It is probably a good thing we don't live forever

None are so blind as those whose entire fortune is handcuffed to the "current reality".

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The Progressive's efforts to preemptively knock Trump out of the 2024 Presidential contest is reminiscent of Michigan's Secretary-of-State disqualifying the FIVE Republican Gubernatorial front-runners for the 2022 primary.

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Nyctophobia is fear of the dark.
Agoraphobia is the fear of being unable to escape a given place

I suppose that makes me a Nyctoagoraphobe. I fear that we are entering a dark place from which there is little chance of escaping.

Is it time to dump "elite" Universities?

I recently saw a video clip of a Law Professor smugly lecturing Senator Josh Hawley because he did not roll-over and accept her assertion that correlation was proof of causality.
She contended that Trans people were afflicted with higher rates of mental illness and various markers for mental-health issues like substance-abuse and suicide because they were discriminated against by society.

In the absence of other data, it is equally valid to contend that people who are mentally ill self-medicate with drugs-and-alcohol and ill-advised surgeries. People who are mentally ill often seek self-destructive behaviors like cutting and suicide. Society avoids mentally ill people because they are often dangerous and unpredictable.

In another case, a "Teaching Professor and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Managing Faculty Director for the Center for Civil Rights and Racial Justice in the Law School at the University Pittsburgh" contended that there are ZERO differences between the skeletons of adult males and females.

When mocked for his stupidity, he attempted to intimidate the guest speaker with his credentials. Who ya gonna believe? Yo lying eyes or an expert?

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

The phrase "How many angels..." is a mockery of the fact that once a body of knowledge, Theology in this case, approaches exhaustion it starts racing down rabbit-holes of no practical consequence.

People who worry about practical realities like "What is for dinner?" and "How am I going to pay THAT bill?" recognize these gymnastics as mental-masturbation. The hole-runner's ego is gratified but nobody wants to associate with them much less shake their hand.

Nerd Story

In 1980, Professor Charles St Clair informed those of us in his Thermodynamics II class about an effort by an "elite" university changing the way they taught Thermo. Rather than using steam tables that list entropy, enthapy and mass per unit volume, the Thermo department decided they would teach from "First Principles" and taught incoming students to formulate problems in spherical coordinates, Van der Waals forces, kinetic energies of discrete molecules and other esoterica.

The new approach proved to be a train-wreck. Using the old method, a mediocre student (or employee) could find an answer that was close-enough in 20 minutes. The new method required four days and even the very brightest and most meticulous students were error-prone given the convoluted and calculation intensive approach.

Then St Clair chuckled. "That is why we teach you plug-and-chug in Thermo. At the Bachelors level we are training employees and Thermo is a darned good test-bed to teach you how to document your thought process so you can find your errors."

End Nerd Story

What incremental value does the incremental cost of attending an "Elite" institution purchase for an ordinary plebe?

Gratuitous garden picture

Stupice tomato seedlings. These are germinating much more quickly than the other three varieties. They were seeded five days ago.