I recently played a short music set at a venue and the host introduced me as “Pete”. Hey, I’m standing in front of a live microphone too. I called out that the “r” in “Peter” is not silent and then proceeded to play. Afterwards the sound person said that they appreciated my calling out the host on getting the name right, adding that the host kept forgetting their name. I talked to the host at the end of the evening to ensure no ruffled feathers on his side.

Recent data indicates that churchgoers are happier than non-churchgoers. The real reason seems to be that the church community acts as a support group and that this would be the case regardless of whether the religion is true. I would assert that you can’t stop the analysis there. I haven’t seen data for this yet, but anecdotal stories indicate that some church communities intentionally cause more unhappiness for those outside that specific community.

Society is a fragile fabric, make up of the threads of gentlemen’s (and ladies') agreements. There is a distinct shortage of gentlemen (and ladies). As usual, feel free to disagree using this contact link. My world view is a hypothesis, not a belief.

Some idioms from a friend: First a fun one: Cæ sirek ceruf kunʋareʋ conkomes ʋymkomet momet. (The universe moved left one pink cow - sudden realization that changes a world view.) More political ones: Cæ surej kanuf cemy dølkomej ranuf. (More hugs and less beatings.) Cæ ŋymʋonej tyrʋomeceʋ dinu koret semjømes. (Treating people like things is evil.) Cæ duldumec cæu jennæmes. (Morals before loyalty.

Health Justice Monitor estimates approximately 200,000 annual deaths in the US potentially representing insurance-related mortality. I would be interested in information from anyone with actual expertise in this area who can review the methodology. US News reported “For example, an analysis from health policy research organization KFF found that major medical insurers offering plans to individuals via the Healthcare.gov marketplace rejected nearly 1 in 5 in-network claims in 2021. Yet while close to 17% of claims were denied, rates varied drastically among plan issuers, ranging from 2% to 49%.

Something I wrote a few months ago with nothing to do with current political events.

It is obvious to the 3 people who read this blog that my enthusiasm for doing the research required for trying to honestly analyze something that caught my eye has waned. Back in 2021 I posted “When an honestly mistaken person is confronted with the truth, he is either no longer mistaken, or no longer honest.” I am confronted with the reality of a post-truth world, where onion peeling analysis is irrelevant.

This song was written about an episode in a cozy fantasy novella called Andras Hill, which can be found at Anthracyda.org.

I saw the following recently on reddit: When I worked in a book store, we had a guy come in once looking for waterproof books. I asked why, and he said he wanted something to read to chickens. He went on to say he already had one laminated book of poetry that he read to them every night, but he thought they might want something else. I’ll take that.

Neil Gaiman coined the term “information shaped sentences” for the results from ChatGPT. He is right. Much of what comes back from ChatGPT and other “AI” products looks like information, but isn’t. It is one thing for “AI” to look for patterns in actual physical data (e.g. medical research). It is quite another for “AI” to mine from datasets like the internet that is full of misinformation, disinformation, opinion, fiction and a trillion biases.

I was once told by a left wing activist that existential crises were a luxury for the rich. There was a recent discussion on social media (the askphilosophy subreddit) about whether philosophy is a borgeouise hobby. I thought the most interesting comments came from the “third world” perspective. They distinguished between western academic analytic philosophy and philosophizing done by persons outside that small circle. Some thought the first was becoming a bourgeois hobby, but the second happened every day, every where.

I was at a Christmas party a couple of weeks ago. A guy at the party was wearing a shirt clearly intended to trigger liberals. The wording on his shirt read, in part “I am a Christian but I am a born warrior. I will fight for ….xyz things.” The language was clearly written so that if you objected, you would be played as opposing motherhood, apple pie etc, while at the same time demonstrating that he had no intention of following the Sermon on the Mount.

How often do you read a story in the media in your area of expertise that is misleading or even completely wrong, then turn to the next story in a different subject and assume that its correct. This is called Gell-Mann Amnesia. Michael Crichton coined the term. In his words: Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well.