I don't know if it's Descartes, but someone just thinks they think.

It's because I'm a coward and think it will be more boring or take longer than it will.

Poor guy. Half the comments are "Why are fake watches bad but fake rings are okay?", and the other half are "You proposed in the frozen foods aisle?"

Well, my favorite was, "You look like those really smart people on TV". LOL they don't know from Jewish in Portland, Oregon, or at least didn't back then.

It's been a while since I've heard "I was right to be wrong". It was very popular in 2008 and then again in 2016 and 2020.

Is state of the union tomorrow? I've never listened to a political speech except for when Bush 2 interrupted a basketball or hockey game to start a few years of nonstop lying. Who hasn't heard, "To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do rather than what they say"?

Good comment at Reddit.

I searched "support for medicare for all". The first poll it returned says in November 2025 36% of Americans strongly supported it, 29% somewhat supported it, 9% didn't know, 12% somewhat opposed it, and 14% strongly opposed it. Americans understand it; but lobbies and politicians are blocking it.

Israel has always wanted America to fight Iran, and they know Trump might be the last chance. I don't know why he cares so much about pleasing Netanyahu, but he's painted himself into a corner. No one except Israel wants him to do it.

It would take me forever to find them, but it also won plow-naming contests in some other cities and states, but got vetoed or something. Unbelievably, it finished second to Plowy Mcplowface in Minnesota.

We're probably not supposed to admit that the Persian Exile was by far the best exile. They were kind, unlike the Greeks and Romans and almost all their descendants until the Americans fell in love with us, or really Israel.

You'll never guess. It's I think therefore I am.

No, it's an infinite principle of reason that doesn't depend on anything external to me. I can deduce it from I think therefore I am; so you can even say it's one of my properties.

It's "know yourself". I don't know who started the Clint Eastwood interpretation, "know your limits"; but even Plato said, no, that's too shallow. Know yourself is about I think therefore I am and everything that follows.

I think Plato discovered that some things both exist and do not exist. I guess Aristotle applied it to past things and coined the word 'potential'. I personally think anyone can solve anything by deciding contradictions can be true.

I think it's "You're not the boss of me; I'll start my own church and do anything I want". I wish Trump would hurry up and start his own church.

Most of the watches I like are considered more or less minimalist, so I had to look up whether any of them are considered Bauhaus. Thank God, no. I wear Pythagorean and Cartesian rationalist watches.

I saw an opinion survey almost that long ago. It said most people in the world think Americans are pretty honest unless there's money involved; but if there is money involved, no.

More than twenty years ago, I said on an internet forum, "I don't know why we let them have their own country". LOL it's supposed to be hard to make Canadians angry, but that turned out to be the way.

You only need two things from Spinoza to understand this, us vs them pride and imitation of emotions. MAGA Confederates listen to Trump saying the most arrogant stuff he can dream up; and they imagine the arrogance and feel big; so they vote for him because they like feeling big and arrogant.

I thought about answering that peaches are the one fruit I don't like. There are many kinds of cooked or processed peaches I do like, but I've never liked a raw one.

I can't read any of that stuff. I don't even know what tollens means. All you need to know is contradictions can't be true and then recognize that something coming from nothing for example involves and affirms a contradiction.

Years ago when I liked Twitter, I'd often see comments at Reddit like "I tried Twitter, but it's hundreds of garbage tweets for every one that's worth reading". That was my opinion of the main feed too. It's also my opinion of the main feeds and most canned feeds anywhere on the internet.

I've been looking at my Parmenides, Descartes, and Spinoza searches at Twitter less and less often. It's because muting words doesn't work in searches, so I can't do anything about the increasing volume of spam and white-classicist morons. But I still have my two non-ridiculous journalists.

Hating immigrants is childish and foolish bigotry. None of the anti-immigrant arguments Trump and the Confederates make come close to making any sense. But the Bible isn't going to help. It's so vast and varied, you can find support for almost anything in it.

Are they any products that are made by British born citizens? I've never heard of any. As far as I know the cars are just props you see in James Bond movies.

I worked for what at least at the time was the most effective and beloved government agency and almost never got emails I didn't need to read. Then I worked at one of the least effective and most disliked agencies and got a mountain of emails intended for the whole world to read every day.

I don't know who UKRI is; but they hired some consultants from a firm like Accenture and ended up deciding to jump on the same fad they know nothing about as all the other people who hire consultants and follow corporate fads.

Now there are post-liberals? I don't know what any of these words mean anymore. It started with EU people preferring an economics jargon meaning of 'liberal', then Reagan demonizing the old meaning, and now who knows? I'm a regular liberal; and I don't care if anyone knows what I mean by that.

I can't speak for anyone else, but deciding to hide something from the public is a good example of my problem with the Dems. Hiding candidates while they're running for President didn't work out. That's another example.

There are purported benefits? I just like nicotine. But I hate patches. Way back I tried them for long flights, but they're not for me. I'll stick with my vape juice while puritans continue their research trying to find something wrong with it.

Well, he gets my vote just for saying "transformational". I thought I might never hear it again.

I'm not a centrist; but I disagreed with the Clintonite tactics, which I will go to my grave saying made it all much worse.

I don't know what plain means, unless it means there was very little technical vocabulary developed yet for him to use. Otherwise, the main things he's famous for are (1) getting misinterpreted by Plato, and (2) obscurity, so we can forgive Plato a little.

He probably mentions somewhere that their favorite is us vs them pride; but I wish he said it closer to the thing about people choose servitude because they believe divine right of kings and rewards in an afterlife baloney. I don't know who still believes that stuff, but us vs them is always popular

Always use whichever is shorter. Labour is stupid; just say Labor. I'm pretty sure the Brits are used to it by now; and anyway, who cares what they like?

I guess it's for publish or perish prestige, because otherwise, I don't know why anyone bothers with these journals at all. All they do is prevent people from reading what you wrote.

How much longer do I have to wait for my Trump Church of America?

It's apparently time for another thousand years of pointless European wars. But I don't think the world will last that long. No one surrenders when they still have nukes.

If there's an entire industry AI can replace, this is the one.

Oops, she was underage. They have to be 18 before police officers nowhere near as adult as high school students can violently attack them for protesting peacefully.

I guess I planned right, finally getting a haircut today. I drove my car yesterday for the first time since it snowed. I was surprised it started right up. Good thing I took it for a drive before it sits there for another week.

In Spinoza's aristocracy, it's something like the congress votes that a solution is needed for some problem; and then the leader of the day starts putting members' proposals up one by one for a vote. The first one that passes wins, but there are fines for promoting proposals that don't pass.

Ask the dad, do you think Descartes thinks, or does he just think he thinks?

LOL I love column A. It's as far as I usually get with analytic philosophy, because I don't agree with the plucked from thin air premises and lose interest.

I'm not optimistic about generations. Trump 2 is worse than Watergate, but it only took four years after Nixon-Ford before they went for a Hollywood cowboy on his horse just making stuff up every time he opened his mouth.

They're not even positivists. They're "I believe anything that flatters me"-ists.

We only get two choices, and they're usually both horrible. I didn't vote, because I considered Biden a mad-dog warmonger; and telling me about Dick Cheney didn't help. I can't even think of anyone worse than Cheney.

I think it's too risky to travel within the US. I'm not going in an airport full of sadistic federal thugs.

I wanted to comment on something about Spinoza's anthropocentrism the other day; but I couldn't remember what his argument was. I stumbled on it just now. His argument is it's self-evident. Btw any idea who that most advantageous in the universe man who lives by the guidance of reason might be?