The Politics of Division: How Politics Destroys Rationality
There’s a long-running trend in student politics for students to shout out “shame” when their opposing political party is mentioned. I first heard this in 2012 in the heady days of the Gillard Government and Abbott Opposition. It was the Howard Debating Cup, and I had come to watch a friend debate. Liberals packed the ...
Truth, Myths and Meaning
J. R. R. Tolkein once said that myths, “At the very least… allow us to catch a fleeting, but all so powerful glimpse at the beauty that lies beyond the walls [of our material existence]. Myths show us a fleeting glimpse of truth itself.” There is an archaic primacy to this argument. If one stretched ...
Racial Discrimination Act – Legalising Hate Speech
The Government has released a draft Bill on changes to the Act - see the link at the bottom of this post. The government has indicated it intends to make racist hate speech, racist publications and racial slurs legal in Australia. This goes against the very grain of Australian society, as a place where people ...
Candy Crush: A Whale of a Time
My first game of Candy Crush reminded me of my first experience with a slot machine. Both offered the same enticements: escapism, a bit of fun, and crudely simple gameplay. Candy Crush is a puzzle-based game that requires players to align candies, three-in-a-row. But behind the veneer of charm and juvenile ‘fun’, Candy Crush, like ...
Unrequited Love is Evil
I heard it once said that unrequited love is the universal language. Dipping its hand into every culture across the planet, it plagues men with the inability to ‘get what they want’ and ‘deserve’. We romanticise rejection in books, films and TV as something lonely, yet glorious. Bitter, yet grand as a symphony in full ...
Thinking For Yourself (Generalisations)
The only true generalization is the generalization that every generalization is incorrect. When we generalize we take leaps in logic and rationality based upon very little evidence. The worst kind of generalization, therefore, is a generalization based upon a single instance; where we have encountered something to be one way once, and then proceed to ...
Thinking For Yourself (Admitting Ignorance)
In modern day life we are viewed as idiotic if we admit that we do not know exactly what we are talking about. In common parlance we are told to “take a stab at the answer”, “have a guess” or “have a go at it”. In performance tests (at school, university and work) we are ...
