Category Archives: Social Commentary

Business, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The Kids Aren’t All Right

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Is technology ruining their social skills?

I never even attempt to socially interact via text. For me, texting is something I do rarely, and generally just as a means of requesting or conveying practical information (Where are you?). I’m glad I work at home, because I hate mobile phones for communication in general, whether talking or texting. I’ll often forget to take it with me (in fact I did just yesterday) when running errands. As I’ve often remarked, I don’t think most young people even know what good telephone service (or music reproduction) is like. They think the crap quality they get from cells is normal.

The point about the overuse of exclamation marks is also interesting. I had an email exchange a year or two ago with a twenty-something whose emails were full of them. I gave her some unsolicited advice to be more sparing with the bangs for professional communication, which she took well, but it’s a hard habit to break, I expect, and as the article notes, some people have grown to expect them.

And as a pre-warning to commenters: Get off my lawn. 🙂

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Fastest-Growing Group Of Gun Owners

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…are women:

In late 2012–immediately following the heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School–there was greater support for gun control than for gun rights. In fact, there had been a greater support for gun control over gun rights for more than 20 years. And this held true through January 2013. Then things began to shift.

On parallel with growing female gun ownership, increasing numbers of women applying for concealed carry permits, and burgeoning women involvement in shooting sports, support for gun control has dwindled. Thus, whereas only “45 percent” of the American people supported gun rights in January 2013 while “51 percent” supported gun control, the numbers have now shifted to “52 percent” support for gun rights and only “46 percent” support for gun control.

Interestingly, the shift in women’s attitude in favor of guns has taken place during years when groups like Bloomberg-funded Moms Demand Action have worked their hardest to get moms to vote against the Second Amendment.

To paraphrase the old saying, God created men and women. Sam Colt made them equal.

Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Neil Stephenson

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Discusses his new novel, and the role of science fiction.

He is one of the few authors whose books I always look forward to reading, though I was a little disappointed with Anathem. But this looks like a fun read.

I should also note that one of the points I make in my book (and in op-eds) since, is that our unwillingness to use the hardware we have on hand to get into space is an indicator of how utterly unimportant human spaceflight is (a point that is accentuated by the relatively poor sales of a well-reviewed book). Stephenson describes a scenario in which it suddenly becomes very important to become as spacefaring as possible, as soon as possible, and how society reacts.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Bernie Sanders’ Rape Fantasies

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Some thoughts from Ace:

I think it’s pretty stupid to demagogue people over statements like this, honestly. I know where Sanders go this from: He got it from Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden, supposedly a book containing all of women’s private fantasies (she says she surveyed women), and rape was indeed a major part of the female sexual imagination, she was surprised to find. (Psychologically, it has been explained to me that women feel guilty about sex, but still enjoy sex; the fantasy of being under someone else’s sexual control allows the woman, in fantasy, to enjoy sex, because she’s not making any of the decisions that she would otherwise feel guilty about.)

I don’t know if I buy any of that; I’m just remarking that this isn’t the first time I’ve heard this.

I do know that if I wrote that paragraph not in response to Bernie Sanders, there’s a pretty good chance that the left would demagogue me and Speechcraft Trial me as a Thought Rapist.

And that’s why we must do the same to Bernie Sanders, and make him defend these So Problematic You Guys words.

The left has drawn us all into its insecure, neurotic, grasping, wanting, stupid, paranoid darkness. They have effectively criminalized it to say anything other than “Women are just terrific” and “everything is awesome!”

They are broken, warped people inflicting their psychic tumult on the rest of society.

Yes, tit for tat is exactly the right strategy. Except maybe we need to (in someone’s words) punch back twice as hard. But they won’t stop this Alinskyite BS until it causes them sufficient pain.