Quote of the day

 "A person often acts unjustly by what he fails to do, and not only by what he does." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Wrong even while being wrong

I'm watching rally footage of Donald Trump and I can't believe the staggering amount of falseness that he generates, almost constantly. Particularly struck that even within the realm of his misinformation, he misinforms about that: he is saying that global cooling, fear the Earth would freeze was once a supposed problem in the .... 1920s. And that there was a Time magazine cover about it.

Global cooling scare is a standard climate change denier trope: it was a Newsweek article that is the source of this myth, and it was during the 1970s, not 20s. 

There was no consensus of impending global cooling in the 1970s, nor a panic. The majority of research papers were concerned with global warming, even then. And the Time magazine cover allusion is reference to a fraud generated by a climate denier.

Yet how many people in that rally audience will ever be confronted with this information? 

Baleful quote of the day

"I can't call these things social networks anymore. I call them behavior modification empires." - Jaron Lanier 

 Via Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading by Chris Anderson

Quote of the day

 "Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever acts unjustly, acts unjustly towards himself because he makes himself bad." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Quote of the day

"[I]t is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much, soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" - James Madison, "Memorial and Remonstrance" (1785)

Quote of the day

 "[Scientific thinking's] strength lies not in the certainties it reaches but in a radical awareness of the vastness of our ignorance. This awareness allows us to keep questioning our own knowledge, and thus, to continue learning." - Carlo Rovelli, Anaximander: And the Birth of Science

I actually prefer the title the book was originally released with (that edition is now out of print): The First Scientist: Anaximander and his Legacy.

Baleful quote of the day

"Over the past two decades, influential figures in American and British public life have adopted an ever-more-tenuous connection to the truth - and a complete disregard for evidence, expert knowledge, or logical coherence - with no political consequences." - Cailin O'Connor & James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread

Quote of the day

 "[W]e are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers from Ptahhotep to Sartre

This is Durant explaining Aristotle's conception of excellence of character.

Quote of the day

 'The first great distinction of Aristotle is that almost without predecessors, almost entirely by his own hard thinking, he created a new science - Logic." - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers from Ptahhotep to Sartre

Quote of the day

 "It is unjust to complain that what may happen to anyone has happened to someone." - Montaigne, "Of Experience" (1580)

Via The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual by Ward Farnsworth

In other words, there is no point in moaning, "why me?" when something we prefer not to happen has happened to us.

Quote of the day

 "The best way to avenge yourself is not to become as they are." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Quote of the day

From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me.

But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, good actions.

Quote of the day

 "Aristotle had spent money lavishly in the collection of books (that is, in those printless days, manuscripts); he was the first, after Euripides, to gather a library; and the foundation of the principles of library classification was among his many contributions to scholarship. Therefore, Plato spoke of Aristotle's home as 'the house of the reader,' and seems to have meant the sincerest compliment" - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers from Ptahhotep to Sartre

Quote of the day

"In our daily activities all of us are confronted with other people and often with those whom we would rather avoid. These are our challenges, lessons, and tests. If we consider them in that manner, we won't be so irritated by these experiences, nor will we be so apt to think, 'I wish this wasn't happening,' or 'I wish he'd go away,' or 'I wish he would never say another word,' thereby creating pain and grief for ourselves. When we realize that such a confrontation is exactly what we need at that moment in order to overcome resistance and negativity and to substitute loving-kindness for those emotions, then we will be grateful for the opportunity. Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us." - Ayya Khema, Know Where You're Going: A Complete Buddhist Guide to Meditation, Faith, and Everyday Transcendence

I'm reminded of Epictetus: "[The] man who insults me ... becomes my training partner; he trains me in patience, in abstaining from anger, in remaining gentle."

Quote of the day

"Any form of contempt, if it occurs in politics, prepares or establishes fascism."- Albert Camus, The Rebel

Quote of the day

 "[W]hatever you do, do it with this in mind, that you should do it as a good person ought, according to the specific conception that you have formed of what it means to be good. And hold to this in all that you undertake." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Quote of the day

 "Hasten, then, towards your goal, and dismissing idle hopes, come to your own rescue, if you have any care for yourself, while it is still possible." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Quote of the day

 "Here is the weakest point in Buddha's philosophy; he never quite faces the contradiction between his rationalistic psychology and his uncritical acceptance of reincarnation." - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers from Ptahhotep to Sartre

Quote of the day

 "So other people hurt me? That's their problem. Their character and actions are not mine." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations