Briggs

Stream: Spirit Cooking, Simulated Cannibalism & The Election: More Satanism

Today's post is at The Stream: Spirit Cooking, Simulated Cannibalism & The Election. People thought I was exaggerating about the return of paganism, the creation of neo-paganistic rites, and the…

Culture Philosophy

Stream: Won’t Somebody Please Rescue The Poor Tradinistas Slaving Away As Baristas?

Today's post is at the Stream Won't Somebody Please Rescue The Poor Tradinistas Slaving Away As Baristas? My article is part of a series at Stream on the attempted return…

Statistics

On The Cubs’ & Trump’s Victories, Nate Silver’s Predictions & All That

https://twitter.com/ThaRightStuff/status/794045050753794048 Some crow is presumably being eaten by Nate Silver and the folks at FiveThirtyEight.com this fine morning. I recommend they bake it into a pie (which I learnt from…

Culture

No Matter Who Wins, We’re Doomed — WMBriggs Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7T0XUOVS2g Download MP3. Note: This was written and recorded last Wednesday, before DickiLeaks et alia, but due to other events I had to delay posting it until today. The return…

Culture

What Russia Wants, Part II — Guest Post by Ianto Watt

Editor's note: This is Part Final of a two-part series. Read Part I. So let me ask you; What is the biggest mountain in Russia? Mt. Athos, of course. Wait.…

Book review Statistics

A Deep Philosophical Account Of Probability

Another review of Uncertainty: The Soul of Modeling, Probability & Statistics, this one taken from an Amazon customer. It was 7 or 8 years ago when I was sitting in…

Culture Statistics

Media Lying With Polls? Is The Pope…Er…Ah, Never Mind

Today's post is at The Stream: Be Skeptical of the Polls: Is the media lying to boost Hillary? Note: I'm putting the Summary Against Modern Thought Sunday series on hiatus…

Philosophy Statistics

Why Is It Okay To Eat Pigs And Not Dogs? Science Does Not Have The Answer

Opening sentence of the abstract in the peer-reviewed paper "When Meat Gets Personal, Animals' Minds Matter Less: Motivated Use of Intelligence Information in Judgments of Moral Standing" in Social Psychological…

John Pate on Desperate Need For Equality: AP Exam PerformanceFebruary 13, 2026
Supposedly AI is making everyone dumber. We can achieve equality via AI, there's nothing it can't do.
John Pate on Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGIFebruary 13, 2026
Qualia are the key to intelligence and not epiphenomena. Fancy auto-complete will never think.
Christopher C Reed on Another Academic Says Climate Skeptics Criminals Against Humanity And Other Name CallingFebruary 12, 2026
Congratulations on your promotion to Ringfueher, er...Ringleader! I suppose there may now be an opening for Henchman?
Brian. (bulaoren) on Desperate Need For Equality: AP Exam PerformanceFebruary 11, 2026
A lot of Americans have come to suspect that the "dumbing down" of the population is a real, and deliberate…
Heresolong on Desperate Need For Equality: AP Exam PerformanceFebruary 11, 2026
I can't but I don't understand most of the abbreviations. I look forward to your analysis.