Search This Blog

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

'Tis The Season for Gobbledygook

From Should you lie to your children about Santa?
Now, one of the most interesting truths about the empirical world is that there are all these powerful systems of myth that are kept afloat by a sort of mass conspiracy, and humans seem disposed to pick one from the ambient culture and take it very seriously. But it can be hard to get your head around the way it all works unless you participate in it. Santa is a perfect and relatively harmless way to introduce your child the socio-psychology of a collective delusion about the supernatural. The disillusionment that comes from the exposure to the truth about Santa breeds a general skepticism about similarly ill-founded popular beliefs in physics-defying creatures.
And on that note, Merry Christmas all!

10 comments:

David said...

Well, obviously you should lie to your kids about Santa. This guy apparently feels that this leads to atheism, but I think it leads instead to thinking that God is jolly and benevolent (which is, of course, equally wrong).

OT, but a good question for Bret: is it true that this new captcha is really just a way for Google to use us to train its robots to read house numbers on Google street view?

Bret said...

Yes, no doubt an insidious plot by Google. :-)

But I have a question for y'all about the captcha stuff. According to the blog settings, it's not supposed to be there. I've also noticed for me, I can just ignore it and hit "Publish Your Comment" and it publishes it anyway. Is that true for anybody/everybody else?

Anonymous said...

Well, my question about the current captcha is, if I uploaded into a silicon based life form, do I have to stop indicating I am not a robot?

Bret said...

Yes.

Let me know when your transformation is complete.

With complete proof, of course.

Anonymous said...

I've got a massive rush project due by the end of the year, but I'll get back to working on the upload right after that.

David said...

I will try to publish this comment without completing the captcha. If this posts, then it works.

But I note that this situation is completely explained by Google wanting to use us to train its robots.

erp said...

I'm more concerned that you are all Bret's robots.

erp said...

... well except Harry.

PS: By-passed the Captcha just fine.

erp said...

The legend of St Nicholas is a lovely story that has tells of selfless charity we all here, I believe, believe in. Santa Claus is just an extension of that idea made easy for children to understand.

Kids get it.

Wishing all a happy day.

Clovis said...

Erp got it and I agree with her.

Merry Christmas for you all guys.