Why Respect Anyone’s Beliefs At All? — Variables, Weekly.

Humanist philosophies have generally taken over human ethics, and norms that would probably have seemed ridiculous to our fore-bearers just two centuries ago have become so ubiquitous they are now assumed to be first nature and self evident.

The main stay of humanist philosophy is that human experience (and subjectivity) is the final arbiter of the ultimate truth. One implication of this thinking, stretched infinitely in one direction is that everybody’s beliefs deserve to be respected. A caveat that this is only valid, as long as said belief does no direct physical harm is often added, which is fair.

I understand that mutual respect is fundamental to the workings of society but the thing about beliefs is they do not have to be true, or based on any objective reality to hold sway over our easily impressionable minds. And given our penchant for infinite self-interest, add some absolutist ethic that can justify any wrongdoing to maintain coherence, and a strict adherence to never compromise and what do we get? Wait do not answer that.

Welcome to this week’s bulletin. First something on the feminism; makes for an interesting read.

The Dangers Of The Cool Girl Ideal — Link

Five big mysteries about CRISPR’s origins — Link

This tweet thread contains a good mental hack — Link

Another twitter thread on youthful exuberance, well mostly — Link

How I became a Digital Marketer by Justin Irabor— Link

Something interesting here, if you can make it to the end ~ Why read old philosophy — Link

A long read from Ars Technica ~ The Origins and Future of Artificial Intelligence at Facebook — Link

Asking the wrong questions (about technology) — Link

The reason you can’t stand the news anymore — Link

Facts aren’t enough to save liberal democracy — Link

Slow down on the AI hype guys, Watson is not Jarvis….yet — Link

The many tribes of Artificial Intelligence — Link

I found this especially interesting ~ “I’m a feminist against abortion. Why exclude me from a march for women?” — Link

Here, an excerpt:

The ascendancy of abortion rights feminism over the last fifty years has failed to remedy the sort of objectification of women on particular display by our president-elect in the unearthed Access Hollywoodvideo and beyond. As pro-life feminists have long argued, the undisciplined testosterone-driven male libido, interested in no-strings-attached sex, benefits most from an abortion-permissive culture. And when male sexuality goes undisciplined, bereft of the deep emotional bonds once demanded by self-respecting women, sex is sought for pleasure alone. For the most callous of men, women become mere pleasure-providers, the objects of the male libido’s aggressive demands.

Always a pleasure watching Yuval Noah Harari’s interviews.

Also if you like Sci-Fi, you might enjoy this —

And you’ve probably already seen this but yeah…the final Logan Trailer..

I’m not too excited, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is fast leaving the realm of ‘see finish’ and crossing over to the desert of ‘OMG WHY IS THIS GUY STILL PLAYING WOLVERINE?’ But what do I know?

X-23 looks really cool though. Still gonna watch it.

Also you can drop article selections, video blurbs, Facebook posts etc. you think are interesting in the comments. I’ll check them out, and if they pass a quality check, add them to next week’s bulletin.

That’s all for today people, see you next time.