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Category: Politics

A Guide to Political Discourse at the Dinner Table

by Aedon Cassiel As a philosophy buff, I can admit that a great deal of “philosophy” is irrelevant in most practical terms for most people’s actual lives—even for the way that they think and argue and reason. For example, one of the first things we’re given in Philosophy 101 is a list of fallacies of logical reasoning. It includes something called the “ad hominem fallacy.” Ad hominem translates to “against the person,” and it refers to “a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument.” To really get anywhere useful with this, what we’d have to do next is try to decide on some principles to use to determine whether a fact about the author is “irrelevant” or not. For example,…

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Fiat Current Sea: Maritime Money

Our currency is like current in the sea The stream ebbs and flows, directed by the banks on either side The river-banks control the current; but the money-banks control the currency This is why our ‘cash flow’ is a ‘liquid asset‘ ‘Liquidity’ is literally available current-sea Water is a metaphor for money We use marine and aquatic vernacular to generically describe financial terms every day without even realizing it. When we make a lot of money, we make barrels of it. But if we are broke, we’re in deep. We’re drowning in a sea of debt. Or maybe we’re in hot water.  Our bank accounts have dried up. But the economy can be tough, and we’re often just trying to stay afloat or keep our heads above water.  (above) The Black River Bank of Watertown, New York was established in 1844 and ran until 1864…

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Peak Petroleum, Abiotic Fossil Fuel: A Bone To Pick With The Oilagarchs

We’ve been trained to believe that petroleum is a fossil fuel. It’s supposed to have been generated over millions of years from the remains of dead organisms that were buried beneath sedimentary rock long ago.  There’re only so many of these ‘fossils’ left, therefore they say, we’ll eventually run out.  This is what ‘peak oil’ is all about, and it’s absolutely ludicrous. As the story goes, since there are only so many dinosaur bones, zooplankton, algae and other decayed biological matter from long ago; there is only so much oil.  This is good news for the ‘oilagarchs‘ since they can create artificial scarcity and raise the price due to the supposed lack of supply.  This happened in the 70’s for those old enough to remember. But what if this wasn’t the case? What if oil isn’t a so called fossil fuel, but simply a product…

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