Alethic nihilism

This essay isn’t true

Alethic nihilism is the theory that nothing is true. There is much to gain by taking this radical idea seriously

by David Liggins

Truth is a topic philosophers have spent centuries considering. We have asked questions such as: what is the content of the concept of truth? That is, what is it to think of something as true? And what is truth itself? Can we come up with a true and illuminating account of what truth really is? For example, is truth the same thi… 

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On the advantages of believing that nothing is true | Aeon Essays

Darwin sobre Brasil

 

Charles Darwin Brasil is .

  · 

Charles Darwin quando esteve no Recife, se impressionou com a brutalidade das pessoas e escreveu: "É uma terra de escravidão, portanto de decrepitude moral!"

Em sua travessia pelo norte fluminense, Darwin deparou-se também com os horrores da escravidão. Dois episódios lhe marcaram profundamente. Um deles aconteceu na Fazenda Itaocaia, em Maricá, a 60 km do Rio, no dia 8 de abril, quando um grupo de caçadores saiu no encalço de alguns escravos.

A certa altura, os foragidos se viram encurralados em um precipício.

Uma escrava, de certa idade, preferiu atirar-se no abismo a ser capturada pelo capitão do mato. "Praticado por uma matrona romana, esse ato seria interpretado como amor à liberdade", relatou Darwin. "Mas, vindo de uma negra pobre, disseram que tudo não passou de um gesto bruto".

Após sair do Brasil escreveu: "Nunca mais ponho os pés em um país escravocrata! No Recife um jovem mulato era constante e brutalmente espancado pelo seu senhor. Até hoje, quando escuto um grito na madrugada penso que é um escravo brasileiro e tremo todo. Em Salvador e no RJ as donas de casa tinham tarrachas para esmagar as articulações dos dedos dos escravos domésticos. E aos domingos iam à igreja, onde diziam amar a Deus sobre todas as coisas e ao próximo como a si mesmo".

Viagens de um naturalista ao redor do mundo, Darwin. Dedica várias páginas de sua estadia no Brasil em 1832.

Inventor of theories

 “Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic.”

― Aldous Huxley

John Locke

 Dan Sanchez

  ·In 1683, the most dangerous man in the world escaped from England to the Netherlands.

He didn’t look very formidable. He was 51 years old, lanky, and asthmatic. He had, according to one description, a “long face, large nose, full lips, and soft, melancholy eyes.”

Yet the King of England considered him one of his deadliest enemies. He was suspected of conspiring to assassinate Charles II. But what really made him a threat to the throne was not his skill in the lethal arts, but his genius in the literary arts.

In the hands of John Locke, the pen was truly mightier than the sword.

Locke sailed out of England with a powerful weapon: one that would eventually overthrow, not just one monarch, but all of them. This weapon was a book, at that point an unpublished draft: Two Treatises of Government.

That book was a systematic philosophical case for liberty. Locke knew that his anti-absolutist book might get him killed by England’s absolute monarch. Indeed, later that year Charles II had Locke’s ally Algernon Sidney executed for treason, citing Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government as evidence.

So Locke did not publish his Treatises until 1689, the year after Charles’s successor James II was deposed in the “Glorious Revolution”—and even then, only anonymously. Locke publicly denied authorship throughout the rest of his life, only admitting it in his will. Locke died in 1704.

Later in that century, the second of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government became the political catechism of the American Revolution. Its ideas permeate the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The enormously successful American experiment caused the global prestige of Locke’s ideas to soar. As Locke’s political principles were adopted throughout the world, liberty spread and absolutism receded. The ideas contained in the papers that John Locke smuggled across the water from England in 1683 turned the world upside-down: or rather, right-side-up.

Whether he knew it or not, John Locke was the most dangerous man in the world as well as the most heroic: a menace to tyrants and a liberator of generations.

Holy Roman Empire

 

Nombres de países latinoamericanos

 

Entrevista sobre economia

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Antony Mueller,"Se diz na economia não ter curtas respostas!"

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How to write

 

Dan Sanchez

  · 

The great journalist and author Henry Hazlitt offered the following excellent advice to writers:

“The reader who seeks to write well and think well should aim first at the essential qualities—coherence, clarity, precision, simplicity, and brevity. Euphony and rhythm are of course also desirable, but they are like the final rubbing on a fine piece of furniture—finishing touches justified only if the piece has been soundly made. As a method of procedure, the apprentice writer may often find it advisable first of all to root out his faults. He should try to acquire the Five Virtues of Coherence, Clarity, Precision, Simplicity, and Brevity by vigilant abstention from the Five Vices of Incoherence, Obscurity, Vagueness, Pedantry, and Circumlocution.”

Here are a few of my own thoughts on these writing virtues and corresponding vices.

Coherence is the quality of forming a unified, integrated whole. For a writing piece to have coherence, it must have a clear purpose, and every constituent part of it must contribute toward that purpose. Long digressions and non sequiturs can make a piece incoherent.

Clarity in writing is about being easily understood by the reader. A writer who wants to be understood must think in terms, not only of expression (sharing one’s thoughts) but exposition (sharing ideas intelligibly). Often attaining greater clarity in exposition goes hand-in-hand with attaining greater clarity in your own understanding of the topic. Comprehension and comprehensibility are two sides of the same coin.

For a piece to be clear, it must flow well: both narratively and logically. Each passage must advance the story and/or argument of the piece in a way that naturally follows what came before it. A piece that is disjointed and “jumps around” too much will confuse the reader.

Clear writing must also be complete. It must not omit any points that are necessary for the reader to understand what you’re saying. Missing context will obscure your message. Unfamiliar, un-introduced jargon will also make your presentation opaque to the lay reader. Remember that the reader does not share all your knowledge. Be wary of presuming that a necessary connection will “go without saying.”

Precision in writing is about being exact and specific in conveying your meaning. Attaining precision is often a matter of “playing around” with a sentence to find just the right wording and phrasing to accurately get your meaning across. Consulting a dictionary and a thesaurus can be helpful for this.

Simplicity in writing is about limiting your exposition only to the essential. Writers with extensive knowledge of their subject are often tempted to over-share arcane details that would overload the reader. Don’t try to cram a comprehensive education of your subject into one piece. Shoot for the realistic aim of providing your reader an important lesson that is simple enough to be fully digested in one sitting.

Brevity in writing is about getting your meaning across in as few words as necessary. (But no fewer. Brevity in excess can result in vagueness and obscurity.) Often one’s first stab at a sentence will be needlessly wordy and thus unwieldy to the reader. See what you can do to cut, compress, and recombine your wording to make your sentence more concise and elegant. Prune any sentences that don’t “carry their weight”: that don’t contribute enough value to your presentation to justify the additional work they demand from the reader. Sometimes this can mean cutting whole sections. You have to be willing to “kill your darlings” as William Faulkner put it.

I highly recommend using Hazlitt’s Five Virtues/Vices as a handy checklist for evaluating and improving your own writing.

South America

 

Humanoid Robot

 

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveils prototype of humanoid Optimus robot