An Outlet for Inquisitive Minds
This is a very, very vague idea as I’ve only started thinking about this topic and researching it this past week and I’m still having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around it but I might have to write a paper on it for a sociology class so I'm just going to post it... Continue Reading →
As accessibility becomes a much more prevalent consideration among designers, whether it's video game designers, urban planners, software developers or UI/UX designers, they've had to be more cognizant of the human conditions of often a minority of their users. However, we've found that accessibility features benefit more than just the people who need them. In... Continue Reading →
So, I was trying to think of a good title that would encompass what I will try to talk about today but the current title captures my sentiment pretty nicely, I think. To start off, here's Hasan Minhaj on Patriot Act talking about how stupidly American politics are set up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MykMQfmLIro&t=1158s&ab_channel=NetflixIsAJoke It's like he said.... Continue Reading →
In the episode called “Patterns Of Force” on the original Star Trek series, the Enterprise crew beams down to a planet that is modeled after Nazi Germany, complete with swastikas and “heil Hitler” type salutes. When they hear the supposed charismatic leader (who actually is being controlled by others) deliver an oration to rouse the rabble, Spock comments that the speech really makes no sense; it’s just a string of ideological soundbites — which nonetheless have the effect of stirring their hearers to carry out the ideology’s nefarious agenda. This aptly epitomizes the nature and the effect of emotionalizing, the next in our series of propaganda props.
If Spock was surprised to discover the vacuity of the Fuhrer’s rhetoric, then he was unduly naive. Ideologically charged rhetoric seldom if ever sounds rational. It’s not supposed to. Indeed, the less sense it makes, the more likely it is that the…
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“A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” -James Madison
To the skeptics and the willingly blind, Recently, a friend and I was talking about politics and current events and this phrase was uttered: "I think people are exaggerating. Well, it's not like the world is going to end."Or something to that effect; I don't remember it word-by-word. And immediately, it had a gut-clenching effect... Continue Reading →
Merriam-Webster defines identity politics as politics in which groups of people having a racial, religious, ethnic, social, or cultural identity tend to promote their own specific interests or concerns without regard to the interests or concerns of any larger political group. Identity politics are a persistent part of the American narrative, as they would be... Continue Reading →
Whitewash:a: to gloss over or cover up (such as vices or crimes)b: to exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of dataThis is the definition provided by Merriam-Webster and is the most suitable definition for this article. White-washing is not a racially charged term despite its recent re-introduction with respect to... Continue Reading →
There is much to be learned from the great thinkers of the past. Studying the thousands-years old writings of Plato, we explore what the ideal civilisation is made of and what justice is. In doing so, there are lessons uncovered that casts a different light on the state of affairs today.
In the Republic, three types of good are described; the good practised for its own sake, the good practised for its consequences and the ultimate good that is practised both for its own sake and for its consequences (Book 1, 357b-d). The discussion of justice starts off with Glaucon’s account of justice where he explains why justice is a necessary good that people only practice begrudgingly for its consequences. First, he establishes that to suffer injustice at the hands of others is an evil that no one is willing to suffer while to commit injustice benefits the unjust. He argues that justice...
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.
-Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents (Earthseed, #2)
“The point is, there is no feasible excuse for what are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality, dividends before decency, fanaticism before fairness, and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others”
― Iain M. Banks, Complicity
Outlet 