If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there. Yogi Berra – When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!: Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball’s Greatest Heroes So far on this blog I have only written about politics and spirituality. Now is the time for me to…
Scary Tax Stories From Beyond the Grave
[I]n this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. Benjamin Franklin Letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy (13 November 1789); reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) Yesterday when I wrote about income inequality it may have seemed like I implied the solution to the problem would only come when people…
The Problem with No Face
The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, 1096.a5 As election day approaches it’s been easy to see some of the ugly problems facing the United States…
The Illusionary Value of Gold
Poor is the man who can boast of nothing more that gold. -William Scott Downey, Proverbs Ch 1, #11 (1858) In the article, The Shared Delusion of Money, I discussed some of the delusions surrounding the “value” of money. The other day I overheard someone talking about how they wanted gold and diamonds for the…
Crazy People, I Salute You
Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy. -Sigmund Freud, The Complete Works Change is in the air, and not just because it’s autumn. Governments and cultures all over the world are being called upon to change. This desire for change is occurring because social structures are not working well for the…
Net Neutrality
I’m urging everyone to go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and use their form to comment to the FCC on net neutrality. The open comment period as been extended once again until Sept. 15th. The Internet is one of the greatest tools for freedom, and like other such tools (printing presses to swords) the powerful…
Lazy Hazy Days of Summer
Do you remember when you were nine or ten? School’s out and it’s a lazy hazy summer day. Sitting under a tree, nothing to do, looking up at the deep blue blue sky. A cool breeze blowing the puffy white clouds across the sky as you gaze at that huge, infinite deep blue sky. The…
Attack of the Killer Robots
Klaatu barada nikto -The Day the Earth Stood Still, Dir. Robert Wise (1951) Science fiction is rife with stories of robots threatening humanity such as: Terminator, The Matrix, Robocop, etc. In fact as we see drones striking America’s enemies across the world, the DARPA robotics challenge, and Google purchasing a military robot company, it’s hard…
Don’t Hate the Haters
I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself. Oscar Wilde Recently there has been a few noteworthy boycotts attempting to punish disagreeable speech. The new CEO of Mozilla, Brendan Eich, resigned because of an outcry against him. He donated money to…
Philosophy is Not a Single Player Game
While I’ve been sitting here for a couple of hours trying to write my next philosophical article for the blog, I came to realize that philosophy is a team sport not a single player game. There is a reason Socrates and Plato had people around. In a group it was easier to work on expanding…
The Meaning of Life
What is the meaning of life?
Lions And Tigers And Bears, Oh My!
What nobody talks to about when you become a parent is the amount of worry you’ll have FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! If you were like me, at least when your kid(s) were young you felt powerful, in control and able to do all, a Super Man Dad. You could feed the child, bathe…