrorists! That will just make them even more terroristy!
Just keep up the #hashtag bombardment. That’ll learn ’em.
Rape On Campus
It belongs in the courts. It does seem like a quaint idea:
The lefty stuff always leads to the same place. But you’re crazy to go to these schools if you’re a man. And women don’t want to go to schools that men avoid. So I predict either an eventual equilibrium, or a collapse.
His predictions have been playing out pretty well, so far.
Rerunning 1998?
I think there’s a flaw in Mickey’s theory:
I’m not suggesting the White House is intentionally provoking Republicans over Benghazi, the better to produce counterproductive overreach. OK, sorry. I’m totally suggesting the White House is intentionally provoking Republicans over Benghazi. It’s not like this is something the White House hasn’t been accused of before. Remember the “birther” controversy, where Obama delayed releasing his birth certificate for years as the conservative fringe wound themselves up in greater and greater knots of paranoia? ’Look, what a bunch of crazies” was Obamas implicit message then. That may be his message again. Sure beats “The debate is over.”
The problem is that (as we were told ad infinitum by Democrat partisans), the Clinton scandal was “just about sex.” Here the lies (and continued stonewalling) are about four dead Americans, killed by administration ineptitude.
Demographic Death Spiral
No, not of people this time, of businesses:
More businesses are failing now than are being created, a first for the American economy since the Carter era, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution. That has become even more true during the Obama “recovery” than during the Great Recession.
Also:
Another nugget in that Brookings paper: “older and larger businesses are doing better relative to younger and smaller ones”
The younger and smaller ones don’t have the financial resources to buy (or, actually) rent the grifters and grafters in DC.
[Update a couple minutes later]
This is probably related; how bad is the job market for 2014 grads? This bad:
Today’s crop of new B.A.s are staring at roughly 8.5 percent unemployment, 16.8 percent underemployment. Close to half of those who land work won’t immediately find a job that requires their degree, and for those stuck in that situation, there are fewer “good” jobs to go around. Welcome to adulthood, class of 2014.
A lot of them wasted borrowed money on their degrees, loans that are currently not dischargeable in bankruptcy. So they have that going for them, too.
Climate Change
Only in Washington is it the greatest challenge that we face.
Well, to be fair, it might be on campus, too, which is another bubble of unreality.