Why it it so difficult to comprehend?

Here is an email I have tried to send to an on-line magazine which is part of Conservatism, Inc. I don't expect this to be seen by an actual human being, or if it is, to be given any consideration.

When I click on the links to the excellent articles and analysis that [entity] provides, advertisements are thrown at me -- degrading my bandwidth and taking over my sound system -- and so I close the window ... having not read the excellent article and analysis.

In the near future, I expect that I will instruct my email to automatically send all emailings from [entity] into the "junk mail" folder.

My question this: why it it so difficult to comprehend that trying to take over your potential readers' browers is the best way to turn potential readers into non-readers?

I long ago stopped bothering with the Conservatism, Inc entity called National Review Online precisely for this reason, even before their editors made it so publicly clear that they were more concerned with "respectability", as defined by leftists, than with opposing and turning back leftism.

Why is it so difficult to comprehend that if the advertising at a website – or on a television network – drives away the eyeballs and eardrums, then the website (or network) merely ends up cutting its own throat?

For example, the *reason* that broadcast television is floundering isn't due to cable television, it's because 20 or more minutes of every hour is commercials (and the same damned ones, over and over and over).

For example, the *reason* that cable television is floundering isn't due to "alternate choices", it's because 20 or more minutes of every hour is commercials (and the same damned ones, over and over and over).


For example, the *reason* that Hulu is going to be floundering in the not too distant future isn't due to "X, Y and Z", it's because there are too many commercials (and the same damned ones, over and over and over ... including even after you have indicated that you don't want to see a specific one again).

Finally! A 'foreign leader' he won't bow to

CNN: Obama, Pope Francis meet for first time

The 100

Lastnight, I watched the pilot for an apparently new (supposedly) science-fiction TV series called 'The 100' on Hulu.

My assessment: It could be a good and interesting series, as it starts with an interesting concept, but it won't be. And it will have next to no relationship to science fiction. What it *will* be is just one more excuse to parade "hot young bodies", and the sort of constant, stupid and pointless "drama" that immature women love, across the TV screen.

If you happen to watch the episode, ask yourself: Are *any* of these characters believable (*) as 16-18 year old kids who have spent their entire lives in a culture for which the only punishment for any crime is death? Is the brunette Trouble-Making Bitch believable as a 16 year old girl who has spent her entire life being hidden in her mother’s apartment - who, until she was discovered and imprisoned, has known at most three other persons in her entire short life?

Right after the semi-crash landing, the Tyrant-in-Waiting reveals that he is the Trouble-Making Bitch's brother. It's easy to miss, but someone in the background exclaims: "No one has a brother!" The meaning of this is that in this society, each woman is allowed to have just one child; her mother's violation of that "law" being the reason that the Trouble-Making Bitch had to be kept hidden, why she was imprisoned after she was discovered "hidden under the floor", and why he mother was "floated". But think about this: no society can last even one generation unless its women generally have at least two children.

This show is going to be just another compendium of all the stupid, counter-factual things that "liberals" love to believe, and to which they try to force reality to conform.


(*) The Cute Blonde, and the Black Kid who loves her, are just about believable.

Libertarianism of the day

Gentle Reader may recall that I have said more than once that any time push comes to shove, almost every libertarian will automatically side with the "liberals" and hard-leftists. This is because most libertarians *are* leftists ... they just don't want to admit it, even to themselves.

They even "reason" excatly like open-leftists do.

This is my response to that OP:

"However, Lockman's sexist, anti-liberty views on women is a perfect example of why I generally hate conservatives or right-wingers motivated by loony religious beliefs."

Are you stupid? No, you're not stupid.

Are you ignorant? I don't see how that can be the case, as you know the quote and its context.

The only other option is that you're intellectually dishonest -- you "don't understand" what he said because you don't want to follow the logic ... therefore, you misrepresent the whole incident.

The man is not advocating rape -- and you *know* that he is not. As you well know, he is performing a reductio ad absurdum on the "logic" of the pro-abortionists.

V J Torley on Scientism

V J Torley (at Uncommon Descent): Why science cannot be the only way of knowing: A reply to Jason Rosenhouse

It's a very good essay or discussion about scientism, and I encourage Gentle Reader to read it (*). Yet, sadly, Mr Torley himself subscribes to scientism, if not as thoroughgoing (nor as blatantly absurd) as Mr Rosenhouse’s scientism.

Consider merely Mr Torley’s title: "Why science cannot be the only way of knowing" ... which implied question falsely assumes that 'modern science' even is a way of knowing. The truth is this: what we call 'modern science' is not at all a way of knowing.

The problem is this: the claim to know something is the claim that some certain proposition one believes (or at least avers) to be true is, in fact, true. BUT, 'modern science' doesn't start with truth, doesn't deal in truth, is uninterested in truth, doesn't uncover truth (except accidentally), and, importantly, 'modern science' contains no means to distinguish a scientific statement or claim that happens to be true from one that happens to be untrue.

Ergo: what we call 'modern science' is not at all a way of knowing. If one does believe some particular scientific proposition to be true, one does not, and logically cannot, believe so on the basis of science: science simply doesn't go that far.

And people, for the most part, refuse to understand this.


(*) at the same time, his deliberate use of "gender inclusive language" -- that is, his deliberate violation of English grammar by using leftist politics-as-language -- demonstrates that he is willing to trim the truth in a vain attempt to get a pat on the head from the cool kids (who would murder him if they could).

Edit 2014/03/23:
William J Murray makes a good comment:

Science isn’t a way of knowing – at least, not knowing anything significant; science is a way of collecting data. For that data to be useful in any meaningful way, it must be interpreted through a model of one sort or another. You have described some of the fundamental structure of one conceptual model used to interpret data into facts, evidence and theories.

The problem with many atheists/materialists/physicalists is that they have lost sight that they are interpreting data through a conceptual worldview which while perhaps useful, may or may not be true. The method of science is only about collecting data, while it is philosophy that interprets that data into meaningful (and useful) categories and relationships.

A/M/Ps are mistaking their philosophy of data interpretation for reality.

On Sam Harris' denial of free-will

Two posts by 'K T Cat' concerning Sam Harris' recent "ghastly pamphlet" denying the reality (*) of free-will --

You Have No Free Will. Vote Democrat. Isn't it odd that any practical implication of scientism is *always* "more leftism!" and/or "more atheism!" Why, one might almost begin to believe that the "science" is just the tail being wagged by the atheistic/leftist dog.

Raising Children Without Free Will

(*) though, of course, his denial of human freedom, and especially his attempt to convince you that you are not free, is but an affirmation of the freedom of the will after all.

Biden: Obama deserves to die

The Hill: Biden: After healthcare rollout pains, Obama fit 'for sainthood' -- for, as everyone knows, a person has to be dead to be "fit for sainthood".