Unicon, Work, Elections and Racial and Religious Madness, Banned Rats!

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Spent the weekend at Unicon with dukeofmelbourne and caseopaya. Not a bad event, first gaming con I've been too in several years. Played "Parallel Flight" (Fireborn, not so good), Restoration (Urban Arcana, very good), Get Who (based on Get Smart, death coincidental, fun but severly limited for characters other than agents 99 and 86), Schools Out (Mutants and Masterminds, a d20 superhero game; OK, but combat orientated) and at the top of my enjoyment list "Four Fists of Righteous Fury" (where we had narrative and character development, deadly seriousness and comic relief!). Surprised to see that there were no D&D sessions. Sessions were far too short. Will give a full write-up on experiences on aus_gamers in the near future. Afterwards went to Mind Games to spend money ;-)

I have been working. Borderlands has shifted offices and their network and all it's wiring needs to be reassembled. This week I start training Prosper Australia on marketing and getting media coverage. I've also picked up a translation job for a set of health clinics in Northern Ireland who apparently need documentation ... in Tetum. Strange but true. CCNA Semester 2 starts on Tuesday. Feeling confident about it.

Schroeder grasps defeat from the jaws of victory and is about to destroy the SPD in the process. Meanwhile, in New Zealand Helen Clark's victory seems assured following the counting of special votes. I will be living in New Zealand by the end of 2006, I swear.

More bombings in Bali. Further evidence to recent suggestions that too much religion is bad for your society. From religious to racial fundamentalism; former US Secretary of Education thinks the way to solve crime is to abort "blacks".

I've banned my rats from the desk drawer and the office. Two keyboard cables and three speakers is too much. They're coping ;-)

Comments

Re: Quibblings or quislings?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fustian/]

Morals and aesthetics are not legitimately subject to reasoning, based as they are on unreasoned (although not unreasonable) emotion.

Indeed, France's decisions have nothing at all to do with Health or Decency. (Crackle, crackle, man of straw...)

Thanks for relinquishing "fundamentalist", however reluctantly. Unfortunately, I'm no more prepared to accept your "atheism as a state religion" claim (although I readily agree it's true of China, who have some solid historical precedents on which to fear theist insurgency). Like nakedness and sexual activity, France simply believes keeping religion a private matter is better for everyone. And frankly, the facts are with them:

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

Re: Quibblings or quislings?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Morals and aesthetics are not legitimately subject to reasoning, based as they are on unreasoned (although not unreasonable) emotion.

That was the logical positivist claim, which has been completely rejected by every school of philosophy in the world for the past fifty years. Indeed, now it held as an object of ridule - a position I find a little unkind because it did provide some useful starting points for Karl Popper's falsification theory.

Universal pragmatics provides a rational basis for moral and aesthetic reasoning.

Thanks for relinquishing "fundamentalist", however reluctantly

It wasn't reluctant at all. Checking the thread it is worth noting that I only applied it in the most tentative sense anyway.

Re: Quibblings or quislings?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fustian/]

[my] logical positivist claim [...] has been completely rejected by every school of philosophy in the world for the past fifty years. Indeed, now [is?] held as an object of [ridicule...]

Now you're making it sound cool as well as intuitively obvious. Of course, those criticisms are debatable; and universal pragmatics attempts to construe utility in "metaphysical statements", not evaluate their meaningfulness.

This has been fun, but I think my five minutes are up.

Re: Quibblings or quislings?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

universal pragmatics attempts to construe utility in "metaphysical statements", not evaluate their meaningfulness.

This is not the case. Universal pragmatics engages in very precise definitions in what constitutes a meaningful and meaningless statement, along with what constitutes a rational, irrational and irrationalisable statement.