Category Archives: Society

Turn Strangers into Friends

Posted on July 17, 2019 by N.S. Palmer

How can strangers quickly become friends? Or at least avoid being enemies? On my way back from vacation, I passed through Miami International Airport. It’s an enormous place, so I spent a half hour walking from one terminal to another. … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Relations, Political Science, Psychology, Society | Tagged America, Group identity, Group membership, Group solidarity, In-Group, Leadership, Out-Group, Outreach, Social groups | 6 Comments

Christakis’s Blueprint for Sanity

Posted on July 9, 2019 by N.S. Palmer

I’ve started reading Yale sociologist Nicholas Christakis’s book Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society. Christakis is something of a hero not only of free speech, but of sanity itself. His wife Erika, also on the faculty, was denounced … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Relations, Political Science, Psychology, Society | Tagged Blueprint, Christakis, Mob hysteria, Nicholas Christakis, Protesters, Psychology, Yale | Leave a comment

Grokking Our Disagreements

Posted on June 26, 2019 by N.S. Palmer

I finally got around to reading Robert Heinlein’s science fiction novel Starship Troopers. When I was growing up, I read two or three science fiction novels a week. How I missed Starship Troopers, I don’t know. And one of my … Continue reading →

Posted in Epistemology, Human Relations, Life, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Society | Tagged Assumptions, Disagreement, Fair Witness, Grok, Grokking, Handling disagreement, Heinlein, Social Conflict, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land | Leave a comment

The Lowered Expectations Dating Service

Posted on June 16, 2019 by N.S. Palmer

Utopian schemes try to create a perfect society. They usually cause more suffering than they cure. It’s a bad bargain. Moreover, people seldom agree on what a perfect society would be like. No matter how good it is or in … Continue reading →

Posted in Life, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Society | Tagged Divine discontent, Expectations, Imperfection, Lowered expectations, Oppression, Perfectionism, Social Change, Social perfection, Utopia, Utopian, Voltaire | Leave a comment

Truth, Lies, and Bullsh-t

Posted on June 13, 2019 by N.S. Palmer

“I am lying,” said Epimenides the Cretan. So if he was lying, then he was telling the truth. And if he was telling the truth, he was lying. Epimenides also made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Sorry. That was a … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Relations, Life, Political Science, Psychology, Society | Tagged Bullshit, Honesty, Lying, Morality, Politics, Social norms, The Invention of Lying, Truth | 3 Comments

History Bends Toward Chaos

Posted on June 9, 2019 by N.S. Palmer

Many people say that “the arc of history bends toward justice.” Pardon my French, but ce n’est pas vrai: It’s not true. It’s the opposite of the truth. If there is going to be justice in our world, we have … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Political Science, Society | Tagged American Revolution, Arc of history, Chaos, Disorder, Entropy, French Revolution, Justice, Order, Order versus chaos, Russian Revolution, Utopian, Utopianism | 3 Comments

Trick or Treat

Posted on June 7, 2019 by N.S. Palmer

Is it okay to “trick people” for their own good? That question comes up early in John Staddon’s book The New Behaviorism. I’ve just started reading it, and it’s a thought-provoking analysis. Behaviorism is a psychological approach that, true to … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Relations, Life, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Society | Tagged B.F. Skinner, Behaviorism, Clickbait, Free Will, Freedom, Freedom of choice, John B. Watson, John Staddon, Operant conditioning, Power corrupts, Psychology, Staddon, The Fatal Conceit, Totalitarianism, Utopianism | 2 Comments

Too Centralized to Fail?

Posted on June 3, 2019 by N.S. Palmer

Google Cloud went down yesterday, and it took a big piece of the internet down with it. Large areas of the United States, Europe, and South America lost internet services until Google fixed the problem. But Google is just one … Continue reading →

Posted in Political Science, Society | Tagged Antitrust, Bank bailout, Competitive markets, Complex systems, Crash of 2008, DARPA, Decentralization, FTC, Giant corporations, Google, Internet, Market power, Outage, Single point of failure, Technology, Too big to fail | Leave a comment

Tolerance or Violence?

Posted on May 29, 2019 by N.S. Palmer

A friend and I recently had a rational debate about abortion. Yes, rational debate is possible, even about touchy subjects. Neither of us convinced the other, but we understand each other better. Perhaps even more important, we confirmed that disagreement … Continue reading →

Posted in Life, Philosophy, Political Science, Society | Tagged Abortion, Base-10, Base-3, Coercion, Constitution, Definitional arguments, Definitions, Federalism, Fetus, Freedom of choice, Live and let live, Ternary, Tolerance, Violence | 3 Comments

X Marks the Spot

Posted on May 28, 2019 by N.S. Palmer

“Latinx?” What the heck is that? I see the word a lot lately. I finally figured out why media people have started using it. A Latino is a male Hispanic. A Latina is a female Hispanic. The words look like … Continue reading →