The Luckiest People

We are the luckiest people who ever existed. Don't ever forget it!

Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow: "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"

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A smattering of thoughts on the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, and the upcoming Republican Convention

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Too many were cracking jokes in the comment sections right off the bat. Dumb jokes, and way too many. These aren't serious people, and they are as tribal as they come. This is not a left vs right thing. 

It doesn't seem to be domestic terrorism, defined as violence toward a political agenda (i.e. January 6th.) It's still political violence, something everybody on the left and right should be against unequivocally. Whatever you think of Donald Trump (and believe me, few have criticized him more than me), he does represent the views of approximately half the voters, and that means something. This is still a democracy which needs to be respected.

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There are two ways to change the world- through words or through violence. When your argument devolves to violence, you've lost the argument. The only time violence is warranted is in response to aggression. We need to change the world with our words.

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It could have been Archduke Ferdinand revisited. A key reason that I want Trump to lose is because I think he's more likely to start WWIII and Civil War II, and assassinating him could have ended up being the catalyst. Perhaps Biden refusing to step aside, and Trump's resulting landslide victory will bring on WWIII, who knows. I can't tell the future.

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Surviving the assassination attempt makes him appear very strong. Biden exudes weakness and frailty, and has no chance to win. (Didn't I just say I can't see the future? Well maybe I can in this case.) This whole thing has taken on a mythological aspect. Those pictures speak for themselves. 

How would this be perceived though if instead of the now iconic picture of Trump with is arm raised with the flag waving behind him him, the picture everybody was using was of him all disheveled after the secret service picked him up? It's worth considering how both pictures of the same event would put forth a narrative.

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How will this change the machine gun conversation?

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I don't think Trump was Crooks' enemy, I think he was just a nihilist. 

Political violence is always wrong, and on top of that, it helps your opponents. Even if Trump was killed, he would have become a martyr.

That's what Ben Kenobi was talking about when he said, "You can't win Darth. If you strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

When you turn Trump into Ben Kenobi, you've done something wrong.

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Trump said what many of his supporters were thinking, "It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening."

If so, I'm just wondering why God had him shot in the first place. And what about the other people who were injured and killed? If it was God who spared Trump's life, what about the others? Can we just leave God's intentions out of this?

Bob Dylan- "If God's on our side, he'll stop the next war."

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Let's compare reactions to political violence. 

Joe Biden, Oval Office address- “A former president was shot. An American citizen was killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing. We cannot, we must not go down this road in America. We’ve traveled it before throughout history. Violence has never been the answer. In America, we resolve our differences at the ballot box, not with bullets.”

Trump, on the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi- “I will stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi who ruined San Francisco... How's her husband doing by the way? Anybody know? (Laughter from the crowd.) And she's against building a wall [on] our border even though she has a wall around her house, which obviously didn't do a very good job." (More laughter.)

Not exactly my style of humor. 

William Arthur Ward- "A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life."

If Ward is right, Trump has more work to do to find balance. Perhaps God spared Trump's life so he could improve his stand-up routine?

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Please don't make me get out the laundry list of other things Trump has said to foment violence, like when he said in 2016 that "Second Amendment people" could fix Hillary's judicial nominations if he lost. Something tells me he wasn't speaking hyperbolically, that was a little too specific.

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Biden's call for unity was genuine. He means that we live in a country where a variety of opinions can be held and we move forward through debate, versus resorting to violence. 

I don't think there's any question what Trump means when he says, "Unite America." He means unite with him. Hopefully he agrees with Biden's sentiment. I doubt it, but his convention speech will have the answer.

I'm worried that "Unite America" will get translated into- don't criticize the president or you're contributing to an atmosphere of violence. It could either be a request or a demand.

Want a preview of the convention?

J.D Vance's final VP sales pitch Sunday morning: “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

That is the height of irresponsibility, so I assume that he just won the job.

(Huh, I wrote that this morning, and it turns out I was right. Maybe I can tell the future sometimes.) 

Think about this, he is saying that you can't call an authoritarian an authoritarian. (In America, even if they aren't, you still can.) We're talking about a guy who suggested executing his generals, and clearly has no respect for the other branches of the government, except when they happen to agree with him. To suggest somebody like that is above criticism, is in itself a push for authoritarianism.

I believe Biden call for unity is a plea to recognize that in this country we are a single tribe, under the Constitution with shared values. I hope I hear that sentiment echoed in the thrust of Republican speeches at the convention. 

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The second law of thermodynamics has been crossing my mind, wondering if this is the equal and opposite reaction of something that came before, or if the equal and opposite reaction is yet to come. Of course it's both. 

Is this attack an indirect consequence of Trump's own ratcheting up rhetoric? I don't think so. We currently don't know the motive but I think that Crooks was just an aimless guy who didn't want to be with us anymore, and wanted to be remembered forever. The same is true with multitudes of other assassins, and would-be assassins. But who knows, we'll see.

It needs to be said that some of Biden's rhetoric could be seen as having violent undertones as well. He talked recently about Trump having a bullseye on him. Everybody tends to recognize when the other side does this, but not their own. Every politician speaks somewhat hyperbolically in these ways.

If it needs to be said that Biden said stuff like this in passing, it needs to be said that it's not a common theme for him like it is for Trump, and Biden didn't incite a violent mob of his supporters who attacked the capital, disrupting the confirmation of the last election, then sitting idly by for hours while the violence unfolded. "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

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I keep thinking about what Vito Corleone said after his son Sonny was murdered- "I want no act of vengeance. I want you to hold a meeting with the heads of the Five Families... This war stops now."

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Could this change Donald Trump for the better? This was the most serious moment of his life. You would think it would inspire some serious reflection.

Christopher Hitchens said this when reflecting on getting shot at when he visited a bombed out Sarajevo in 1992: 

"I also discovered that a famous jaunty Churchillism had its limits: the old war-lover wrote in one of his more youthful reminiscences that there is nothing so exhilarating as being shot at without result. In my case, the experience of a whirring, whizzing horror just missing my ear was indeed briefly exciting, but on reflection made me want above all to get to the airport."

For what it's worth, Archduke Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo. 

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Crooks tried out for his high school rifle team but did such a bad job that they seem to have laughed him out of there. You can imagine him thinking, "I'll show you guys, you'll see..."

Not quite an equal and opposite reaction, but our brains can be messy things.

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Ugh, the conspiracy theorists. We always have to cue the conspiracy theorists. Newsflash, sometimes well-meaning people simply don't do good enough of a job, and things just happen.

July 15, 2024

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If griping about the state of the country means one should leave it, that's fine I guess. But I need to insist that the biggest griper leaves first.

July 15, 2019

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Hey all, how are doing today? Good? Great! Me too.

Anyway... I read about a study recently where they tried to measure the differences in the amygdalas (stick with me!) of psychopaths and the amygdalas of the most altruistic people around. What group do you think they picked? Who are the most altruistic people? They picked people who would donate a kidney to a complete stranger.

Well guess what, you have that chance! I know someone who needs a kidney transplant within the next year or two. A good guy. The donor would need to be a match, not by blood type but by tissue type... something about white blood cells or something.

I have occasional kidney trouble so I'm out. (Anybody need half a pancreas or something?) Share if you like, or let me know you would to be added to the group of the most altruistic people on the planet. 

And even if you aren't altruistic, you could still do it for selfish reasons... you could impress everybody with proof of your slightly bigger than average amygdala. Think about it.

July 15, 2017

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Seems like a long time since the last Hitchens article about the loss of his voice. Deathbed conversion imminent? Someone who would recant "that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence" is not Hitchens.

July 15, 2011

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Hey, remember that guy everybody used to call President Bush? That guy was hilarious! Man, whatever happened to him.

July 15, 2011

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If you were the last person left on Earth, you'd never know.

July 15, 2011

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German philosopher Walter Benjamin was born on this day in 1892.

"History is written by the victors." 

If Hitler had decisively won WWII and against all odds, you and I still found a way to exist, we might see it as one of the great triumphs of human history. 

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Rembrandt joined us this day in 1606. "Painting is the grandchild of Nature."

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The Rosetta Stone was found on this day in 1799 in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.

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Free-thought champion, Ralph Waldo Emerson, delivered the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School on this day in 1838, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring Jesus a great man, but not God. The Protestant community reacted with outrage.

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Novelist and philosopher, Iris Murdoch, was born on this day in 1919. "We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality. But given the state of the world, is it wise?"

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President Jimmy Carter gave his "malaise speech" on this day in 1978. It might surprise you that he never used the word "malaise" in it. The perceived defeatist spirit of the speech lead Ted Kennedy to decide to run for president.  

Kennedy- "Now, the people are blamed for every national ill, scolded as greedy, wasteful, and mired in malaise.” 

Told the truth?

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Today is the anniversary of the Cleveland Indians bat burglary which took place on this day in 1994. Albert Belle was using a corked bat, and the White Sox manager Gene Lamont ratted him out to the umpires. The empires took his bat, and locked it in the umpire room. Relief pitcher Jason Grimsley, was tasked to climb up through the roof, down into the umpire's room, steal the bat, and replace it with another. It worked! Except that a janitor noticed some parts of the ceiling tiles on the floor and they were busted. The FBI was even called in. Belle ended up serving a 10-day suspension.

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Twitter was launched on this day in 2006. The people who care about Twitter are probably the same people who care too much about projecting their status at high school reunions.

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Algerian-French philosopher, Jacques Derrida was born in 1930. "What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written."

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Linda Ronstadt was born on this day in 1946. She said that she stopped believing in God by third grade.

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Ramones torch-bearer, Marky Ramone, was born on this day in 1952.

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Russian playwright, short story writer, and Norm Macdonald inspiration, Anton Chekhov, left us on this day in 1904. "Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive."

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The giant Robert Wadlow left us on this day in 1940, a victim of the condition that made him famous. He was 8'11.1" tall.

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Collected Insights From Across the Internet:

Dreams Are One Part Of Your Brain Watching And Being Surprised By The Plot Twists The Other Side Of Your Brain Creates

Light Bulbs Were Such A Good Idea That They Became The Symbol For All Good Ideas

The Tradition Of The Groom Not Seeing The Bride In Her Wedding Dress Before The Wedding Day Saved Countless Husbands From Hours Of Dress Shopping

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Peter de Vries was assassinated on this day in 2021.

"It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us." 

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Other notable birthdays- Cowboy Copas (1913), D. A. Pennebaker (1925), Jesse Ventura (1951), Ian Curtis (1956)

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Other notable deathdays- Lisa del Giocondo, subject of Leonardo da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa (1542), General Tom Thumb (1883), Martin Landau (2017)

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The Hill- Krauthammer: ‘Bungled collusion is still collusion’

Conservative criticism should be the most well-received criticism because one can be certain it's not based on ideology.

http://hill.cm/iC2r9rz

July 15, 2017

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Great Phillies game today with Gretel, Gavin, and Gavilan. We all got a replica of Bryce Harper's 2022 National League championship ring. Good Penske tickets!

July 15, 2023

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Plato- "The measure of a man is what he does with power."

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Thoughts on the Mandela Effect 

Mandela died in the 80's? Nonsense! Berenstain Bears were actually the Berenstein Bears, with an E? Hmmn seems true. There was no movie Shazaam from the 90's starring Sinbad??? Of course there was, I remember it plain as day. But it wasn't true? And that explains parallel universes? Well I guess I have to believe in parallel universes then. This is actually how I felt when both Clinton and Gore lost... like I was on the wrong timeline. Not that their losses couldn't have happened, more like they didn't happen. This Sinbad thing will haunt me!

https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/how-the-mandela-effect-phenomenon-explains-the-existence-of-alternate-realities

July 15, 2018

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Every time I see some soap advertised as killing 99.99% of germs, I think the same thing- "Leaves 1 in 10,000 germs totally unscathed!"

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Harper Lee- "Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends."

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Bertrand Russell- “Most children wish to know things until they go to school; in many cases it is bad teaching that makes them stupid and uninquiring.”

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Robert McNamara- "Lesson #2: The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations."

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Always nice to sing a little happy song when you're feeling good.

https://youtu.be/llKVV6EWX1g

July 15, 2021

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Jean-Luc Picard- "Things are only impossible until they are not."

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D.H. Lawrence- "I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself."

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Noam Chomsky- "Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so."

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Bertrand Russell- “Most children wish to know things until they go to school; in many cases it is bad teaching that makes them stupid and uninquiring.”

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Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet- "The only people who see the whole picture,' he murmured, 'are the ones who step out of the frame."

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Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea- "If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy. But since I am not, I do not care."

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Marcel Proust- "Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind."

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E.B. White, Charlotte's Web- "The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into autumn - the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change."

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