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We haven’t heard about demons for awhile
Demons! Socrates had one, the Bible has fewer than you’d imagine. Who are they, what are they and yes, they are just made up. Still, it is important that we keep an eye on whatever they might be up to. So over to our demon expert, one-time Dragon Award winning author for best Horror Novel…
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Into the Cozycourse
No, this is not a post about “cosy horror”, it’s a meta-post about the nature arguments inspired by some of the extraordinarily stupid arguments I’ve seen in the recent “cosy horror” discourse. Let me start by pointing something out. It may surprise regular readers here that in some spaces I have a reputation as a…
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A contrarian fallacy
I don’t know if this style of argument has a name but it is one that I keep encountering. It’s one I see in various rightish contrarian spaces which pitch some of their stance leftwards i.e. use leftist arguments to promote more regressive views. I’ll illustrate it with a strawman example so as to avoid…
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Religion & Despair
I’m reading an interesting paper whose conclusions I’m sceptical about. Entitled “OPIATES OF THE MASSES? DEATHS OF DESPAIR AND THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN RELIGION” the paper is published by the National Bureau of Economic Research which is a private economic research group of some influence. The paper is looking at the known phenomenon: the increase…
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Climbing Back Out of a Gavin Wince Rabbit Hole
Yesterday’s entry in the Museum of Right-Wing Gadgets was the oddly named Qux® box. Normally with those pieces, I would spend some time on the background of the significant people. However, the Qux® is such an odd nebulous thing that it naturally had an odd nebulous entry. Having finished the entry, I thought I’d spend…
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Ninja FUD in Arizona
Cast your mind back to the closing weeks of 2020 and in the US the right was all aflutter about electoral fraud i.e. not at all coping with losing. I’ve covered the extent to which US elections are impacted by fraud before and the answer is lots-and-lots-and-none-at-all. The lots are overt and technically legal and…
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Positivity and Gibberish Ideology
Way back in 2018, I talked about what I called “the thing” in the context of the nonsense that Jordan Peterson was putting out. I still don’t have a better name for it. What I said at the time was: “To perceive yourself as inadequate or weak-willed or to see unhappy circumstance as your own…
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Starting February: Debarkle
I’ve been mulling over for some time (years tbh) writing a history of the Sad Puppy/Rabid Puppy attempt to hijack the Hugo Awards. A few things have put me off doing so. Two of the obstacles is any account needs at least some treatment of RaceFail and of the Requires Hate story and they are…
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A map for modern times
People ask me how I find my way around the confusing and hateful sections of the internet. Naturally I have a map.
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And more right wingers talking nonsense about Benford’s Law update
It seems I was too kind to Larry Correia in my first post about the pro-Trumpist misleading claims about Benford’s Law. He actually is still pushing it as supposed evidence of election fraud. “Basically, when numbers are aggregated normally, they follow a distribution curve. When numbers are fabricated, they don’t. When human beings create what…
Camestros Felapton
FELAPTONL
Camestros Felapton 