This week:
- Lead violence,
- Calgary’s Flaming Flu Controversy,
- Eulogy for Aaron Swartz, and
- Sam Harris ain’t a good skeptic, its guns this time
Download the episode here!
Lead violence
More and more research is pointing to a possible cause for the REDUCTION of violence in the west…lead, or the reduction of it in our urban environments. We discuss the research and some of the implications towards social studies and race relations.
Find out more:
- America’s Real Criminal Element: Lead
- How Lead Exposure Relates to Temporal Changes in IQ, Violent Crime, and Unwed Pregnancy
- The Impact of Childhood Lead Exposure on Crime
- Lead and Conduct Problems: A Meta-Analysis
- Lead poisoning – Nervous system
Calgary’s Flaming Flu Controversy
Ethan discusses the ongoing controversy in Calgary revolving around how the Calgary Flames players and families ‘jumped’ the cue when it came to getting the H1N1 flu vaccine in 2009.
Find out more:
Eulogy for Aaron Swartz
Don give an impassioned and emotional eulogy to one of the promising progressive lights – Aaron Swartz, and how state bullying contributed to his suicide.
Find out more:
- Aaron Swartz, Online Activist and Reddit Cofounder, Dead at 26
- RIP, Aaron Swartz
- US Government Ups Felony Count In JSTOR/Aaron Swartz Case From Four To Thirteen
- Feds Charge Aaron Swartz With Felony Hacking… For Downloading A Ton Of Academic Research
- F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote – “How we stopped SOPA”
- Prosecutor as bully
- NYT: Internet activist accused of data theft
- Unjust Justice: Cybercrimes Uncommitted
- Guerilla Open Access Manifesto
Sam Harris ain’t a good skeptic, its guns this time.
A recent controversy yet again arisen over what WAS one of the leading figures of the atheist skeptical community. Sam Harris yet again shows that at least on some subjects, he is far more the dogmatist than the enlightened skeptic.
Find out more:
- Sam Harris on guns
- Sam Harris the World’s Dumbest Atheist?
- Pow’s law
- Every man thinks he’s Clint Eastwood
- Sam Harris Neglects The Most Important Evidence About Guns
- Sam Harris’s dangerously self-serving mythology
Skeptical Highlights:
The Harper Monologue: The Politics of Hate and Fear
RageResistRebel details the predatory politics of Stephen Harper, the “Prime Manipulator of Canada”.
When: Thursday, Jan 17 at 8pm
Where: Rhizome Caf on East Broadway, Vancouver
Cost: Tix $10-20
Philosophers’ Jam
How We Create Life’s Meaning
Sigmund Freud once said that if you question life’s meaning, you’re sick. But existential philosophers think that if you never question life’s meaning, you’re not only naïve – you’re inauthentic. In this session, Kurt Preinsperg will examine the ‘Meaning Quadrangle’ and consider a step-by- step method for how an individual can take the creation of life’s meaning firmly into their own hands.
When: Thursday, Jan 17 at 7pm
Where: Faculty & Staff Dining Lounge, Lanagra Collage, Vancouver
Cost: Free
Albert Camus, the Absurd Man’s Path
Robin Durand presents a lecture on Camus’s thinking, its topicality, who is the absurd man, and what his path of thoughts is.
Camus was French philosopher who promoted the philosophy of the absurd. Absurdism refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any. In this context, absurd does not mean “logically impossible”, but rather “humanly impossible”.
When: Thursday, Jan 17 at 7pm
Where: Alliance Fran on Cambie, Vancouver
Cost: Free
CFI Cafe Inquiry – Has Violence Declined?
January 19th at 1pm
Room 2200 of SFU Harbour Centre
This cafe will discuss of Steven Pinker’s latest book “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined” The central thesis of the book is that human beings have become less violent over the course of our history. From war to violent assault, Pinker believes that there is convincing evidence that we are living in the most peaceful time in human history.