On Factional Freedom

          On Factional Freedom

The fallacy of factional freedom is:

Everything free for me, nothing free for thee.

This theory is universally proclaimed, yet it cannot be universally upheld, so it fails Kant’s categorical imperative. Factional freedom is fictional: it assumes that some but not all are free; when the reverse is the truth; all or none are free. We are equally free.

Results of Informal Survey

       Results of Informal Survey

          Re: Student attention to syllabus items

          Conducted at the College of San Mateo

          Sample: about a dozen students, chosen at random

          Note the last four lines.

          Q: Excuse me, do you have a minute to answer some questions?

          A: Yes. (None refused; all had nothing else to do just then, bless their hearts!)

          Q: When the semester began, did the professor give you a syllabus?

          A: Yes. (100%)

          Q: Did the syllabus have the course’s name? Meeting place? Meeting times?

          A: Yes. (100%)

          Q: Did the syllabus have the professor’s name? Office hours? Contact information?

          A: Yes. (100%)

          Q: Did the syllabus have tutoring center location and hours?

          A: Yes. (100%)

          Q: Did the syllabus have the course’s grading system?

          A: Yes. (100%)

          Q: Did the syllabus list the course’s topics?

          A: Yes. (100%)

          Q: Did you read the entire syllabus?

          A: Yes / Most of it / Some of it / I skimmed it. (Much variation, qualification and evasion.)

          Q: Did you read everything on the syllabus that mattered to you?

          A: Yes. (100%)

          Q: Did you read the SLO?

          A: The what? (100%)

On Crimes against Reason in Flint, Michigan

          On Crimes against Reason in Flint, Michigan

          I give two definitions to the phrase “crimes against reason”. A crime against reason, in the lesser sense, is a crime that makes no sense in its own terms. By flaws in planning, tactical or inherent, the misdeed cannot achieve the perpetrator’s goals. In retrospect the perpetrator shouldn’t have bothered to commit a crime with no reason.

          A crime against reason, in the greater sense, is a crime against Reason itself. It is a violation targeting the victim’s ability to think, and thus self-defend against the perpetrator’s other predations.

          The lead poisoning of the water in Flint, Michigan was a crime against reason, in the lesser sense. By saving $100 a day for three months, for a grand total in the tens of thousands of dollars, the manager of Flint did damage to the city pipelines that will cost many tens of millions of dollars; a loss-to-savings ratio in the thousands.

What’s more, lead is a neurotoxin, gravely affecting brain development in the very young. For many decades hence, thousands of children then alive in Flint will fall behind in IQ and impulse control, as a direct consequence of the Governor’s meddling in Flint’s water supply. Therefore the poisoning of Flint was a crime against reason, in the greater sense.

I submit that crimes against reason, in the greater sense, tend to turn into crimes against reason, in the lesser sense; for even the greatest crook is at the mercy of the stupidity of his neighbor.

Inverse Bullseye Labyrinth

Bullseye Labyrinth

Horizon Labyrinth

Round Labyrinth