In The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Taleb veers from his analysis of financial systems to argue that the words of dead men can be manipulated to support any argument. When I read these words I couldn’t help but think of one of the favoured tactics for derailing any conversations about…

For anyone who has read my posts on race, you know that I am not one of the people who claims that we now live in a “colour-blind society” where racism is dead. Many people would call me a “race-baiter”, “libtard” or “social justice warrior” because I discuss things such as racial profiling, or the…

For those of you who do not know, a straw man argument is an argument that does not address the argument an opponent made. Typically, the straw man is created by either exaggerating or simplifying an opponent’s argument For example Person 1: Racism still impacts minorities Person 2 (Straw Man): You’re saying minorities shouldn’t work…

Note: Just some quick thoughts motivated by a podcast I was listening to. The @decipherscif podcast was going through the second half of season 4 of Black Mirror, breaking down the science in episodes like Black Museum. Interestingly, when the conversation moved to “Metalhead” the podcasters pretty much skipped the episode, criticizing its plot. For anyone who’s…

I remember watching my first Guillermo Del Toro film, Blade II over ten years ago. I didn’t know it was a Del Toro film at the time but I remembered loving the story and the action. I followed up Blade II with Hellboy. At the time, Hellboy was one of my favourite comic book films and although it…

The Thursday announcement that Disney has acquired 21st Century Fox properties, including X-Men, led to a lot of speculation concerning the future of the X-Men film universe. I shared some of my own thoughts on this, and while sharing the link on Twitter I came across another conversation. There were retweets all over my feed…