In January Oxfam released a report which stated that “just 8 men own the same wealth as half the world”. This was seized on by the left to make points about income inequality, poverty and the excesses of modern capitalism. However, the 50 percent of the world’s poorest mentioned in the report do not live…
Hamilton 68 website tracks Russian information ops on Twitter
It is no secret that the Russian government has weaponized social media in an attempt to sew doubt, division and chaos among western governments. Now the website Hamilton 68 helps to monitor the stories being pushed by Putin. The site is an effort of The Alliance for Securing Democracy is “a bipartisan, transatlantic initiative” whose advisory council…
What is the point of hating Arcade Fire?
For awhile today, Arcade Fire was trending on Twitter so I went to check it out. It was almost all hate for their new album, for the dress code at one of their shows and for a lawsuit they’ve recently filed. I understand having an opinion on lawsuits but really, if you hate the band,…
What the West really needs is a revolution of the rational middle
For most of my life, I’ve considered myself a “progressive”. Over the last few years I’ve changed that description to “moderate progressive” – something US Senator Bernie Sanders said, during the 2016 election, a person could not be. I do not know if I left the progressive movement or if it left me but at…
Humans Need Not Apply: 15 minute video destroys any hope that your job is safe from automation or will be replaced by a new one
Whether you work in a blue collar, white collar or creative job – the robots are coming for you. The people who say “people worried about that when the industrial revolution happened, but we just came up with new jobs are wrong (or just trying to make you feel better). This 15-minute video from CGP…
Podcast Recommendation: Rational Lampoon from Big Picture Science (SETI)
Big Picture Science from the SETI Institute is an excellent podcast generally, but this week’s episode “Skeptic Check: Rational Lampoon” is definitely worth a listen if you are interested in modern democracy, how things have become so divided and public knowledge generally. In just 51 minutes the podcast discusses social learning in animals, including humans. Drawing…
Facticious: Game tests your ability to detect fake news
Journalist Maggie Farley has created an online game to test people’s ability to detect fake news. In each round of Facticious, stories are posted, initially, without the source and you are asked to swipe or check a box to whether you think the story is true or not. The stories tend to be odd stories…
Canada is worth celebrating if we look forward as much as we look back
The great thing about Canada, to me, isn’t what it is or has been but what it might yet become and, given our history and culture that could be pretty much anything it wants to be. My social media feed today, Canada Day, the 150th anniversary of Confederation has been a mixed bag. There have…
The case for Canada joining the European Union
Since the start of the American Revolution, Canada has lived in the shadow of the US. At times America has been the enemy, at other times a close ally, Canada’s number one trading partner, the source of waves of immigration and the destination of Canada’s ‘brain drain’. For the entire time though, Canada’s politics have…
Five browser plugins to help you weed the fake news from your Facebook feed
Since the 2016 election, a number of browser plugins have been developed by various groups to help you avoid bad or misleading news. Although fake news became a prominent issue following the election of Donald Trump, tools to separate good from bad news sources is long overdue. None of these will actually fact check stories…