The Trolley, and Other Problems

Maybe my favorite Buddy Holly song, Listen To Me- written, recorded, arranged, and produced by him before anyone ever heard of him. He died on this day in 1959.

https://youtu.be/LOR0P-lzbeg

Here he is, playing his last show in Clear Lake, Iowa the night his plane crashed.

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Miyazaki-san

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I saw a crude sexual joke in a comment section with a fantastic response: "I support this comment and any criticism of it." Haha.

February 3, 2022

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Do you know of the famous philosophical thought experiment, The Trolley Problem? If you are operating a trolley and there are five people in the tracks up ahead that you're about to hit, should you turn the trolley onto another track where you'll only kill one? Of course, it's better for one person to die than five. 

What about a doctor who would have the ability to kill one person to provide five life-saving transplants? No way! But they're the same question, aren't they? Someone is making a choice between five dying or one. But it FEELS different.

What if instead of operating the trolley, you are a bystander and can throw a switch to kill one person, sacrificing five? Would you do it if you were that one person, or someone you know? 

What if pressing a button lowered a fat person onto the track who would be killed to save the five? (Hey, I didn't make this up!) What if you had to push the fat person onto the track, and knew that it was the only way to save the five? Would it be immoral NOT to do it? 

I know, I know... this has no real world application and is a worthless waste of time, right? I'm not too sure. 

Some say we should we use our intuition and common sense to determine what is right, but didn't people use their intuition and common sense in the past to justify slavery and to keep women from voting? 

The British had to make a decision in World War II whether to mislead the Germans who were bombing them. They made the decision to use a double agent to have the Germans bomb a less populated area than London, knowing that the Germans couldn't be tricked into bombing an unpopulated area. That's a direct parallel to The Trolley Problem they decided to sacrifice fewer so that more could live. 

So once again my theory is proven- all thought experiments wind their way back to Hitler. 

You know what I did today? Take a guess. I'm off work this week and I read a book called, "The Trolley Problem, or Would You Throw the Fat Guy Off a Bridge?"

Practical.

February 3, 2021

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I'm reading a book that put forth a strange thought- the Court of Public Opinion is higher than the Supreme Court. 

The Supreme Court interprets the Constitution, but our Court of Public Opinion has the ability to change the Constitution into whatever we want, working through our Congressional representatives.

February 3, 2021

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I loved the Ted Bundy documentary on Netflix. Don't get me wrong with what I'm about to say, he's one of the worst human beings who has ever existed and I'm glad he's dead... but... but... I can't help but momentarily empathize with people who break out of prison, no matter what their crime. I can't help putting myself in their position and imagine their first bit of freedom, after having expected to be behind bars for the rest of their life. They noticed a weakness, made a plan, found the guts to carry it out, and it worked. And he did it twice somehow! Again, don't get me wrong... I wish he never did break out, I empathize a thousand times more with the families of the victims, and I'm glad he's dead, but... I just can't help but empathize.

February 3, 2019

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I have a miniature zen garden on the desk in my room. Gretel saw me raking the sand and wanted to help. Since it was a garden she wanted to draw a picture of a carrot in the sand. She wasn't happy with her picture so she picked out a bunch of tiny painted green and orange shells we got at the beach and she colored in her picture with them. She plopped them all in very carefully. I was very impressed! But before I got my camera she wrecked the whole thing. I caught myself just before getting irritated... thank you for the lesson on ephemerality, little zen master.

February 3, 2019

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This embattled Virginia governor has a very clear path in this case... tell everybody he'll resign at the end of his term, and then concurrently run as a Republican for the next term. But seriously, when I first saw this story I thought that he was a Republican and I thought it was a rush to judgment. I certainly don't think this picture proves that he is a racist (we have to be judicial with that term for it to mean anything) and I don't think it proves that he was a racist. I think it proves that 30 or so years ago he did something that was racially-tinged, and a bad judgment. When Neil Brennan was on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld they were discussing this topic, what they would do if something viral came out about either of them. Jerry was blown away by Neil's genius response... he would tell everybody, "Come back in a month, if everybody still cares about this by that point let's talk about it."

February 3, 2019

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The Dow dropped 666 points on the day the president threw the FBI under the bus. Maybe God is a fan of law enforcement?

February 3, 2018

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Gem of a paragraph from Jon Ronson's Lost At Sea. He was mirroring James Bond's trip from Goldfinger.

"The coffee and Camembert and the wine and the brandy swirl toxically inside my now churning stomach. I stumble back to the hotel and to bed. At 3:56 a.m. I wake with the confused shriek, grab my notepad, and scrawl "3:56 a.m. hair triangle horse chest," and then fall asleep again. I do not know what "hair triangle horse chest" means.

February 3, 2017

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Here's a fun question that will turn up at Neil Gorsuch's confirmation hearing- "Do you think it's fair for the Congress to delay confirmation of a Supreme Court justice for a year?" If it's not fair, they shouldn't be having his hearing. If it is fair, Democrats have a year to consider his answers.

February 3, 2017

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I believe in God. I also believe in Love and Murder. Three of Johnny Cash's best compilations.

February 3, 2016

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Good times, right?

February 3, 2017

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Well that will ASSure retriBUTTion.

The Hill- Hundreds of people plan to protest President Trump's refusal to release his tax returns by dropping their pants at the same time and mooning the Trump Tower in Chicago.

February 3, 2017

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Frank Serpico was shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn on this day in 1971.

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Gertrude Stein joined us on this day in 1874.

"It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much, doing nothing, really doing nothing."

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Richard Yates joined us on this day in 1926.

"Never say anything that doesn't improve on silence."

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Kenneth Anger joined us on this day in 1927.

"In fireworks are released, all the explosive pyrotechnics of a dream. The inflammable desires, dampened by day under the cold water of consciousness, are ignited at night by the libertarian matches of sleep, and burst forth in showers of shimmering incandescence. These imaginary displays provide a temporary relief."

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Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889), Norman Rockwell (1894), Pretty Boy Floyd, (1904) American gangster (d. 1934), Warwick Davis (1970), Elizabeth Holmes (1984)

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Other notable deathdays- Woodrow Wilson (1924), Richie Valens (1959), The Big Bopper (1959)

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Vivian Maier

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Woody Guthrie- Miner's Song

https://youtu.be/a5yDqNtBP8c

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Huffington Post- Measles Facts

Lots of good numbers in the article- 90% of those exposed get it, 1 in 1000 of those who get it also get a swollen brain, 1 or 2 in 1000 die. Wait, those are BAD numbers. Why aren't scientists working on some sort of measles force field???

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/03/measles-us-facts_n_6581922.html

February 3, 2015

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Politico- McCain: Mexico won't pay for the wall

Pence/McCain 2017- "Better people to disagree with."

http://politi.co/2k4mq24

February 3, 2017

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Politico- Trump denounces 'professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters'

The guy who paid "supporters" to come to his presidential announcement speech is talking about paid protesters... sees the world through dollar bill colored glasses.

http://politi.co/2l2TFnn

February 3, 2017

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Independent- Malignant narcisissm': Donald Trump displays classic traits of mental illness, claim psychologists

In part:

Through numerous interviews and his infamous tweeting sprees, it seems Trump only believes facts that praise him - anything else is ‘fake news’ in his eyes. And according to psychologists, this pathological disconnection from reality is dangerous.

He surrounds himself with people who admire and applaud him, and goes on angry tirades against journalists who enrage him by daring to suggest anything negative about him.

Trump’s team will only tell him what he wants to hear, thus pandering to his narcissistic and sociopathic ways.

“With Trump, he's a disturbed person who protects himself by building up his ego and tearing down others,” an anonymous psychologist explained to the NY Daily News.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/donald-trump-mental-illness-narcisissm-us-president-psychologists-inauguration-crowd-size-paranoia-a7552661.html

February 3, 2017

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https://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=Ere8MYlfMpw&u=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPtgKkifJ0Pw%26feature%3Dshare

The Philosopher's Song- Monty Python Live At the Hollywood Bowl

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable,

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table,

David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel,

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the turning of the wrist,

Socrates himself was permanently pissed...

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, with half a pint of shandy was

particularly ill,

Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day,

Aristotle, Aristotle was a beggar for the bottle,

Hobbes was fond of his dram,

And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart, "I drink therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;

A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.

https://youtu.be/PtgKkifJ0Pw

February 3, 2019

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Huffington Post- Parents Shared The Creepiest Things Their Kids Have Ever Said

I will always read these. Favorites from this list:

Walking with my 2-yo in a cemetery by our house. She says “mommy, who is that man in the red jacket by the stone house?” She pointed to a mausoleum. There was no one else in the cemetery. “He’s waving at me!” She waved back. “He’s coming over to talk!”

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"We're all gonna die."

"I know sweetie. That's just part of-"

"You're gonna die tomorrow."

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When my niece was 7, she asked us why we were keeping all the dead grandmas in the attic. Then she laughed.

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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/parents-shared-the-creepiest-things-their-kids-have-ever-said-to-them_n_5a72446de4b03699143f15eb

February 3, 2019

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Apparently I'm a huge fan of bowling screw ups.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1396439317941154

https://www.facebook.com/reel/343250215172607

I watched that second one at least a hundred times. I don't know if it's that it's edited to the music, or just the fact that his feet land two lanes over, but I was in my office the other day laughing and laughing and laughing, and I think I even cried a little, and I composed myself just one second before somebody walked in to talk to me about something.

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Stanley Kubrick- "Observation is a dying art."

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Blaise Pascal- "Jesus Christ came to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves."

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Seneca- "If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable."

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T.S. Eliot- "The number of people with any criteria for distinguishing between good and evil is very small."

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John Milton- “I will not deny but that the best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words.”

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Aldous Huxley- "There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." 

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Aristotle- "The life of children, as much as that of intemperate men, is wholly governed by their desires."

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Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test- "The world was simply and sheerly divided into 'the aware', those who had the experience of being vessels of the divine, and a great mass of 'the 'unaware', 'the unmusical', 'the unattuned'...the aware were never snobbish toward the unaware, but in fact most of that great jellyfish blob of straight souls looked like hopeless cases."

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Robert Smith - “If Morrissey says not to eat meat, then I’ll eat meat; that’s how much I hate Morrissey.”

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H.L. Mencken- "One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. …[This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. that they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest."

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Gandhi- "Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn."

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FDR- "I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues."

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Joyce, Ulysses- "Her antiquity in preceding and surviving succeeding tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible."

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Edward Abbey- "How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it."

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Truman Capote- "When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended for self-flagellation solely."

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https://www.tiktok.com/@julesevisions/video/7150858488560897281

Philomena Cunk- "Jesus was a carpenter, and that's ironic because he's named after the two words you are most likely scream after hitting your thumb with a hammer."

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Miyazaki- "Life is a winking light in the darkness."