Today's Links

22 Messages From Creationists To People Who Believe In Evolution

I asked 22 self-identifying creationists at the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate to write a message/question/note to the other side…

Your usual ‘creationists in glassy-eyed idiocy shocker’ until Creationist #7 asks, ‘What about Noetics?’!

After a spot of Googling I suspect #7 isn’t a fan of Aristotelian metaphysics, instead referring to The Institute of Noetic Sciences (an outfit founded by a former astronaut to ‘research’ stuff like ‘alternative healing practices, consciousness-based healthcare, spirituality, human potential, psychic abilities, psychokenesis and survival of consciousness after bodily death’).

Drapetomania

Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that caused black slaves to flee captivity.

The Year of Code’s neoliberal agenda

So the Year of Code isn’t about doing fun stuff with JavaScript, Python and Ruby. It’s about building another element of a society where those that don’t work don’t eat, and where the rewards of work are skewed ever further towards a tiny minority at the top of the pile. Read Dickens and Orwell if you want to know how much fun that is. It’s about creating childhoods overshadowed by adult anxieties about work and economic survival. It’s about replacing the broad expanse of education – with all the exploration, creativity and genuine freedom that implies – with the narrow tunnel of schooling. It’s training children to have “relevant” employer-friendly skills and the right attitudes and politics to go with them. All social concerns are subordinated to a particular kind of economic settlement. The state is reduced to a vehicle for expanding and defending private property. This is neoliberalism.

Too poor for pop culture

The idea of information being class-based as well became evident to me when I watched my friends talk about a weeks-old story as if it happened yesterday.

A Linguist Explains the Grammar of Doge. Wow.

But what is it about shiba inus that makes them violate the selectional restrictions of certain English modifiers?

Bonus points for featuring my fave doge meme: