Author: Steve Baughman

Steve Baughman is an attorney and some-time philosophy graduate student living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He posts skeptical musical thoughts about religion at his YouTube channel, Friendly Banjo Atheist.

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88% Off (!): Jason Kuznicki’s Book Is On Sale
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88% Off (!): Jason Kuznicki’s Book Is On Sale
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I just ordered it and so should you.

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Progress And Its Enemies
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Progress And Its Enemies
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Pessimism about potentially life-enhancing technologies is not new. The Twitter account Pessimist’s Archive (a favorite of the internet guru Marc Andreessen) chronicles the unending stream of pessimism with old newspaper excerpts.

Pessimistic reactions range from merely doubtful (such as this response to the idea of gas lighting in 1809, or this one to the concept of anesthesia in 1839) to outright alarmist (such as this 1999 warning that e-commerce “threatens to destroy more than it could ever create”).

In some cases, the pessimists insist that an older technology is superior to a new one. Some, for example, claimed that an abacus is superior to a computer and a pocket calculator, while others claimed that horses are longer-lasting than the dangerous “automobile terror.” {...}

Another frequent complaint is that new technology exacerbates inequality, because the wealthy tend to adopt new technologies first. One article from 1914, for example, laments that “wireless telephones” will only ever “be a boon to privileged persons.” The article was referring to the early wireless radiotelephones being developed at that time, which were not lightweight handheld devices. Today, of course, wireless phones can fit in your pocket, have many more capabilities, and are ubiquitous. Eventually, the free market tends to drive down the cost of technologies, making them accessible to more people.

Of course, some would argue that they were right about cars. On that one, it depends on your metrics. But when we look at how many people automobiles kill, we often forget that not only are they convenient but they save lives. We can argue about how we might have approached the evolution of the automobile differently, but a lot of people die because they can't get to a hospital if everyone is relying on horse and buggy. Maybe we'd be able to compensate with things like food delivery without trucks, but I'm generally skeptical.

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Woman shot herself in the head while cuffed with hands behind her back during traffic stop in suicide, police say
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Woman shot herself in the head while cuffed with hands behind her back during traffic stop in suicide, police say
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From FoxNews:

Sarah Wilson and her boyfriend were arrested during a stop in Chesapeake in July 2018 after cops allegedly found drugs in the 1996 Lexus the couple were driving. Police said they handcuffed Wilson and, while attempting to apprehend her boyfriend, 27-year-old Holden Medlin, he became combative and ran away from the scene.

Cops then reportedly left Wilson handcuffed with her hands behind her back as they ran to catch Medlin. While unattended, police say, she was able to grab a weapon out of the Lexus, "contorted" her body and shot herself through the mouth. An internal investigation was launched after her death, which has since been concluded, though police have declined to comment on its outcome.

A medical examiner confirmed on Thursday that Wilson died of a suicide -- but friends and family continue to doubt the official story.

(Featured image is "Am Königstag in Hoorn" by Dierk Schaefer. Used under a creative commons license.)

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Miscarriage of Justice? More Questions Re: The Epstein Plea Deal
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Miscarriage of Justice? More Questions Re: The Epstein Plea Deal
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Washington Post

A federal investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein had flagged scores of potential underage victims, including the 14-year-old girl who first alerted police. But when he pleaded guilty in state court in 2008, the only minor Epstein was convicted of soliciting was 16 years old at the time the offenses began, according to information obtained by The Washington Post.

The younger girl who initially notified police has long believed that hers was the case referenced in the guilty plea, her attorney said. Some media accounts said as much. Publicly available charging documents contained no name or age, however. Pressed to resolve the ambiguity, state prosecutors in Florida recently provided The Post with the victim’s date of birth.

The decision to charge Epstein with a crime involving an older teen — part of a plea deal that has already been criticized as overly lenient — has eased his obligations to register as a sex offender. In New Mexico, for instance, where Epstein has a 7,600-acre property called Zorro Ranch, he is not required to register because his victim was not under 16, state officials said.

My frustration grows, regarding the Epstein case. This reads like a Hollywood movie script. What could possibly be the motivation for Alexander Acosta and his prosecutors to deliberately silence a 14 year-old victim and pursue a lighter sentence for a known predator like Epstein?

I'm spitballing here, but IF this report is true, wouldn't this be grounds for another trial against Epstein, and prompt an internal federal investigation into Acosta?

Something isn't right here. I cannot help but feel there's a treasure trove of easter eggs to be discovered with this story. It seems we've only scratched the surface.

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Beto O’Rourke Reports $6 Million in First Day Fundraising
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Beto O’Rourke Reports $6 Million in First Day Fundraising
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On Friday, I wrote this:

Now that Beto O’Rouke is in the race, the time for speculating is done, the coulda, shoulda, willas now have an embodiment and trajectory. There will soon be discernible data points to judge on, and a pass/fail grade at the end of this most public of tests.

Now we have the first of those data points, and it is good news for Team Beto.

The Washington Post:

O’Rourke’s campaign said he raised $6,136,763 from donations that came from all 50 states, D.C., and every U.S. territory.

“In just 24 hours, Americans across this country came together to prove that it is possible to run a true grassroots campaign for president — a campaign by all of us for all of us that answers not to the PACs, corporations, and special interests but to the people,” O’Rourke said in a statement.

In his first day as a candidate, Sanders (I-Vt.) reported raising $5.925 million from 223,000 donors, which brought his average contribution to $27.

O’Rourke’s campaign would not release the total number of donors or the amount raised any subsequent days.

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) reported raising $1.5 million from 38,000 donors in the 24 hours after she announced her campaign. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) did not announce how much she raised, but on her first day, she pulled in at least $300,000 from 8,000 donors, according to fundraising figures reported by ActBlue, an online fundraising organization used by Warren and other Democrats.

Several Democratic campaigns — those of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Gov. Jay Inslee (Wash.) and former governor John Hickenlooper (Colo.) — said they raised about $1 million over 48 hours.

There is no way to confirm the figures the campaigns are releasing until they file reports with the Federal Election Commission in several more weeks.

That last line is key, as the details of an FEC filing can tell all sorts of stories. It is also fair to point out that money alone does not a campaign make, nor does name recognition. It has been lost to the memory hole behind the whirlwind of 3 years of Donald Trump, but Jeb Bush was at one point a frontrunning presidential candidate with $130M spent and nothing but a popular "please clap" meme to show for it.

But for now Beto O'Rourke passed his first candidate hurdle, and deftly held the info for a Monday morning news cycle, maximizing it's news value and also trapping the odd pundit into a "what is he hiding" trap. How far he goes remains to be see, but he will clearly be in the running for some time to come.

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