From 7cef74ed8db2b0b6b799b3b0e3a9211e521bd7bd4313e8b9f7b7fcf7ed4cb997 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Nicholas Johnson Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Subject: Replace instances of 'there is' with 'there are' 'there are' is the correct form for plurals. This also replaces instances of 'here is'. --- content/entry/article-the-internet-is-broken.md | 2 +- content/entry/automation-bullshit-jobs-and-work.md | 2 +- content/entry/avoiding-consumer-surveillance.md | 2 +- content/entry/breaking-my-promise.md | 2 +- content/entry/gemini-appreciation-entry.md | 4 ++-- content/entry/manufacturing-agreement.md | 2 +- content/entry/my-career-path.md | 8 ++++---- content/entry/the-narrative-self.md | 4 ++-- content/entry/thoughts-on-logic.md | 6 +++--- content/entry/using-email.md | 2 +- 10 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-) (limited to 'content') diff --git a/content/entry/article-the-internet-is-broken.md b/content/entry/article-the-internet-is-broken.md index 452ad55..dbe3465 100644 --- a/content/entry/article-the-internet-is-broken.md +++ b/content/entry/article-the-internet-is-broken.md @@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ draft: false --- The internet stack is [broken beyond repair](https://secushare.org/broken-internet). It needs to be thrown out and replaced with a [GNU network](https://www.gnunet.org/en/)! -There's lots of software projects out there that address *some* of the pitfalls of the network stack and I want to pay tribute to them before evangelizing GNUnet. I don't have the time to give all these projects their due, so I apologize ahead of time for skipping some. +There are lots of software projects out there that address *some* of the pitfalls of the network stack and I want to pay tribute to them before evangelizing GNUnet. I don't have the time to give all these projects their due, so I apologize ahead of time for skipping some. To give one example though, [Tor](https://www.torproject.org) helps millions of people every day (including me) access the internet anonymously. It has been an invaluable tool for protecting journalists and human rights defenders for years. I even use it to host this journal's [hidden service gemini capsule](gemini://nick6gsepvtmkcpibpid6dqtqroxt62u6ab4ep65vxrenffruumj6jad.onion) and [hidden service website](http://nick6gsepvtmkcpibpid6dqtqroxt62u6ab4ep65vxrenffruumj6jad.onion/). To contribute back to the project, I've hosted a number of relays over the past few years. diff --git a/content/entry/automation-bullshit-jobs-and-work.md b/content/entry/automation-bullshit-jobs-and-work.md index 8f38324..deeb2f2 100644 --- a/content/entry/automation-bullshit-jobs-and-work.md +++ b/content/entry/automation-bullshit-jobs-and-work.md @@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ And please don't force employees to thank me for calling either. I know that's p Customer service skills are important and should be taught, but please don't force employees to be fake happy and non-genuine. # Summary -In summary, I think there's lots of bullshit jobs that could be eliminated, but trying to quantify exactly how many is quite difficult. We need a solution for wealth redistribution soon so people don't have to work these bullshit jobs just to survive. I think the problem of intentionally prolonged work can also be reduced or even eliminated. +In summary, I think there are lots of bullshit jobs that could be eliminated, but trying to quantify exactly how many is quite difficult. We need a solution for wealth redistribution soon so people don't have to work these bullshit jobs just to survive. I think the problem of intentionally prolonged work can also be reduced or even eliminated. Automation is already here and it's reducing the number of useful jobs. I don't see any point in reverting to Luddism. For one, the economy can adapt. Two, humans can find meaning outside work. Three, the knowledge that machines can automate one's job might be worse than the job being automated. Something like UBI will be necessary to ensure people can get the necessities without a job. diff --git a/content/entry/avoiding-consumer-surveillance.md b/content/entry/avoiding-consumer-surveillance.md index 755eb37..c150cd8 100644 --- a/content/entry/avoiding-consumer-surveillance.md +++ b/content/entry/avoiding-consumer-surveillance.md @@ -34,4 +34,4 @@ There are other ways you can be deanonymized through video surveillance besides The other way that big retailers have become more invasive is through Wi-Fi location tracking of your smartphone. Your phone emits Wi-Fi signals to determine which wireless networks are available nearby. The person operating the retailer's Wi-Fi network can use those signals to track your movements within the store. It's profitable to collect your movement data, so you should assume that retailers are doing it. Your phone also has a [MAC address](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address) which can uniquely identify you, especially if your phone doesn't randomize it. Other wireless protocols that you leave activated on your phone might also be able to be misused by the retailer to track your movements. To avoid location tracking altogether, you can fully power down your phone before you enter the store. If that isn't good enough for you, another option is placing your phone inside a [Faraday bag](https://privacypros.io/faraday-bags/). Be sure to test it out before you use it though. # Anonymous Online Shopping -We have grown accustomed to the luxury of having whatever we want show up at our doorstep with the click of a button. It's hard to say no when you've gotten so used to it. For those who really don't want to give up online shopping, I'm going to write a guide on how to anonymously buy and sell goods online. There's a few different methods for 100% anonymous online shopping. Some of them get very involved, so I'm going to save all the details for another post. See ya next time! +We have grown accustomed to the luxury of having whatever we want show up at our doorstep with the click of a button. It's hard to say no when you've gotten so used to it. For those who really don't want to give up online shopping, I'm going to write a guide on how to anonymously buy and sell goods online. There are a few different methods for 100% anonymous online shopping. Some of them get very involved, so I'm going to save all the details for another post. See ya next time! diff --git a/content/entry/breaking-my-promise.md b/content/entry/breaking-my-promise.md index c8b8381..84b4f71 100644 --- a/content/entry/breaking-my-promise.md +++ b/content/entry/breaking-my-promise.md @@ -5,6 +5,6 @@ draft: false --- Towards the end of July, [I promised to quit flying](/2021/07/25/flygskam/) until the climate crisis was averted and until the TSA stopped groping passengers. As it turns out, that was a commitment I couldn't keep. I booked a flight. Since I made the commitment very publicly, I don't think it's fair not to write an update after breaking it. I'm not perfect. I suppose the lesson here if there is one is that I shouldn't publicly make commitments that I'm not certain I can keep. -Although I still fly, the silver lining is I've made a different personal decision which drastically reduces my net emissions orders of magnitude more than not flying: I'm not having kids. Not having children may be my second best contribution to humanity besides this journal. I'm not 100% committing to this, but I estimate a very high probability that I won't have children. Especially because there's many reasons I don't want children besides just the climate, such as not becoming a slave to people with money. +Although I still fly, the silver lining is I've made a different personal decision which drastically reduces my net emissions orders of magnitude more than not flying: I'm not having kids. Not having children may be my second best contribution to humanity besides this journal. I'm not 100% committing to this, but I estimate a very high probability that I won't have children. Especially because there are many reasons I don't want children besides just the climate, such as not becoming a slave to people with money. I'm also vegetarian for the climate and animal welfare reasons, but I think any good from that is probably canceled out by my flying. I still think everyone should avoid flying and also avoid having kids. Unfortunately I haven't been able to. So I broke my commitment. That's my update. diff --git a/content/entry/gemini-appreciation-entry.md b/content/entry/gemini-appreciation-entry.md index b32a8e5..8985674 100644 --- a/content/entry/gemini-appreciation-entry.md +++ b/content/entry/gemini-appreciation-entry.md @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ The organization resembles that of the early Web. Search engines exist, but they The small-worldiness of Gemini reminds me very much of [Neocities](https://neocities.org/browse), which you should definitely check out if you never have before. If you're like me though and you find the Web overwhelming, Neocities is even more than your average website. That's why I can't spend too long browsing around on there, whereas I can spend hours on Gemini and not mentally tire out. -There's some non-English capsules out there that are good to read if you're trying to learn the language. Gemini is a good way to find others who are open to discussion and collaboration. Most Geminauts put their email on their capsule. Every Geminaut I've sent emails to or received emails from has been friendly. +There are some non-English capsules out there that are good to read if you're trying to learn the language. Gemini is a good way to find others who are open to discussion and collaboration. Most Geminauts put their email on their capsule. Every Geminaut I've sent emails to or received emails from has been friendly. # The Medium is the Message Gemini reminds me of this phrase coined by Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan: @@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ and support for multiple languages. It's useful, while not lending itself to ove And then there's hive minds. Online platforms like Facebook and Reddit especially seem to create self-selected communities where all members conform to certain opinions or else face being ostracized. Thanks to the lack of built-in interactivity on Gemini, there seems to be a lack of hive mind as well. ### No Rating System or Censorship -There's no such thing as being "downvoted to oblivion". Since there's no ads, you're not at risk of gaining or losing ad revenue for sharing unpopular opinions. You don't get points or karma. You don't have to post under your real name. You're free to say anything you want and the worst you'll get is a nasty email. +There's no such thing as being "downvoted to oblivion". Since there are no ads, you're not at risk of gaining or losing ad revenue for sharing unpopular opinions. You don't get points or karma. You don't have to post under your real name. You're free to say anything you want and the worst you'll get is a nasty email. Notably, I haven't seen anyone complain about censorship on Gemini. I attribute the apparent lack of censorship to 3 things: diff --git a/content/entry/manufacturing-agreement.md b/content/entry/manufacturing-agreement.md index b3809a9..1da1800 100644 --- a/content/entry/manufacturing-agreement.md +++ b/content/entry/manufacturing-agreement.md @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ In order for this post to give a more balanced perspective, I'm first going to g ## Users Sometimes Have Alternatives First of all, not agreeing to the ToS and PP for online services is more practical than most people think. I've spent the past few years setting up my life in such a way that I don't have to agree to ToS and PP agreements when I don't want to. My job doesn't require it and my personal life doesn't demand it. While I understand that not everybody can or wants to set their life up like I have mine, the main reason I see people not avoiding ToS and PPs isn't because it's impractical. It's out of apathy and laziness. -If more people would read and try to reject ToS and PPs they disagree with, they would succeed. For instance, if you're a student and a class requires you to use [Goolag](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Goolag) disservices, you need a Goolag account. You have to submit to extensive tracking across the web, selling of your data, and other nasty things. There are several ways around making an account though. Here's a few ideas listed in order of which you ought to try first: +If more people would read and try to reject ToS and PPs they disagree with, they would succeed. For instance, if you're a student and a class requires you to use [Goolag](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Goolag) disservices, you need a Goolag account. You have to submit to extensive tracking across the web, selling of your data, and other nasty things. There are several ways around making an account though. Here are a few ideas listed in order of which you ought to try first: 1. Talk to the professor. Explain that you don't agree to Goolag's ToS and PP. If you explain your position respectfully, many professors will at least be sympathetic to the problem. They may have some advice or even modify the coursework so it doesn't require Goolag. 2. If it is not the professor's choice to use Goolag, talk to someone higher up about the problem. diff --git a/content/entry/my-career-path.md b/content/entry/my-career-path.md index 751f990..5b01cfb 100644 --- a/content/entry/my-career-path.md +++ b/content/entry/my-career-path.md @@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ Why go in debt and work hard to get a degree that may not even help me get a car ### Free Software Contributions Mostly Don't Motivate Me Reflecting on contributing to free software projects, there are a few reasons I suspect I haven't been able to find motivation for that thus far. There's no question contributing to ethical free software does good for the world. There's lots of free software out there that needs maintained and supported. But it doesn't necessarily get me a career where I can support myself financially and that's really important for me right now. -I don't have my motivation fully figured out yet. What I do know is there's either some key motivators missing for me when it comes to contributing to free software or there's some other reason preventing me from doing it. Something I don't fully grasp blocks me from putting in the effort to advancing my career through contributing to free software projects. I just can't bring myself to make the effort. Maybe that will change in the future. I don't know. +I don't have my motivation fully figured out yet. What I do know is there are either some key motivators missing for me when it comes to contributing to free software or there's some other reason preventing me from doing it. Something I don't fully grasp blocks me from putting in the effort to advancing my career through contributing to free software projects. I just can't bring myself to make the effort. Maybe that will change in the future. I don't know. ### I'm Highly Motivated to Write This Blog I've spent over a year trying and failing to find a way to make money with free software. Working entry level, low-wage, non-career jobs to sustain myself meanwhile sucks. I'm motivated by the desire to not have to do that. @@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ Another option is getting my employer to sponsor the certification. This could b Since I refuse to use non-free software, it would be better for me to get a local job instead of a remote job. Non-free software is much more likely to be an issue at a remote job, especially for things like communication. ## Prioritize Small Businesses and Non-Profits -It will be much easier to avoid proprietary software and other ethical problems working for small businesses where I might can retain some degree of control over some aspects of the work versus at a large corporation where there's already well-established ways of doing things that aren't going to change. Also unless I'm mistaken non-profits tend to be more ethical to work for than for-profit organizations. +It will be much easier to avoid proprietary software and other ethical problems working for small businesses where I might can retain some degree of control over some aspects of the work versus at a large corporation where there are already well-established ways of doing things that aren't going to change. Also unless I'm mistaken non-profits tend to be more ethical to work for than for-profit organizations. ## Keep Blogging While blogging hasn't helped me get an internship yet, it does help me organize my thoughts. It has helped me put more thought into my career plan than I otherwise would have. So I'm going to keep doing it. @@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ While volunteering isn't going to get me a career job instantly, it could help m # Managing My Expectations With that, I have some solid ideas to try. The plan is to try many things simultaneously to maximize my chance of success. I need to apply for internships while networking while looking for local job opportunities while volunteering and looking into self-employment. It's a lot of work but it beats the hell out of making casual, inconsistent efforts and hoping something floats my way without a plan. -I know just because I have all these ideas doesn't mean I'll succeed. There are infinite ways I could fail, so my expectations aren't high. But I'm motivated by the fact that my plan is what I've got to work with. I mean there's no other career paths that I consider worth pursuing. +I know just because I have all these ideas doesn't mean I'll succeed. There are infinite ways I could fail, so my expectations aren't high. But I'm motivated by the fact that my plan is what I've got to work with. I mean there are no other career paths that I consider worth pursuing. I know this isn't the path most people choose and in fact many people consider what I'm doing to be foolish, but if I'm going to be doing something I hate for a job, I'd rather earn low wages mopping floors and cleaning toilets and stand by my principles rather than compromise them being a bootlicking corporate robot. @@ -203,7 +203,7 @@ Another criticism I've received that's worth consideration is: > "Wouldn't you be able to do more good in the world by giving in to proprietary software temporarily just to get your degree and some experience, thereby earning more professional respect, connections and experience? Wouldn't the good from that cancel out the temporary evil?" ### Response -I respect this argument because there are theoretical cases where arguments of similar form are correct. For instance, if I enable proprietary JavaScript in my browser so I can access a job search site that subsequently gets me a job doing a lot of good with free software. But that's a theoretical example. In practical reality, there's a lot of problems with thinking that way. +I respect this argument because there are theoretical cases where arguments of similar form are correct. For instance, if I enable proprietary JavaScript in my browser so I can access a job search site that subsequently gets me a job doing a lot of good with free software. But that's a theoretical example. In practical reality, there are a lot of problems with thinking that way. For one, it's a slippery slope. How much are you willing to give in before you finally put your foot down? If you don't draw the line somewhere, then you don't care too much about your principles. If you're not willing to make sacrifices for them, then you're as good practically speaking as someone who has no ethical principles at all. The only difference is you'll try to do good as long as it doesn't cause you any major inconveniences. But in the real world, doing the right thing is often personally inconvenient. History has countless proofs of that. diff --git a/content/entry/the-narrative-self.md b/content/entry/the-narrative-self.md index b71811d..9fb388c 100644 --- a/content/entry/the-narrative-self.md +++ b/content/entry/the-narrative-self.md @@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ For most of us, our inner monologue is characterized by problem after problem af Even if you're an extremely lucky person, your inner monologue is bound to be self-referential, boringly repetitive, negative, and problem-focused much of the time. Being identified with this monologue, this story, is a primary source of human suffering. And to be clear, in this context, by suffering, I mean something akin to continuous dissatisfaction, not the "I broke my arm and now I'm in pain!" suffering. # Strategies For Dealing With the Narrative Self -There's 2 broad strategies you can employ to deal with this neurotic, problem-seeking voice inside your head. By the way, these strategies are generalized tools against suffering. They're not limited to the narrative self. They can also be used for dealing with physical pain, for instance. +There are 2 broad strategies you can employ to deal with this neurotic, problem-seeking voice inside your head. By the way, these strategies are generalized tools against suffering. They're not limited to the narrative self. They can also be used for dealing with physical pain, for instance. ## Stoicism The first strategy is changing the narrative. You can recondition yourself to "think positive" by telling yourself a better story. 21st century Stoics such as William B. Irvine employ a number of mental exercises to put life in perspective and reduce suffering. I won't get into Stoicism here as there are many different exercises, but you can see [William's website](https://www.williambirvine.com/) for more information. @@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ There's mass overconsumption. There's a [cult of productivity](/2021/05/21/the-c # Summary So why am I writing about this? I'm writing this as a response to the widespread confusion about the causes of happiness. If everyone already understood that achieving the next goal, acquiring more goods and social status doesn't bring lasting peace, I wouldn't be writing this. I'm not here to spoon-feed you the traditional lies about what makes people happy. I'm here to debunk them and promote Stoicism and Zen, highly practical and broadly applicable philosophies for life. -I've already explained the mechanisms by which both reduce suffering in terms of the narrative self. You can reason through it on your own. You don't have to blindly accept what I'm saying. There's plenty of studies out there showing that practices like mindfulness (Zen) and reframing thoughts (Stoicism) drastically improve people's lives. +I've already explained the mechanisms by which both reduce suffering in terms of the narrative self. You can reason through it on your own. You don't have to blindly accept what I'm saying. There are plenty of studies out there showing that practices like mindfulness (Zen) and reframing thoughts (Stoicism) drastically improve people's lives. # One Final Observation As a final observation, I've come across people who think they can't be more content before something good happens. They think the only thing they can do to affect their mind is achieve momentary happiness by reaching their next goal. diff --git a/content/entry/thoughts-on-logic.md b/content/entry/thoughts-on-logic.md index a02785b..b5dc22b 100644 --- a/content/entry/thoughts-on-logic.md +++ b/content/entry/thoughts-on-logic.md @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The term "critical thinking" gets thrown around a lot in schools, but children a The point of teaching the formal, symbolic logic starting at a young age is not so kids, teens and young adults become good at truth tables. The point is they'll internalize logic like any other concept. The pattern recognition part of their brain will automatically recognize valid arguments when they see them. It will also recognize invalid forms of argument and logical fallacies without consciously doing any heavy lifting. That's where the most value is in teaching logic. -When I studied philosophy in community college, I remember there was an art student. He had a great personality and was a very likable person. Whenever he got called on to answer a question though, he was never able to produce the right answer. It was clear to me that he never learned how to think logically. I wondered what it must be like to be a young adult never having learned that. There are also plenty of functioning older adults out there that never learned how to think logically. To be clear, studying formal logic isn't a prerequisite for logical thought. What I find to be the case with nearly everyone without training in formal logic is that they have an intuitive sense of how to reason, but there's important pieces of the puzzle they're missing. That's what I'm going to focus on in this post, the things that those without experience in formal logic get confused about. In my posts, I try not to assume prior knowledge, so I'm going to explain a bit about logic before I explain some of those missing pieces. If you're already familiar with logic, click here. +When I studied philosophy in community college, I remember there was an art student. He had a great personality and was a very likable person. Whenever he got called on to answer a question though, he was never able to produce the right answer. It was clear to me that he never learned how to think logically. I wondered what it must be like to be a young adult never having learned that. There are also plenty of functioning older adults out there that never learned how to think logically. To be clear, studying formal logic isn't a prerequisite for logical thought. What I find to be the case with nearly everyone without training in formal logic is that they have an intuitive sense of how to reason, but there are important pieces of the puzzle they're missing. That's what I'm going to focus on in this post, the things that those without experience in formal logic get confused about. In my posts, I try not to assume prior knowledge, so I'm going to explain a bit about logic before I explain some of those missing pieces. If you're already familiar with logic, click here. # Logic Logic is the study of [rules of inference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_inference). Rules of inference allow you to draw conclusions based on premises. In other words, starting with a statement A, you can conclude statement B. For example, the earth is round is a true statement. Therefore the earth is round or up is down is also a true statement. In fact, I could replace the statement up is down with any proposition Z and the earth is round or Z would still be true. I used the rule of inference "addition" to draw my conclusion, so I'm guaranteed that it's true no matter what Z is. I can apply another rule of inference to get humans have 3 legs therefore either the earth is round or up is down. That is also a true statement. It sounds strange because the normal way of understanding "therefore" is as a causal relationship. In this context, it's a strictly logical implication, not causal. Despite how strange it sounds, humans have 3 legs therefore either the earth is round or up is down logically follows from the earth is round. @@ -19,10 +19,10 @@ To test your skills in logic, I suggest trying out some logic puzzles such as [K Now that I've talked about what logic is, I want to talk about some of the important aspects of logic people commonly get confused about. ## There Are Only 2 Ways an Argument Can Be Disproved -The first way to disprove an argument is by showing that one of the premises is false. The other way is showing that [the structure of the argument is invalid](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_validity). People are used to thinking of arguments in terms of "arguments for" and "arguments against". That's why it's easy to get confused here. It's the attitude "There's some good arguments for a proposition and some good arguments against it and it's my job to weigh the pros and cons". But, in logic, an argument is either sound or unsound. The property of [soundness](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Soundness) means that the premises are true and it has valid form. If the conclusion of an argument derives from valid rules of inference based on the premises, then the only way to disprove the argument is to show one of the premises is false. If all the premises are true and the form is valid, then the argument is sound and the conclusion is true. There's no "arguments for" and "arguments against", or "maybe it's wrong some other way". There's no two ways about it. No if, ands or buts. If an argument is sound, the conclusion necessarily follows. +The first way to disprove an argument is by showing that one of the premises is false. The other way is showing that [the structure of the argument is invalid](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_validity). People are used to thinking of arguments in terms of "arguments for" and "arguments against". That's why it's easy to get confused here. It's the attitude "There are some good arguments for a proposition and some good arguments against it and it's my job to weigh the pros and cons". But, in logic, an argument is either sound or unsound. The property of [soundness](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Soundness) means that the premises are true and it has valid form. If the conclusion of an argument derives from valid rules of inference based on the premises, then the only way to disprove the argument is to show one of the premises is false. If all the premises are true and the form is valid, then the argument is sound and the conclusion is true. There's no "arguments for" and "arguments against", or "maybe it's wrong some other way". There's no two ways about it. No if, ands or buts. If an argument is sound, the conclusion necessarily follows. ## How Logical Fallacies Work -A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning. It can be [formal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy) or [informal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy). Formal fallacies have to do with the structure of an argument. If an argument has bad structure, it is invalid. Informal fallacies have to do with the content of an argument. In my experience, it's more rare for people to commit formal fallacies. This is because there are so many more ways to commit informal fallacies than there are ways to commit formal fallacies. There are only a few ways to structure an argument improperly, but there are virtually endless ways to get the content wrong since the content can be anything at all. Take a look at [yourlogicalfallacyis.com](https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com). It's good to become familiar with informal fallacies by name and be able to call them out in real time. To challenge yourself, try doing that during a live presidential debate. There's so many logical fallacies in those it's impossible to keep up, at least for me. +A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning. It can be [formal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy) or [informal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy). Formal fallacies have to do with the structure of an argument. If an argument has bad structure, it is invalid. Informal fallacies have to do with the content of an argument. In my experience, it's more rare for people to commit formal fallacies. This is because there are so many more ways to commit informal fallacies than there are ways to commit formal fallacies. There are only a few ways to structure an argument improperly, but there are virtually endless ways to get the content wrong since the content can be anything at all. Take a look at [yourlogicalfallacyis.com](https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com). It's good to become familiar with informal fallacies by name and be able to call them out in real time. To challenge yourself, try doing that during a live presidential debate. There are so many logical fallacies in those it's impossible to keep up, at least for me. The thing people get confused about when they're unfamiliar with logical fallacies is they think fallacies are a minor problem for an argument, similar to the "arguments for" and "arguments against" I talked about earlier. They see the fallacy as the "argument against" part. That's completely the wrong way to think about logical fallacies. The presence of a single logical fallacy in an argument means that argument is toast. A logical fallacy is not a "counterpoint" to an argument. It fully invalidates the argument. An entirely new argument is needed to prove the conclusion. diff --git a/content/entry/using-email.md b/content/entry/using-email.md index 813ab9a..d31f811 100644 --- a/content/entry/using-email.md +++ b/content/entry/using-email.md @@ -63,4 +63,4 @@ In summary, the most privacy-preserving way to use email is to avoid using email If and how you segregate out your email accounts is up to you. This is just an optional extra step you can take. Using multiple email accounts doesn't always make your emails more private or your accounts more secure. It just improves "unlinkability". A common example of this is having a personal email and a work email. Keeping your personal life and your work life separate is important for many people. You wouldn't want your workplace to know all the services you're signed up for and you wouldn't want to be receiving work emails on your personal email account. # Motivation -Those are my tips for getting the most out of email. It's a lot of information to take in, but I wanted to be thorough. My motivation for writing this post as I said in the beginning was seeing the way most people use email. Until we have a widespread protocol that supersedes email, we should at least get the most out of it. And the way most people are using email right now is the absolute worst way to use it. There's a lot of things in computing that aren't harder to do a different way, it's just that people haven't been shown the better way of doing things. Most people don't know anything beyond webmail despite the fact that email predates the web. I wrote this post to promote my preferred way of using email. I hope you have found it useful. +Those are my tips for getting the most out of email. It's a lot of information to take in, but I wanted to be thorough. My motivation for writing this post as I said in the beginning was seeing the way most people use email. Until we have a widespread protocol that supersedes email, we should at least get the most out of it. And the way most people are using email right now is the absolute worst way to use it. There are a lot of things in computing that aren't harder to do a different way, it's just that people haven't been shown the better way of doing things. Most people don't know anything beyond webmail despite the fact that email predates the web. I wrote this post to promote my preferred way of using email. I hope you have found it useful. -- cgit v1.2.3