100daystooffload &mdash; rkw https://rkw.writeas.com/tag:100daystooffload Mon, 27 Apr 2026 15:08:54 +0000 Sidewalk pennies https://rkw.writeas.com/sidewalk-pennies?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Today, walking back home, I saw a bright shiny new penny laying on the sidewalk. Only a single penny, but it was so bright in the sunshine that I picked it up. Looking ahead, I saw what looked like another just a few feet away. I picked that bright new penny up as well. !--more-- I had noticed that other folks were just walking by, ignoring the pennies, even though both were very bright. Most folks walking on sidewalks in Manhattan, especially in residential areas like the Upper West Side, do pay attention to what is on the sidewalk, mostly to avoid stepping on dog turds. Yes, most dog owners are good about sticking with the regulations that they must pick up after their dog. However, clearly enough dog owners fail to follow the regulation to ensure that there is always the risk of messing up one's shoes if not paying attention to the surface of the sidewalk. For almost ten successive blocks, I found one to three pennies on each block. I picked them all up, although many of them were not as shiny as the first two. As I walked, I remembered seeing a young man going through a pile of coins in his hand and just dropping the pennies. Initially I had wondered if someone deliberately created a path of pennies, but the memory convinced me this was just the result of yet another person who treated pennies as trash. After a bit of online research, I learned that a lot of folks think pennies should be abandoned - and that some just treat them as trash. Others assert that could be considered a violation of insUS code/ins. It is true that pennies now cost more to create (1.7￠) than they are worth. Finally I found a good summary of the arguments about pennies: insShould We Get Rid of the Penny? – 8 Reasons to Keep It vs Eliminate It/ins. I discovered that, like many Americans, I just like pennies because they honor Lincoln, our most revered president. I also liked the story about the student, Stephen Coyle, who used pennies for protest: ins11,000 pennies for your thoughts? One student’s unique protest against fines/ins #100daystooffload Day 22. ]]> Today, walking back home, I saw a bright shiny new penny laying on the sidewalk. Only a single penny, but it was so bright in the sunshine that I picked it up. Looking ahead, I saw what looked like another just a few feet away. I picked that bright new penny up as well. I had noticed that other folks were just walking by, ignoring the pennies, even though both were very bright. Most folks walking on sidewalks in Manhattan, especially in residential areas like the Upper West Side, do pay attention to what is on the sidewalk, mostly to avoid stepping on dog turds. Yes, most dog owners are good about sticking with the regulations that they must pick up after their dog. However, clearly enough dog owners fail to follow the regulation to ensure that there is always the risk of messing up one's shoes if not paying attention to the surface of the sidewalk.

For almost ten successive blocks, I found one to three pennies on each block. I picked them all up, although many of them were not as shiny as the first two. As I walked, I remembered seeing a young man going through a pile of coins in his hand and just dropping the pennies. Initially I had wondered if someone deliberately created a path of pennies, but the memory convinced me this was just the result of yet another person who treated pennies as trash.

After a bit of online research, I learned that a lot of folks think pennies should be abandoned – and that some just treat them as trash. Others assert that could be considered a violation of US code. It is true that pennies now cost more to create (1.7￠) than they are worth.

Finally I found a good summary of the arguments about pennies: Should We Get Rid of the Penny? – 8 Reasons to Keep It vs Eliminate It. I discovered that, like many Americans, I just like pennies because they honor Lincoln, our most revered president.

I also liked the story about the student, Stephen Coyle, who used pennies for protest: 11,000 pennies for your thoughts? One student’s unique protest against fines

#100daystooffload Day 22.

]]> https://rkw.writeas.com/sidewalk-pennies Wed, 13 Jan 2021 15:22:49 +0000 Feline Philosophy https://rkw.writeas.com/feline-philosophy?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Published in 2020, the book's subtitle is "Cats and the Meaning of Life". !--more-- The author and former Oxford professor, John Gray, uses the behavior of cats as a lens through which to evaluate major schools of philosophy. Cats, of course, do not have or need a philosophy, which - one could argue - is a philosophy in itself. In any case, the book is short and entertaining. What is most entertaining are the stories about cats: Mèo, in Jack Laurence's memoir of Michel de Montaigne Saha, in Sindonie-Gabrielle Colette's 1933 novel, The Cat Ming, in Patricia Highsmith's story, 'Ming's Biggest Prey' Lily, in Junichiro Tanizaki's novel, A Cat, a Man and Two Women Gattino, in Mary Gaitskill's essay, 'Lost Cat' Muri, in Russian religious philosopher Nicolos Berdyaev's autobiography I was very pleased to see Gray's reference to one of the books that deeply moved me when I was young: The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. (Cats don't need to read that book, but I sure did!) I think the best summary of the book is the first rule of the section titled "Ten feline hints on how to live well": 1. Never try to persuade human beings to be reasonable. Trying to persuade human beings to be rational is like trying to teach cats to be vegans. Human beings use reason to bolster whatever they want to believe, seldom to find out if what they believe is true. So true! #100daystooffload Day 22.]]> Published in 2020, the book's subtitle is “Cats and the Meaning of Life”.

The author and former Oxford professor, John Gray, uses the behavior of cats as a lens through which to evaluate major schools of philosophy. Cats, of course, do not have or need a philosophy, which – one could argue – is a philosophy in itself.

In any case, the book is short and entertaining. What is most entertaining are the stories about cats:

  • Mèo, in Jack Laurence's memoir of Michel de Montaigne
  • Saha, in Sindonie-Gabrielle Colette's 1933 novel, The Cat
  • Ming, in Patricia Highsmith's story, 'Ming's Biggest Prey'
  • Lily, in Junichiro Tanizaki's novel, A Cat, a Man and Two Women
  • Gattino, in Mary Gaitskill's essay, 'Lost Cat'
  • Muri, in Russian religious philosopher Nicolos Berdyaev's autobiography

I was very pleased to see Gray's reference to one of the books that deeply moved me when I was young: The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. (Cats don't need to read that book, but I sure did!)

I think the best summary of the book is the first rule of the section titled “Ten feline hints on how to live well”:

  1. Never try to persuade human beings to be reasonable.

Trying to persuade human beings to be rational is like trying to teach cats to be vegans. Human beings use reason to bolster whatever they want to believe, seldom to find out if what they believe is true.

So true!

#100daystooffload Day 22.

]]> https://rkw.writeas.com/feline-philosophy Sat, 09 Jan 2021 18:12:05 +0000 Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race https://rkw.writeas.com/self-portrait-in-black-and-white-unlearning-race?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[I first learned about the author, Thomas Chatterton Williams, when I was checking Wikipedia for Coleman Hughes. Coleman is a young black intellectual whose YouTube interview with John McWhorter had intrigued me. According to Wikipedia: !--more-- In September 2020, ... French newspaper Le Monde identified Hughes as one of four "anti-conformists of anti-racism" along with Glenn Loury, Thomas Chatterton Williams and John McWhorter. Since I was familiar with three of the four "anti-conformists of anti-racism", I was pleased to learn that the fourth, Williams, had published a book in 2019, a memoir about the struggle with his own identity as a black man. After reading the book, I visited the insBook Mark Reviews/ins to see how William's book was rated by various literary critics. The website assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream critics; Williams' book received a "Mixed" rating based on 11 reviews: 2 "Rave", 3 "Positive", 3 "Mixed", and 3 "Pan" reviews. When I read the "Pan" reviews, it was clear that several critics are simply 'antiracist ideologues' who simply reject what Williams has to say: “Woke” anti-racism proceeds from the premise that race is real—if not biological, then socially constructed and therefore equally if not more significant still—putting it in sync with toxic presumptions of white supremacism that would also like to insist on the fundamentality of racial difference. Working toward opposing conclusions, racists and many anti-racists alike eagerly reduce people to abstract color categories, all the while feeding off of and legitimizing each other, while any of us searching for gray areas and common ground get devoured twice. Both sides mystify racial identity, interpreting it as something fixed and determinative, and almost supernatural in scope. This way of thinking about human difference is seductive for many reasons but it has failed us. (p.128) To be clear, the bulk of the book consists of Williams recounting how his experience of life in the United States and then Europe led to an evolution of his understanding about what 'racial identity' actually is, such as: Very often a class transition, without any further complicating factors needed, can feel just like a racial one. (p.32) Or again: People will always look different from each other in ways we can't control. What we can control is what we allow ourselves to make of those differences. (p.26) I hadn't actually seen a photograph of Williams until after finishing the book. It was remarkable how the many photos one sees in the Google search results illustrate much about that which he had written. If one did not want to read the book, one could simply watch for a few minutes the video insUnlearning Race in 2020? Thomas Chatterton Williams/ins. Of course, after watching Thomas Chatteron Williams in conversation, one might decide to read his book! #100daystooffload Day 21. ]]> I first learned about the author, Thomas Chatterton Williams, when I was checking Wikipedia for Coleman Hughes. Coleman is a young black intellectual whose YouTube interview with John McWhorter had intrigued me. According to Wikipedia:

In September 2020, ... French newspaper Le Monde identified Hughes as one of four “anti-conformists of anti-racism” along with Glenn Loury, Thomas Chatterton Williams and John McWhorter.

Since I was familiar with three of the four “anti-conformists of anti-racism”, I was pleased to learn that the fourth, Williams, had published a book in 2019, a memoir about the struggle with his own identity as a black man.

After reading the book, I visited the Book Mark Reviews to see how William's book was rated by various literary critics. The website assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream critics; Williams' book received a “Mixed” rating based on 11 reviews: 2 “Rave”, 3 “Positive”, 3 “Mixed”, and 3 “Pan” reviews. When I read the “Pan” reviews, it was clear that several critics are simply 'antiracist ideologues' who simply reject what Williams has to say:

“Woke” anti-racism proceeds from the premise that race is real—if not biological, then socially constructed and therefore equally if not more significant still—putting it in sync with toxic presumptions of white supremacism that would also like to insist on the fundamentality of racial difference. Working toward opposing conclusions, racists and many anti-racists alike eagerly reduce people to abstract color categories, all the while feeding off of and legitimizing each other, while any of us searching for gray areas and common ground get devoured twice. Both sides mystify racial identity, interpreting it as something fixed and determinative, and almost supernatural in scope. This way of thinking about human difference is seductive for many reasons but it has failed us. (p.128)

To be clear, the bulk of the book consists of Williams recounting how his experience of life in the United States and then Europe led to an evolution of his understanding about what 'racial identity' actually is, such as:

Very often a class transition, without any further complicating factors needed, can feel just like a racial one. (p.32)

Or again:

People will always look different from each other in ways we can't control. What we can control is what we allow ourselves to make of those differences. (p.26)

I hadn't actually seen a photograph of Williams until after finishing the book. It was remarkable how the many photos one sees in the Google search results illustrate much about that which he had written.

If one did not want to read the book, one could simply watch for a few minutes the video Unlearning Race in 2020? Thomas Chatterton Williams. Of course, after watching Thomas Chatteron Williams in conversation, one might decide to read his book!

#100daystooffload Day 21.

]]> https://rkw.writeas.com/self-portrait-in-black-and-white-unlearning-race Fri, 08 Jan 2021 19:15:14 +0000 My friend, an intelligent, well-educated Trumpist (part 3) https://rkw.writeas.com/my-friend-an-intelligent-well-educated-trumpist-part-3?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[JL and I had a good phone conversation on Sunday, January 3. Our chat reminded me again what an affable person my friend has always been. JL was both liked and respected by his employees. He hired diverse staff, and was more interested in what one could do rather than their formal training and education. !--more-- When he started to talk to me again on the state of the election fraud, I gently cut him off by simply saying I would believe the fraud accusation when it was proved in court. In the meantime, I told him that I monitor news coverage across the political spectrum with the aid of insGround News/ins. He was intrigued that Ground News identified 'blind spots' of both the left- and right-leaning media, i.e., stories only covered on one side of the political spectrum. JL accepted my skepticism about the 'research' that he felt proved the voter fraud conspiracy. He also admitted that whether the fraud was proved true or false by history, it would still represent a major harm for our political environment. Naturally I agreed with that assessment. Then, during the DC insurrection three days later, I found myself thinking about my Trumpist friend again. What would he be thinking as he watched the same events? I'm fairly sure it would be along lines such as follows: The protesters did go overboard; they should not have broken into the Capitol. They unwittingly made Trump look bad; too many of them misunderstood what Trump actually wanted them to do. Their anger about the stolen election is justified, but Trump was not seeking the violent coup that the fake media had been reporting. For me, my friend's unwavering belief in the vast voter fraud conspiracy is simply another form of what my favorite black intellectual, John McWhorter, observed about extreme leftist ideology in his article insAntiracism, Our Flawed New Religion/ins. Trumpism has become my Trumpist friend's religion. #100daystooffload Day 20. ]]> JL and I had a good phone conversation on Sunday, January 3. Our chat reminded me again what an affable person my friend has always been. JL was both liked and respected by his employees. He hired diverse staff, and was more interested in what one could do rather than their formal training and education.

When he started to talk to me again on the state of the election fraud, I gently cut him off by simply saying I would believe the fraud accusation when it was proved in court. In the meantime, I told him that I monitor news coverage across the political spectrum with the aid of Ground News. He was intrigued that Ground News identified 'blind spots' of both the left- and right-leaning media, i.e., stories only covered on one side of the political spectrum.

JL accepted my skepticism about the 'research' that he felt proved the voter fraud conspiracy. He also admitted that whether the fraud was proved true or false by history, it would still represent a major harm for our political environment. Naturally I agreed with that assessment.

Then, during the DC insurrection three days later, I found myself thinking about my Trumpist friend again. What would he be thinking as he watched the same events? I'm fairly sure it would be along lines such as follows:

  • The protesters did go overboard; they should not have broken into the Capitol.
  • They unwittingly made Trump look bad; too many of them misunderstood what Trump actually wanted them to do.
  • Their anger about the stolen election is justified, but Trump was not seeking the violent coup that the fake media had been reporting.

For me, my friend's unwavering belief in the vast voter fraud conspiracy is simply another form of what my favorite black intellectual, John McWhorter, observed about extreme leftist ideology in his article Antiracism, Our Flawed New Religion.

Trumpism has become my Trumpist friend's religion.

#100daystooffload Day 20.

]]> https://rkw.writeas.com/my-friend-an-intelligent-well-educated-trumpist-part-3 Thu, 07 Jan 2021 20:42:17 +0000 Maps of Meaning: Architecture of Belief https://rkw.writeas.com/maps-of-meaning-architecture-of-belief?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[The truth is that, as of now, I haven't actually read Jordan Peterson's premier book, Maps of Meaning - I simply read the Blinkist summary of the book. Shortly before, however, I had watched The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast #34 - Coleman Hughes with Jordan and Mikhaila Peterson because I am an enthusiastic supporter of Coleman Hughes. I knew nothing of Mikhaila, only to learn that most of the conversation would be between Coleman and Mikhaila's father, Jordan Peterson.!--more-- I was impressed. What I liked about Coleman Hughes was his nuanced criticism of ideology, whether on the right or the left - and I was pleased to hear the same nuanced thinking from Mikhaila's father, Jordan. So, after listening to their conversation, I decided to return to Blinkist to see if summaries of Jordan's books were available. They are - and Jordan's two books, Maps of Meaning and 12 Rules for Life, include audios of the Blinkist summaries, which meant I was able to listen to the Maps of Meaning summary while on my daily three-mile walk along the Upper West Side section of Riverside Park. What that summary evoked from me was memories of what I learned a few decades ago from the two-month Ecumenical Institute Academy on the west side of Chicago - a ghetto, in the language of the seventies. During that time I learned how twentieth century theologians like Bultmann, Tillich and Bonhoeffer made it possible to understand the narratives of Christian gospels without rejecting the modern secular/scientific understanding of the world we live in. What Jordan's Maps of Meaning apparently does is offer an even more general understanding of religious and social mythologies - how they function and why we should not reject 'mythology' as equivalent to 'unreality' - that the 'reality' that mythologies deal with has to do with social cohesion and, ideally, individual fulfillment. After reading the Blinkist summary, I checked Wikipedia which summarizes the key reviews of books. Peterson's Maps of Meaning got several very positive initial reviews but more recently several rather negative reviews. The latter seemed to be to be from those who adhere to the current extreme leftist ideology. That was confirmed by seeing that Peterson is now considered to be one of the key figures in the so-called "intellectual dark web", which includes others analysts I value so much, like John McWhorter, Coleman Hughes, Glenn Loury, Bret Weinstein and Steven Pinker, among many others. Interestingly, one reviewer said Maps of Meaning could not be summarized, which suggests that I should probably add it to the overly long list of books that I need to read before I die. In the interim, I will follow up by reading and listening to the Blinkist summary of Peterson's second book, 12 Rules for Life. I will also watch at least some of the 380 YouTube videos currently included in the Jordan B Peterson YouTube channel. #100daystooffload Day 19. ]]> The truth is that, as of now, I haven't actually read Jordan Peterson's premier book, Maps of Meaning – I simply read the Blinkist summary of the book. Shortly before, however, I had watched The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast #34 – Coleman Hughes with Jordan and Mikhaila Peterson because I am an enthusiastic supporter of Coleman Hughes. I knew nothing of Mikhaila, only to learn that most of the conversation would be between Coleman and Mikhaila's father, Jordan Peterson.

I was impressed. What I liked about Coleman Hughes was his nuanced criticism of ideology, whether on the right or the left – and I was pleased to hear the same nuanced thinking from Mikhaila's father, Jordan. So, after listening to their conversation, I decided to return to Blinkist to see if summaries of Jordan's books were available. They are – and Jordan's two books, Maps of Meaning and 12 Rules for Life, include audios of the Blinkist summaries, which meant I was able to listen to the Maps of Meaning summary while on my daily three-mile walk along the Upper West Side section of Riverside Park.

What that summary evoked from me was memories of what I learned a few decades ago from the two-month Ecumenical Institute Academy on the west side of Chicago – a ghetto, in the language of the seventies. During that time I learned how twentieth century theologians like Bultmann, Tillich and Bonhoeffer made it possible to understand the narratives of Christian gospels without rejecting the modern secular/scientific understanding of the world we live in.

What Jordan's Maps of Meaning apparently does is offer an even more general understanding of religious and social mythologies – how they function and why we should not reject 'mythology' as equivalent to 'unreality' – that the 'reality' that mythologies deal with has to do with social cohesion and, ideally, individual fulfillment.

After reading the Blinkist summary, I checked Wikipedia which summarizes the key reviews of books. Peterson's Maps of Meaning got several very positive initial reviews but more recently several rather negative reviews. The latter seemed to be to be from those who adhere to the current extreme leftist ideology. That was confirmed by seeing that Peterson is now considered to be one of the key figures in the so-called “intellectual dark web”, which includes others analysts I value so much, like John McWhorter, Coleman Hughes, Glenn Loury, Bret Weinstein and Steven Pinker, among many others.

Interestingly, one reviewer said Maps of Meaning could not be summarized, which suggests that I should probably add it to the overly long list of books that I need to read before I die. In the interim, I will follow up by reading and listening to the Blinkist summary of Peterson's second book, 12 Rules for Life. I will also watch at least some of the 380 YouTube videos currently included in the Jordan B Peterson YouTube channel.

#100daystooffload Day 19.

]]> https://rkw.writeas.com/maps-of-meaning-architecture-of-belief Mon, 07 Dec 2020 19:13:38 +0000 Conversations about Trump? https://rkw.writeas.com/conversations-about-trump?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[I've never approved of Trump as president. I was raised in middle America, where Trump got lots of support; however, as a moderate liberal, I've lived for decades in New York City. I am unlike many of the folks who live in this huge liberal bubble because I still have Republican friends and relatives, most of whom not only voted for Trump, but still believe pretty much whatever comes out of his mouth. !--more-- The most recent controversy is Trump and Giuliani's contention that Trump won the election by a landslide which was then stolen by huge conspiracy. I have several friends and relatives who buy into that assertion. The issue for me whether and how to respond when that topic comes up for discussion. One approach is simply to ask some basic questions about accepting Trump's fraud assertions - at the least, you can find out if they ever look outside the Trump bubble for other information and analysis. Here are some of fraud-related questions to which you might get interesting replies from a Trump believer: Why would such a huge conspiracy only elect Biden but allow Republicans to retain control of the senate and even reduce the Democratic majority in the house? Since long before the election Trump was saying it would be rigged, why did the Department of Homeland Security investigations before the election result in calling the election "the most secure in American history"? Does that mean Trump's own appointee was part of the conspiracy? Since the election results are consistent with virtually all the polls preceding the election, does that mean the many polling companies were also part of the conspiracy? State GOP lawmakers in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have all said they would not intervene in the selection of electors, who ultimately cast the votes that secure a candidate’s victory. Are they also participating in the conspiracy? Since Trump asserted that he was the victim of election fraud even in the 2016 election that he won, why didn't he have that fraud investigated by the FBI and the Homeland Department of Security? Couldn't such an investigation have prevented the 2020 fraud? Finally, if one wants to get into great detail about typical voting issues are now being cited as conspiracy proof, the Wikipedia page Lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election addresses most all of the conspiracy 'evidence' that has already dismissed in courts around the country. Maybe all the state courts are part of the conspiracy too? The point of these questions is not to try to change your friend's mind. It is to engage in a civilized conversation in which you learn more about the nature and depth of your friend's belief in Trump. Trump allegiance -- for a significant number of folks -- functions as a religion, similar to the way that critical race theory serves as a "theology" for many leftist activists, especially in academia. A prior post, Gusher of white privilege, is an example of how I encountered that in one of my own relatives. Many anti-Trump folks would find Carl Hoffman's Liar's Circus very helpful. The title is likely offensive to Trump supporters -- but for me, it delineated the difference between Trump and his supporters. Several of the folks that attended multiple Trump rallies with the author became good friends to him. It didn't matter to them that he was not a supporter himself. By the end, the author had learned that Trump's rallies were not really just political events. Instead, Trump's rallies actually function as modern versions of America's 19th century evangelical rallies. (The Wikipedia page on "Second Great Awakening" provides a good overview.) All this might help anti-Trump folks get a better grasp of how to deal with pro-Trump folks. Sadly though, I live in a liberal bubble where most people simply refuse to have any relationship with conservatives, especially pro-Trump supporters. That is why I was so pleased when I encountered the BraverAngels.org. Braver Angels has the goal of bridging the widening gap in America - promoting civil debates and conversations between the right and the left, Republicans and Democrats, and most relevant now, pro- and anti-Trump folks. Viewing Trump support as the functional equivalent of a religion is not meant as a disparaging characterization. Instead, it allows one to think about how to engage in civil conversations. For example, I would not try to refute a Christian friend's belief that there will be a Second Coming, something that I don't believe at all. I would, however, be at least somewhat interested in hearing what that friend says about what that meant for his life, for all our lives, for the world we live in, etc. That can lead to an interesting conversation without attacking or disparaging that Christian for his very fundamentalist belief. So, if there is to be a bridge, it will be like the folks listed in The Red/Blue Pairs of Braver Angels. #100daystooffload Day 18. ]]> I've never approved of Trump as president. I was raised in middle America, where Trump got lots of support; however, as a moderate liberal, I've lived for decades in New York City. I am unlike many of the folks who live in this huge liberal bubble because I still have Republican friends and relatives, most of whom not only voted for Trump, but still believe pretty much whatever comes out of his mouth.

The most recent controversy is Trump and Giuliani's contention that Trump won the election by a landslide which was then stolen by huge conspiracy. I have several friends and relatives who buy into that assertion. The issue for me whether and how to respond when that topic comes up for discussion.

One approach is simply to ask some basic questions about accepting Trump's fraud assertions – at the least, you can find out if they ever look outside the Trump bubble for other information and analysis. Here are some of fraud-related questions to which you might get interesting replies from a Trump believer:

  • Why would such a huge conspiracy only elect Biden but allow Republicans to retain control of the senate and even reduce the Democratic majority in the house?

  • Since long before the election Trump was saying it would be rigged, why did the Department of Homeland Security investigations before the election result in calling the election “the most secure in American history”? Does that mean Trump's own appointee was part of the conspiracy?

  • Since the election results are consistent with virtually all the polls preceding the election, does that mean the many polling companies were also part of the conspiracy?

  • State GOP lawmakers in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have all said they would not intervene in the selection of electors, who ultimately cast the votes that secure a candidate’s victory. Are they also participating in the conspiracy?

  • Since Trump asserted that he was the victim of election fraud even in the 2016 election that he won, why didn't he have that fraud investigated by the FBI and the Homeland Department of Security? Couldn't such an investigation have prevented the 2020 fraud?

  • Finally, if one wants to get into great detail about typical voting issues are now being cited as conspiracy proof, the Wikipedia page Lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election addresses most all of the conspiracy 'evidence' that has already dismissed in courts around the country. Maybe all the state courts are part of the conspiracy too?

The point of these questions is not to try to change your friend's mind. It is to engage in a civilized conversation in which you learn more about the nature and depth of your friend's belief in Trump.

Trump allegiance — for a significant number of folks — functions as a religion, similar to the way that critical race theory serves as a “theology” for many leftist activists, especially in academia. A prior post, Gusher of white privilege, is an example of how I encountered that in one of my own relatives.

Many anti-Trump folks would find Carl Hoffman's Liar's Circus very helpful. The title is likely offensive to Trump supporters — but for me, it delineated the difference between Trump and his supporters. Several of the folks that attended multiple Trump rallies with the author became good friends to him. It didn't matter to them that he was not a supporter himself. By the end, the author had learned that Trump's rallies were not really just political events. Instead, Trump's rallies actually function as modern versions of America's 19th century evangelical rallies. (The Wikipedia page on “Second Great Awakening” provides a good overview.)

All this might help anti-Trump folks get a better grasp of how to deal with pro-Trump folks. Sadly though, I live in a liberal bubble where most people simply refuse to have any relationship with conservatives, especially pro-Trump supporters.

That is why I was so pleased when I encountered the BraverAngels.org. Braver Angels has the goal of bridging the widening gap in America – promoting civil debates and conversations between the right and the left, Republicans and Democrats, and most relevant now, pro- and anti-Trump folks.

Viewing Trump support as the functional equivalent of a religion is not meant as a disparaging characterization. Instead, it allows one to think about how to engage in civil conversations. For example, I would not try to refute a Christian friend's belief that there will be a Second Coming, something that I don't believe at all. I would, however, be at least somewhat interested in hearing what that friend says about what that meant for his life, for all our lives, for the world we live in, etc. That can lead to an interesting conversation without attacking or disparaging that Christian for his very fundamentalist belief.

So, if there is to be a bridge, it will be like the folks listed in The Red/Blue Pairs of Braver Angels.

#100daystooffload Day 18.

]]> https://rkw.writeas.com/conversations-about-trump Mon, 30 Nov 2020 04:01:14 +0000 My friend, an intelligent, well-educated Trumpist (part 2) https://rkw.writeas.com/my-intelligent-well-educated-trump-believer?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Two hardcore Trump supporters die and ascend to heaven. God meets them at the pearly gates and asks if they have any questions. One of them says, “Yes, what were the real results of the 2020 election and who was behind the fraud?”. God says, "my son, there was no fraud. Biden won the electoral college fair and square, 306 to 232”. After a few seconds of stunned silence, the one guy turns to the other and whispers, “This goes higher up than we thought”. !--more-- I had been ponderng how to respond to my friend's text about Sidney Powell's Thursday press briefing, in which she asserts a huge fraud that led to Trump's defeat. What amazed me is that he feels he's done research that supports the fraud conspiracy theory. What I already knew was that if you looked at multiple credible sources on both the right and the left, you'd see that accusation was just not supported. However, I will acknowledge that it is a tragedy. Obviously, if it was true, it would be extremely disturbing. And if it is not true, which is pretty obvious based on current evidence (mostly the lack of it), then the fact that so many Americans still believe it means Trump has succeeded in getting the revenge he was seeking due to his impeachment - and the Biden administration may then have as little credibility as the current Trump administration. What a lot of folks - especially on the left - continue to miss is the fact that Trump managed to engage a sector of the country that many politicians have misunderstood, especially recent Democrats. For example, many of my liberal friends refused to read J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. Why? Simply because Vance was a Trump supporter. If they had bothered to read it, they would have had at least some understanding of how different life is for some folks in many parts of the country. Did I ever support Trump? No, because long before he actually ran for President many of us living in New York were already very tired of his behavior. His best skill is as an advocate for himself - his most successful role was as the executive in The Apprentice, which was far more successful than virtually all of his real businesses. Those businesses had declared bankruptcy six times between 1991 and 2009 due to their inability to meet required payments and to re-negotiate debt with banks. Trump would be far wealthier today if he had just put the 400 million his dad gave him into the stock market. Of course, Trump still denies that his dad gave him any money, despite the fact that it was long well proven by multiple independent sources. Do I oppose Trump's policies? No, not all. Yes, we needed to get tougher with China - but not by breaking away from all our allies rather than pushing them to join us in dealing with Chinese trade aggression. Yes, we needed immigration reform, which Trump could well have accomplished instead of stupid things like saying it was all just about a wall and taking children away from parents, many of whom will never be able to rejoin their family. Yes, we needed business tax reform, but not by simply increasing our deficit by $1.9 trillion over the next decade. Trump could have been far more successful if he had just not felt he had to lie about so many things simply because he can't tolerate anything that he feels is a personal attack. So I do think Mary L. Trump's book about her uncle, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man," convincingly lays out why Trump was unable to rise up and become a truly effective president, doing more than just increasing the ongoing hatred and division in US politics. Election day was over a week ago, but misleading video clips claiming to be evidence of 'voter fraud' are still circulating through social media. Link: ins"Voter Fraud" video/ins The bipartisan National Council of State Legislatures: Absentee and Mail Voting Policies in Effect for the 2020 Election Voting Outside the Polling Place: Absentee, All-Mail and other Voting at Home Options From credible conservative media: National Review: [The Insanity Oath ](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-insanity-oath/) Commentator Karl Rove: Now Watch 'Karl Rove States There Is No Evidence of Voter Fraud' Tucker Carlson: Trump attorney Sidney Powell refused invite to share evidence of software flipping votes Trump lawyer Sidney Powell claims Venezuelan whistleblower warned Smartmatic can change votes without detection Trump camp fundraises off Giuliani press conference Mainstream media (mildly left-leaning, but credible fact-checking): Analysis | Here’s how seriously you should take the Trump legal team’s conspiracy theories Trump’s Legal Team Sets a Precedent for Lowering the Bar Giuliani in Public: ‘It’s a Fraud.’ Giuliani in Court: ‘This Is Not a Fraud Case.’ Trump Campaign Lawyers Step Up but Are Swiftly Knocked Down. How Sidney Powell inaccurately cited Venezuela’s elections as evidence of U.S. fraud. #100daystooffload Day 17. ]]> Two hardcore Trump supporters die and ascend to heaven. God meets them at the pearly gates and asks if they have any questions. One of them says, “Yes, what were the real results of the 2020 election and who was behind the fraud?”. God says, “my son, there was no fraud. Biden won the electoral college fair and square, 306 to 232”. After a few seconds of stunned silence, the one guy turns to the other and whispers, “This goes higher up than we thought”.

I had been ponderng how to respond to my friend's text about Sidney Powell's Thursday press briefing, in which she asserts a huge fraud that led to Trump's defeat. What amazed me is that he feels he's done research that supports the fraud conspiracy theory. What I already knew was that if you looked at multiple credible sources on both the right and the left, you'd see that accusation was just not supported.

However, I will acknowledge that it is a tragedy. Obviously, if it was true, it would be extremely disturbing. And if it is not true, which is pretty obvious based on current evidence (mostly the lack of it), then the fact that so many Americans still believe it means Trump has succeeded in getting the revenge he was seeking due to his impeachment – and the Biden administration may then have as little credibility as the current Trump administration. What a lot of folks – especially on the left – continue to miss is the fact that Trump managed to engage a sector of the country that many politicians have misunderstood, especially recent Democrats.

For example, many of my liberal friends refused to read J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. Why? Simply because Vance was a Trump supporter. If they had bothered to read it, they would have had at least some understanding of how different life is for some folks in many parts of the country.

Did I ever support Trump? No, because long before he actually ran for President many of us living in New York were already very tired of his behavior. His best skill is as an advocate for himself – his most successful role was as the executive in The Apprentice, which was far more successful than virtually all of his real businesses. Those businesses had declared bankruptcy six times between 1991 and 2009 due to their inability to meet required payments and to re-negotiate debt with banks. Trump would be far wealthier today if he had just put the 400 million his dad gave him into the stock market. Of course, Trump still denies that his dad gave him any money, despite the fact that it was long well proven by multiple independent sources.

Do I oppose Trump's policies? No, not all. Yes, we needed to get tougher with China – but not by breaking away from all our allies rather than pushing them to join us in dealing with Chinese trade aggression. Yes, we needed immigration reform, which Trump could well have accomplished instead of stupid things like saying it was all just about a wall and taking children away from parents, many of whom will never be able to rejoin their family. Yes, we needed business tax reform, but not by simply increasing our deficit by $1.9 trillion over the next decade.

Trump could have been far more successful if he had just not felt he had to lie about so many things simply because he can't tolerate anything that he feels is a personal attack.

So I do think Mary L. Trump's book about her uncle, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” convincingly lays out why Trump was unable to rise up and become a truly effective president, doing more than just increasing the ongoing hatred and division in US politics.

Election day was over a week ago, but misleading video clips claiming to be evidence of 'voter fraud' are still circulating through social media. Link: “Voter Fraud” video

The bipartisan National Council of State Legislatures:

From credible conservative media:

Mainstream media (mildly left-leaning, but credible fact-checking):

#100daystooffload Day 17.

]]> https://rkw.writeas.com/my-intelligent-well-educated-trump-believer Mon, 23 Nov 2020 21:39:09 +0000 Conspiracy explanations - https://rkw.writeas.com/conspiracy-explanations-j31j?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[My (rather long) thoughts in response to a friend's questions about how the World Trade Center was taken down by airplanes. !--more-- After 9/11 there had emerged a number of conspiracy theories contending that the collapse of the World Trade Center was not solely caused by the airliner crash that occurred as part of the September 11 attacks, along with the resulting fire damage. Instead, the argument was that the final demolition was due to explosives installed in the buildings in advance. Because it involved conspiracy, I started with the history of an earlier theory based on conspiracy. For years after JFK's assassination, many of us found it hard to believe that one man could have brought it off all by himself. This despite multiple government & non-government studies, the preponderance of which could find no solid evidentiary support for any other theory. Thirty years later, in 1993, the acclaimed lawyer and investigative reporter Gerald Posner published Case Closed which carefully and exhaustively reviewed the evidence for the official, single assassination theory as well as the "evidence" for the many alternate theories. Since reading that book in 1993, I have had no doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. However, I am in the minority - Gallup polls have also found that only 20-30% of the population believe that Oswald had acted alone. This is due, I suspect, to the popularity of Oliver Stone's film JFK. I suspect that film may have convinced the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi to update Posner's effort in his award-winning 2007 book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the movie insJFK/ins ) : Harry Connick, Sr., the New Orleans district attorney who defeated Garrison in 1973, criticized Stone's view of the assassination: "Stone was either unaware of the details and particulars of the Clay Shaw investigation and trial or, if he was aware, that didn't get in his way of what he perceived to be the way the case should have been." In his book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a history of the assassination published 16 years after the film's release, Vincent Bugliosi devoted an entire chapter to Garrison's prosecution of Shaw and Stone's subsequent film. Bugliosi lists thirty-two separate "lies and fabrications" in Stone's film and describes the film as "one continuous lie in which Stone couldn't find any level of deception and invention beyond which he was unwilling to go." David Wrone stated that "80 percent of the film is in factual error" and rejected the premise of a conspiracy involving the CIA and the so-called military-industrial complex as "irrational." Warren Commission investigator David Belin called the film "a big lie that would make Adolf Hitler proud". Nevertheless, most Americans subscribe to an astounding number of alternate - and debunked -- theories. Check out Wikipedia's summary of JFK conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JohnF.Kennedyassassinationconspiracytheories I suspect we went through something similar with respect to the events of 9/11. Apparently a lot of people have trouble understanding or accepting that the towers could have been brought down by planes, or that their collapse could be so apparently orderly. However, the demolition theory - in my opinion - fails the 'Exposure' questions in the Conspiracy Theory Checklist (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracytheory#Conspiracytheorychecklist). Our government has engaged in conspiracies (the CIA torture camps, NSA bulk phone monitoring) -- but whenever hundreds or thousands of folks are involved, it is very unlikely to keep it secret for very long. Probably the most successful US government conspiracy was the Manhattan Project - but that happened in special circumstances where almost everyone was highly motivated to keep the secret ... and the secret did not have to be kept all that long. First, when there are competing interpretations of evidence, we must adhere to Ockham's razor (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27srazor) - the simplest explanation is the most likely. I suffested that if my friend didn't like the simplest explanation, he needed to seek evidence it does not explain. For everything he had asserted, I found it fairly easy to find credible, well-source alternate explanations, all of which appeared to be much simpler than the theory that the towers were subjected to thermite/thermate demolition. Second, one should not be asked to prove a negative. If one asserts, for example, that the sound of explosions has been suppressed from videos, one must offer evidence to support that assertion. One may believe that is the truth in one's own heart of hearts, but one cannot in good faith ask others to prove that this suppression did not happen. When I google 'unedited footage of 9/11' I get 21,000+ results, of which 6000+ are videos. Given the number of cameras turned to the towers by professionals and amateurs -- and given the open nature of the internet, it is really hard to believe the US government could edit & suppress all footage --- unless one believes the US controls our internet the same way the Chinese government does. But one would still have to prove that rather than asking others to prove it's not true, right? I am not saying conspiracies don't happen. Of course they do. Conspiracy explanations are also, I think, psychologically easier for many folks than accepting almost random realities like the thought that a single, lone gunman actually managed to shoot JFK in a moving car from 265 feet with a bolt-action mail-order carbine in three shots discharged in 6 seconds. It's easier to think that many others had to be involved! If not, what does that say about how much other types of damage a single individual might be able to do? That's scary! Easier to believe a massive effort was required! However, conspiracy theories have to adhere to Ockham's razor - what this means is laid out in great detail in the conspiracy theory probability checklist one will find at http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracytheory. In my understanding, WTC demolition theory encounters major problems when evaluated by this checklist. Some of what my friend was looking at was material promoted by "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" which claims to represent 1600 architects & engineers who could not believe a plane could bring down a WTC tower. WIthout disputing the number 1600 (though many do dispute it), I would simply note that the AIA has a US membership of 83,000 architects (http://www.aia.org/press/AIAS077761) . The NSPE estimates there are over 2 million engineers (http://www.nspe.org/resources/media/resources/frequently-asked-questions-about-engineering ). If one is familiar with Wikipedia's editorial process, one will already know it has a strong reputation for providing objective reporting on contentious topics. This is why I found the entry on "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architects%26Engineersfor9/11Truth) very revealing. So, as impressive as 1600 sounds, it pales in comparison to the total number of qualified professionals. It's easier for me to believe that 1600 professionals are misguided than it is to believe several million are ignoring or even actively suppressing the truth. This is, in my mind, similar to the number of climate change scientists who deny climate change as compared to the total number of climate scientists who are convinced the only unresolved questions are the pace & severity of change & what can be done about it. OK, I'll stop. For now. :-) #100daystooffload Day 16. ]]> My (rather long) thoughts in response to a friend's questions about how the World Trade Center was taken down by airplanes.

After 9/11 there had emerged a number of conspiracy theories contending that the collapse of the World Trade Center was not solely caused by the airliner crash that occurred as part of the September 11 attacks, along with the resulting fire damage. Instead, the argument was that the final demolition was due to explosives installed in the buildings in advance.

Because it involved conspiracy, I started with the history of an earlier theory based on conspiracy.

For years after JFK's assassination, many of us found it hard to believe that one man could have brought it off all by himself. This despite multiple government & non-government studies, the preponderance of which could find no solid evidentiary support for any other theory. Thirty years later, in 1993, the acclaimed lawyer and investigative reporter Gerald Posner published Case Closed which carefully and exhaustively reviewed the evidence for the official, single assassination theory as well as the “evidence” for the many alternate theories. Since reading that book in 1993, I have had no doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. However, I am in the minority – Gallup polls have also found that only 20-30% of the population believe that Oswald had acted alone.

This is due, I suspect, to the popularity of Oliver Stone's film JFK. I suspect that film may have convinced the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi to update Posner's effort in his award-winning 2007 book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the movie JFK :

Harry Connick, Sr., the New Orleans district attorney who defeated Garrison in 1973, criticized Stone's view of the assassination: “Stone was either unaware of the details and particulars of the Clay Shaw investigation and trial or, if he was aware, that didn't get in his way of what he perceived to be the way the case should have been.” In his book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a history of the assassination published 16 years after the film's release, Vincent Bugliosi devoted an entire chapter to Garrison's prosecution of Shaw and Stone's subsequent film. Bugliosi lists thirty-two separate “lies and fabrications” in Stone's film and describes the film as “one continuous lie in which Stone couldn't find any level of deception and invention beyond which he was unwilling to go.” David Wrone stated that “80 percent of the film is in factual error” and rejected the premise of a conspiracy involving the CIA and the so-called military-industrial complex as “irrational.” Warren Commission investigator David Belin called the film “a big lie that would make Adolf Hitler proud”.

Nevertheless, most Americans subscribe to an astounding number of alternate – and debunked — theories. Check out Wikipedia's summary of JFK conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories

I suspect we went through something similar with respect to the events of 9/11. Apparently a lot of people have trouble understanding or accepting that the towers could have been brought down by planes, or that their collapse could be so apparently orderly. However, the demolition theory – in my opinion – fails the 'Exposure' questions in the Conspiracy Theory Checklist (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Conspiracy_theory_checklist). Our government has engaged in conspiracies (the CIA torture camps, NSA bulk phone monitoring) — but whenever hundreds or thousands of folks are involved, it is very unlikely to keep it secret for very long. Probably the most successful US government conspiracy was the Manhattan Project – but that happened in special circumstances where almost everyone was highly motivated to keep the secret ... and the secret did not have to be kept all that long.

First, when there are competing interpretations of evidence, we must adhere to Ockham's razor (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) – the simplest explanation is the most likely. I suffested that if my friend didn't like the simplest explanation, he needed to seek evidence it does not explain. For everything he had asserted, I found it fairly easy to find credible, well-source alternate explanations, all of which appeared to be much simpler than the theory that the towers were subjected to thermite/thermate demolition.

Second, one should not be asked to prove a negative. If one asserts, for example, that the sound of explosions has been suppressed from videos, one must offer evidence to support that assertion. One may believe that is the truth in one's own heart of hearts, but one cannot in good faith ask others to prove that this suppression did not happen. When I google 'unedited footage of 9/11' I get 21,000+ results, of which 6000+ are videos. Given the number of cameras turned to the towers by professionals and amateurs — and given the open nature of the internet, it is really hard to believe the US government could edit & suppress all footage —– unless one believes the US controls our internet the same way the Chinese government does. But one would still have to prove that rather than asking others to prove it's not true, right?

I am not saying conspiracies don't happen. Of course they do. Conspiracy explanations are also, I think, psychologically easier for many folks than accepting almost random realities like the thought that a single, lone gunman actually managed to shoot JFK in a moving car from 265 feet with a bolt-action mail-order carbine in three shots discharged in 6 seconds. It's easier to think that many others had to be involved! If not, what does that say about how much other types of damage a single individual might be able to do? That's scary! Easier to believe a massive effort was required!

However, conspiracy theories have to adhere to Ockham's razor – what this means is laid out in great detail in the conspiracy theory probability checklist one will find at http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory. In my understanding, WTC demolition theory encounters major problems when evaluated by this checklist.

Some of what my friend was looking at was material promoted by “Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth” which claims to represent 1600 architects & engineers who could not believe a plane could bring down a WTC tower. WIthout disputing the number 1600 (though many do dispute it), I would simply note that the AIA has a US membership of 83,000 architects (http://www.aia.org/press/AIAS077761) . The NSPE estimates there are over 2 million engineers (http://www.nspe.org/resources/media/resources/frequently-asked-questions-about-engineering ). If one is familiar with Wikipedia's editorial process, one will already know it has a strong reputation for providing objective reporting on contentious topics. This is why I found the entry on “Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architects_%26_Engineers_for_9/11_Truth) very revealing.

So, as impressive as 1600 sounds, it pales in comparison to the total number of qualified professionals. It's easier for me to believe that 1600 professionals are misguided than it is to believe several million are ignoring or even actively suppressing the truth. This is, in my mind, similar to the number of climate change scientists who deny climate change as compared to the total number of climate scientists who are convinced the only unresolved questions are the pace & severity of change & what can be done about it.

OK, I'll stop.
For now. :–)

#100daystooffload Day 16.

]]> https://rkw.writeas.com/conspiracy-explanations-j31j Sun, 22 Nov 2020 01:59:10 +0000 My friend, an intelligent, well-educated Trumpist (part 1) https://rkw.writeas.com/my-intelligent-well-educated-trump-believer-part-1?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Yesterday I got a text from a friend linking to Guiliani's latest press conference in which Sidney Powell said “What we are really dealing with here and uncovering more by the day is the massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba and likely China in the interference with our elections here in the United States,” she began. !--more-- She linked voting systems used in several states with a company founded by a former Venezuelan dictator (despite there not being any actual link) and declared that computers were humming along rigging the election for President-elect Joe Biden until it encountered a level “so overwhelming in so many of these states that it broke the algorithm,” necessitating the fraud that Giuliani alleged. Oh, and this all somehow tied back to financier George Soros and the Clinton Foundation, of course. Well, my friends's initial text was as follows: Holy Cow Richard !! Things are going to simply explode !!! https://youtu.be/F1mJQiKIqH8 Your reaction please ?? To which my reply was as follows: Would be amazing if it were true. Rated as "pant on fire" by PolitiFact, for example. Even Fox's Tucker Carlson called her out. Doesn't mean many folks won't accept it as true. To which my friend's follow-up text was extremely long as follows: Wow, Dear Friend !! I find great comfort in our ability to have a kind dialog between us. We’re adults !! Haven’t been sleeping well. Over a week ago, I began to research in earnest all the stuff disclosed by Sidney Powell last night. I was expecting this. There were no surprises, although my research has revealed a great deal more than was stated. I would love to have found that all this fraud stuff was bunk. I could get back to sleeping soundly. You know, I’m an engineer and scientist. A consummate nerd !! Here are the facts and logic I find so troubling - A long read - hopefully not a long rant ... DNC Governors decided, almost to a man, that voting was just too hazardous, and locked down the polls. Naturally, this doesn't make sense to me. Polls here in New York were not locked down nor in my brother's state, California. In fact, early voting polls were open more days than in previous elections. However, he continues as follows: The solution - mail in ballots. Absentee ballots are mail in. But the integrity interlock is nearly air-tight. No, these “new” mail-in ballots, other than some recent trials, had never been used in quantity. When they had been used, the results and uncertainty were simply a mess. So these states gathered every old voter-registration backup tape they could find, did a crude and ineffective “merge-purge” and mailed the ballots. Apartments received a ballot for every registered voter who had ever lived there. Subtle differences in names, initials, Jr/Sr etc. resulted in many voters receiving multiple ballots. There was absolutely no provisions made for “systems engineering” to establish interlocks for integrity and verification. I’ve now come to believe that this was by design. So - Help me to understand why the unsolicited mail-in ballots were counted last ?? In a crunch at the last minute ... There was considerable pressure put on election officials by concerned parties to deal with these ballots “as received”, to allow time for verifying validity, particularly signatures. The election officials in these swing states refused. What would it hurt if they were pre-validated in advance ?? Rather than under the cover of darkness at the last minute So, help me to understand the reality of this - It happened in MI, WI, PA, GA, AZ, and NV. At 3am, everyone was told “we are done counting for the night”. One state election office even told of a “broken water main”. Everyone, all the observers and press were asked to vacate. THEN, the windows were shuttered. THEN, the trucks rolled up. The unsolicited “mail-in” ballots were processed by largely DNC or clueless poll workers over the desperate objections of the few RNC workers present. In the middle of the night !! In every one of these six swing states ?? Where GOP observers were forced (the next morning) to stay 20 feet away from the ballots !! Please tell my why ?? They claimed concerns about violence. Then more cops were brought in to keep close watch on these GOP thugs. What would be the risk to the integrity of the election if observers were able to see and verify the process in a meaningful way. I was originally outraged when Trump called for stopping the counting of the ballots. Now I know why. The Trump campaign didn’t want the counting to continue without oversight. Segue - The Smartmatic / Diminion / Sequoia stuff is simply off the page. My sources have been largely non-partisan. I didn’t learn from Rudi or Ms. Powell. But watching her disclosures last night, I had previously known every point she stated. If you want a quality overview of these terrifying issues, she has it accurately covered. The electronic evidence is massive. There are distinctive numeric patterns in the data which clearly indicate electronic fraud. And big numbers. Now that they know what to look for, these things stick out like sore thumbs. ( Two batches of votes, of multiple six figures, loaded some twelve minutes apart. Two identical batch tallys ) ??? A Two-for-One special ?? There are hundreds of these numeric anomalies and artifacts in WI, MI and PA. Many similar voting machine numerical and statistics problems exist in many other states. Just the large number of precincts having way more votes than registered voters. What ?? Some counties have more ballots than the population ?? What ?? If you can stomach it, please watch Ms. Powell’s short video again. Now you have some history and background that I sincerely stand behind. I’ve painfully studied these layered issues for nearly ten days. I truly wish it was bunk. Re: No evidence provided by Powell. If you can believe what you read, the legal team won’t be releasing anything, pending filings and the discovery process. This actually makes sense. They gain nothing in the legal process by showing their cards, and there are risks in doing so. Also, Interpol is chasing a bunch of international miscreants it appears. Why help the bastards with information, sources and methods ?? Segue - I believe the GA recount proved nothing, as was the clear intention IMO. There were formal requests by many interested parties to have the non-interlocked ( unsolicited ) mail-in ballots verified for validity including signatures. GA officials refused. So they simply hand counted the same batches of unverified ballots. These represent big numbers in Atlanta, Macon, Columbus, and Augusta. Voting machine issues don’t appear to be an issue in GA. Segue - Sounds outrageous, but please don’t dismiss me like I’m a birther or something. I sincerely believe that Trump won by a landslide. The truth is out there, and it will eventually be known. Just couldn’t understand the obvious. There was almost a frightening enthusiasm for Trump. There was hardly no enthusiasm for Joe - only hatred for Trump. There is no back-pedaling on this. Sidney Powell’s whole career is on the line. She was so emotional in her delivery that she was shaking like a leaf. Apologies for the long read. We should talk about nerd stuff and R* C sometime ... Most Sincerely, J L*** My next response was simply that I couldn't give my friend a detailed response because I was involved in providing medical support for my father-in-law. A bit of a lie but I wanted to take time to figure out how -- or whether -- to try to deal with this. It reminds me of a relative's belief that the Twin Towers came down due to embedded explosives. I'll be pondering this for a bit.... #100daystooffload Day 15. ]]> Yesterday I got a text from a friend linking to Guiliani's latest press conference in which Sidney Powell said “What we are really dealing with here and uncovering more by the day is the massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba and likely China in the interference with our elections here in the United States,” she began. She linked voting systems used in several states with a company founded by a former Venezuelan dictator (despite there not being any actual link) and declared that computers were humming along rigging the election for President-elect Joe Biden until it encountered a level “so overwhelming in so many of these states that it broke the algorithm,” necessitating the fraud that Giuliani alleged. Oh, and this all somehow tied back to financier George Soros and the Clinton Foundation, of course.

Well, my friends's initial text was as follows:

Holy Cow Richard !! Things are going to simply explode !!!

https://youtu.be/F1mJQiKIqH8

Your reaction please ??

To which my reply was as follows:

Would be amazing if it were true. Rated as “pant on fire” by PolitiFact, for example. Even Fox's Tucker Carlson called her out. Doesn't mean many folks won't accept it as true.

To which my friend's follow-up text was extremely long as follows:

Wow, Dear Friend !!

I find great comfort in our ability to have a kind dialog between us. We’re adults !!

Haven’t been sleeping well.

Over a week ago, I began to research in earnest all the stuff disclosed by Sidney Powell last night.

I was expecting this. There were no surprises, although my research has revealed a great deal more than was stated.

I would love to have found that all this fraud stuff was bunk. I could get back to sleeping soundly.

You know, I’m an engineer and scientist. A consummate nerd !!

Here are the facts and logic I find so troubling -

A long read – hopefully not a long rant ...

DNC Governors decided, almost to a man, that voting was just too hazardous, and locked down the polls.

Naturally, this doesn't make sense to me. Polls here in New York were not locked down nor in my brother's state, California. In fact, early voting polls were open more days than in previous elections. However, he continues as follows:

The solution – mail in ballots.

Absentee ballots are mail in. But the integrity interlock is nearly air-tight.

No, these “new” mail-in ballots, other than some recent trials, had never been used in quantity.

When they had been used, the results and uncertainty were simply a mess.

So these states gathered every old voter-registration backup tape they could find, did a crude and ineffective “merge-purge” and mailed the ballots.

Apartments received a ballot for every registered voter who had ever lived there.

Subtle differences in names, initials, Jr/Sr etc. resulted in many voters receiving multiple ballots.

There was absolutely no provisions made for “systems engineering” to establish interlocks for integrity and verification.

I’ve now come to believe that this was by design.

So – Help me to understand why the unsolicited mail-in ballots were counted last ??

In a crunch at the last minute ...

There was considerable pressure put on election officials by concerned parties to deal with these ballots “as received”, to allow time for verifying validity, particularly signatures.

The election officials in these swing states refused.

What would it hurt if they were pre-validated in advance ?? Rather than under the cover of darkness at the last minute

So, help me to understand the reality of this -

It happened in MI, WI, PA, GA, AZ, and NV.

At 3am, everyone was told “we are done counting for the night”.

One state election office even told of a “broken water main”.

Everyone, all the observers and press were asked to vacate. THEN, the windows were shuttered. THEN, the trucks rolled up.

The unsolicited “mail-in” ballots were processed by largely DNC or clueless poll workers over the desperate objections of the few RNC workers present. In the middle of the night !!

In every one of these six swing states ??

Where GOP observers were forced (the next morning) to stay 20 feet away from the ballots !!

Please tell my why ?? They claimed concerns about violence. Then more cops were brought in to keep close watch on these GOP thugs.

What would be the risk to the integrity of the election if observers were able to see and verify the process in a meaningful way.

I was originally outraged when Trump called for stopping the counting of the ballots.

Now I know why. The Trump campaign didn’t want the counting to continue without oversight.

Segue -

The Smartmatic / Diminion / Sequoia stuff is simply off the page.

My sources have been largely non-partisan.

I didn’t learn from Rudi or Ms. Powell. But watching her disclosures last night, I had previously known every point she stated.

If you want a quality overview of these terrifying issues, she has it accurately covered.

The electronic evidence is massive. There are distinctive numeric patterns in the data which clearly indicate electronic fraud. And big numbers.

Now that they know what to look for, these things stick out like sore thumbs.

( Two batches of votes, of multiple six figures, loaded some twelve minutes apart. Two identical batch tallys ) ???

A Two-for-One special ??

There are hundreds of these numeric anomalies and artifacts in WI, MI and PA.

Many similar voting machine numerical and statistics problems exist in many other states.

Just the large number of precincts having way more votes than registered voters. What ??

Some counties have more ballots than the population ?? What ??

If you can stomach it, please watch Ms. Powell’s short video again.

Now you have some history and background that I sincerely stand behind.

I’ve painfully studied these layered issues for nearly ten days.

I truly wish it was bunk.

Re: No evidence provided by Powell.

If you can believe what you read, the legal team won’t be releasing anything, pending filings and the discovery process.

This actually makes sense.

They gain nothing in the legal process by showing their cards, and there are risks in doing so.

Also, Interpol is chasing a bunch of international miscreants it appears. Why help the bastards with information, sources and methods ??

Segue -

I believe the GA recount proved nothing, as was the clear intention IMO.

There were formal requests by many interested parties to have the non-interlocked ( unsolicited ) mail-in ballots verified for validity including signatures.

GA officials refused. So they simply hand counted the same batches of unverified ballots. These represent big numbers in Atlanta, Macon, Columbus, and Augusta.

Voting machine issues don’t appear to be an issue in GA.

Segue -

Sounds outrageous, but please don’t dismiss me like I’m a birther or something.

I sincerely believe that Trump won by a landslide.

The truth is out there, and it will eventually be known.

Just couldn’t understand the obvious. There was almost a frightening enthusiasm for Trump.

There was hardly no enthusiasm for Joe – only hatred for Trump.

There is no back-pedaling on this. Sidney Powell’s whole career is on the line.

She was so emotional in her delivery that she was shaking like a leaf.

Apologies for the long read.

We should talk about nerd stuff and R**** C*** sometime ...

Most Sincerely, J*** L******

My next response was simply that I couldn't give my friend a detailed response because I was involved in providing medical support for my father-in-law. A bit of a lie but I wanted to take time to figure out how — or whether — to try to deal with this. It reminds me of a relative's belief that the Twin Towers came down due to embedded explosives.

I'll be pondering this for a bit....

#100daystooffload Day 15.

]]> https://rkw.writeas.com/my-intelligent-well-educated-trump-believer-part-1 Sat, 21 Nov 2020 02:07:22 +0000 Conspiracy explanations https://rkw.writeas.com/conspiracy-explanations?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[My (rather long) thoughts in response to a friend's questions about how the World Trade Center was taken down by airplanes. !--more-- After 9/11 there had emerged a number of conspiracy theories contending that the collapse of the World Trade Center was not solely caused by the airliner crash that occurred as part of the September 11 attacks, along with the resulting fire damage. Instead, the argument was that the final demolition was due to explosives installed in the buildings in advance. Because it involved conspiracy, I started with the history of an earlier theory based on conspiracy. For years after JFK's assassination, many of us found it hard to believe that one man could have brought it off all by himself. This despite multiple government & non-government studies, the preponderance of which could find no solid evidentiary support for any other theory. Thirty years later, in 1993, the acclaimed lawyer and investigative reporter Gerald Posner published Case Closed which carefully and exhaustively reviewed the evidence for the official, single assassination theory as well as the "evidence" for the many alternate theories. Since reading that book in 1993, I have had no doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. However, I am in the minority - Gallup polls have also found that only 20-30% of the population believe that Oswald had acted alone. This is due, I suspect, to the popularity of Oliver Stone's film JFK. I suspect that film may have convinced the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi to update Posner's effort in his award-winning 2007 book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the movie insJFK/ins ) : Harry Connick, Sr., the New Orleans district attorney who defeated Garrison in 1973, criticized Stone's view of the assassination: "Stone was either unaware of the details and particulars of the Clay Shaw investigation and trial or, if he was aware, that didn't get in his way of what he perceived to be the way the case should have been." In his book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a history of the assassination published 16 years after the film's release, Vincent Bugliosi devoted an entire chapter to Garrison's prosecution of Shaw and Stone's subsequent film. Bugliosi lists thirty-two separate "lies and fabrications" in Stone's film and describes the film as "one continuous lie in which Stone couldn't find any level of deception and invention beyond which he was unwilling to go." David Wrone stated that "80 percent of the film is in factual error" and rejected the premise of a conspiracy involving the CIA and the so-called military-industrial complex as "irrational." Warren Commission investigator David Belin called the film "a big lie that would make Adolf Hitler proud". Nevertheless, most Americans subscribe to an astounding number of alternate - and debunked -- theories. Check out Wikipedia's summary of JFK conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JohnF.Kennedyassassinationconspiracytheories I suspect we went through something similar with respect to the events of 9/11. Apparently a lot of people have trouble understanding or accepting that the towers could have been brought down by planes, or that their collapse could be so apparently orderly. However, the demolition theory - in my opinion - fails the 'Exposure' questions in the Conspiracy Theory Checklist (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracytheory#Conspiracytheorychecklist). Our government has engaged in conspiracies (the CIA torture camps, NSA bulk phone monitoring) -- but whenever hundreds or thousands of folks are involved, it is very unlikely to keep it secret for very long. Probably the most successful US government conspiracy was the Manhattan Project - but that happened in special circumstances where almost everyone was highly motivated to keep the secret ... and the secret did not have to be kept all that long. First, when there are competing interpretations of evidence, we must adhere to Ockham's razor (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27srazor) - the simplest explanation is the most likely. I suffested that if my friend didn't like the simplest explanation, he needed to seek evidence it does not explain. For everything he had asserted, I found it fairly easy to find credible, well-source alternate explanations, all of which appeared to be much simpler than the theory that the towers were subjected to thermite/thermate demolition. Second, one should not be asked to prove a negative. If one asserts, for example, that the sound of explosions has been suppressed from videos, one must offer evidence to support that assertion. One may believe that is the truth in one's own heart of hearts, but one cannot in good faith ask others to prove that this suppression did not happen. When I google 'unedited footage of 9/11' I get 21,000+ results, of which 6000+ are videos. Given the number of cameras turned to the towers by professionals and amateurs -- and given the open nature of the internet, it is really hard to believe the US government could edit & suppress all footage --- unless one believes the US controls our internet the same way the Chinese government does. But one would still have to prove that rather than asking others to prove it's not true, right? I am not saying conspiracies don't happen. Of course they do. Conspiracy explanations are also, I think, psychologically easier for many folks than accepting almost random realities like the thought that a single, lone gunman actually managed to shoot JFK in a moving car from 265 feet with a bolt-action mail-order carbine in three shots discharged in 6 seconds. It's easier to think that many others had to be involved! If not, what does that say about how much other types of damage a single individual might be able to do? That's scary! Easier to believe a massive effort was required! However, conspiracy theories have to adhere to Ockham's razor - what this means is laid out in great detail in the conspiracy theory probability checklist one will find at http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracytheory. In my understanding, WTC demolition theory encounters major problems when evaluated by this checklist. Some of what my friend was looking at was material promoted by "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" which claims to represent 1600 architects & engineers who could not believe a plane could bring down a WTC tower. WIthout disputing the number 1600 (though many do dispute it), I would simply note that the AIA has a US membership of 83,000 architects (http://www.aia.org/press/AIAS077761) . The NSPE estimates there are over 2 million engineers (http://www.nspe.org/resources/media/resources/frequently-asked-questions-about-engineering ). If one is familiar with Wikipedia's editorial process, one will already know it has a strong reputation for providing objective reporting on contentious topics. This is why I found the entry on "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architects%26Engineersfor9/11Truth) very revealing. So, as impressive as 1600 sounds, it pales in comparison to the total number of qualified professionals. It's easier for me to believe that 1600 professionals are misguided than it is to believe several million are ignoring or even actively suppressing the truth. This is, in my mind, similar to the number of climate change scientists who deny climate change as compared to the total number of climate scientists who are convinced the only unresolved questions are the pace & severity of change & what can be done about it. OK, I'll stop. For now. :-) #100daystooffload Day 14.]]> My (rather long) thoughts in response to a friend's questions about how the World Trade Center was taken down by airplanes.

After 9/11 there had emerged a number of conspiracy theories contending that the collapse of the World Trade Center was not solely caused by the airliner crash that occurred as part of the September 11 attacks, along with the resulting fire damage. Instead, the argument was that the final demolition was due to explosives installed in the buildings in advance.

Because it involved conspiracy, I started with the history of an earlier theory based on conspiracy.

For years after JFK's assassination, many of us found it hard to believe that one man could have brought it off all by himself. This despite multiple government & non-government studies, the preponderance of which could find no solid evidentiary support for any other theory. Thirty years later, in 1993, the acclaimed lawyer and investigative reporter Gerald Posner published Case Closed which carefully and exhaustively reviewed the evidence for the official, single assassination theory as well as the “evidence” for the many alternate theories. Since reading that book in 1993, I have had no doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. However, I am in the minority – Gallup polls have also found that only 20-30% of the population believe that Oswald had acted alone.

This is due, I suspect, to the popularity of Oliver Stone's film JFK. I suspect that film may have convinced the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi to update Posner's effort in his award-winning 2007 book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the movie JFK :

Harry Connick, Sr., the New Orleans district attorney who defeated Garrison in 1973, criticized Stone's view of the assassination: “Stone was either unaware of the details and particulars of the Clay Shaw investigation and trial or, if he was aware, that didn't get in his way of what he perceived to be the way the case should have been.” In his book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a history of the assassination published 16 years after the film's release, Vincent Bugliosi devoted an entire chapter to Garrison's prosecution of Shaw and Stone's subsequent film. Bugliosi lists thirty-two separate “lies and fabrications” in Stone's film and describes the film as “one continuous lie in which Stone couldn't find any level of deception and invention beyond which he was unwilling to go.” David Wrone stated that “80 percent of the film is in factual error” and rejected the premise of a conspiracy involving the CIA and the so-called military-industrial complex as “irrational.” Warren Commission investigator David Belin called the film “a big lie that would make Adolf Hitler proud”.

Nevertheless, most Americans subscribe to an astounding number of alternate – and debunked — theories. Check out Wikipedia's summary of JFK conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories

I suspect we went through something similar with respect to the events of 9/11. Apparently a lot of people have trouble understanding or accepting that the towers could have been brought down by planes, or that their collapse could be so apparently orderly. However, the demolition theory – in my opinion – fails the 'Exposure' questions in the Conspiracy Theory Checklist (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Conspiracy_theory_checklist). Our government has engaged in conspiracies (the CIA torture camps, NSA bulk phone monitoring) — but whenever hundreds or thousands of folks are involved, it is very unlikely to keep it secret for very long. Probably the most successful US government conspiracy was the Manhattan Project – but that happened in special circumstances where almost everyone was highly motivated to keep the secret ... and the secret did not have to be kept all that long.

First, when there are competing interpretations of evidence, we must adhere to Ockham's razor (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) – the simplest explanation is the most likely. I suffested that if my friend didn't like the simplest explanation, he needed to seek evidence it does not explain. For everything he had asserted, I found it fairly easy to find credible, well-source alternate explanations, all of which appeared to be much simpler than the theory that the towers were subjected to thermite/thermate demolition.

Second, one should not be asked to prove a negative. If one asserts, for example, that the sound of explosions has been suppressed from videos, one must offer evidence to support that assertion. One may believe that is the truth in one's own heart of hearts, but one cannot in good faith ask others to prove that this suppression did not happen. When I google 'unedited footage of 9/11' I get 21,000+ results, of which 6000+ are videos. Given the number of cameras turned to the towers by professionals and amateurs — and given the open nature of the internet, it is really hard to believe the US government could edit & suppress all footage —– unless one believes the US controls our internet the same way the Chinese government does. But one would still have to prove that rather than asking others to prove it's not true, right?

I am not saying conspiracies don't happen. Of course they do. Conspiracy explanations are also, I think, psychologically easier for many folks than accepting almost random realities like the thought that a single, lone gunman actually managed to shoot JFK in a moving car from 265 feet with a bolt-action mail-order carbine in three shots discharged in 6 seconds. It's easier to think that many others had to be involved! If not, what does that say about how much other types of damage a single individual might be able to do? That's scary! Easier to believe a massive effort was required!

However, conspiracy theories have to adhere to Ockham's razor – what this means is laid out in great detail in the conspiracy theory probability checklist one will find at http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory. In my understanding, WTC demolition theory encounters major problems when evaluated by this checklist.

Some of what my friend was looking at was material promoted by “Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth” which claims to represent 1600 architects & engineers who could not believe a plane could bring down a WTC tower. WIthout disputing the number 1600 (though many do dispute it), I would simply note that the AIA has a US membership of 83,000 architects (http://www.aia.org/press/AIAS077761) . The NSPE estimates there are over 2 million engineers (http://www.nspe.org/resources/media/resources/frequently-asked-questions-about-engineering ). If one is familiar with Wikipedia's editorial process, one will already know it has a strong reputation for providing objective reporting on contentious topics. This is why I found the entry on “Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architects_%26_Engineers_for_9/11_Truth) very revealing.

So, as impressive as 1600 sounds, it pales in comparison to the total number of qualified professionals. It's easier for me to believe that 1600 professionals are misguided than it is to believe several million are ignoring or even actively suppressing the truth. This is, in my mind, similar to the number of climate change scientists who deny climate change as compared to the total number of climate scientists who are convinced the only unresolved questions are the pace & severity of change & what can be done about it.

OK, I'll stop.
For now. :–)

#100daystooffload Day 14.

]]> https://rkw.writeas.com/conspiracy-explanations Fri, 06 Nov 2020 20:38:41 +0000