Why Do We Have Pessimistic Brains?

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From my notes on Coursera’s Positive Psychology course:

The most recent geological epoch that we lived through, the Pleistocene, was the Ice Ages. Famine, flood, ice, drought, more ice.

Now, imagine a primate mentality that thought, “What a lovely day today out there. I bet tomorrow is going to be really lovely as well.” That mentality got crushed by the ice.

The mentality that survived, the brains that we have, are bad weather brains. They’re brains that say “looks like a nice day out there, but tomorrow the ice is coming.”

And that is the way we process, automatically, information about a good world. Depression, anger, paranoia have served us very well. In the Ice Ages, it was a very good idea to think that bad stuff was coming.

But consider the possibility that human progress actually exists, and that prosperity, a good world, living well, not having a tragedy every day is a normal form of life.

If we have the Ice Age mentality, we are incapable of enjoying the prosperity that we have worked so hard to have.

So, if we actually live in a more benign world, and we want to enjoy the world we live in, we have to break the hammerlock of the negative. What needs teaching, what needs nurturance, support and justification is not pessimism, but an optimistic view of the world.

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More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of

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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is demanding that people stop using animal terms as insults — such as calling other humans “chicken” or “pig” — not because they want to encourage good manners but because it’s “speciesist” language.

I really don’t understand the obsession some people have with telling other people how to speak.

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Thomas Jefferson on Impeachment

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Thomas Jefferson

My fellow Americans –

Now that the dimwits in Congress have decided to run an impeachment trial on a president who is no longer in office, I suppose they could decide to impeach me, even though I am not only no longer in office but dead.

The charges would likely relate to the fact that I was a slave owner.

I don’t think it will happen though, given my approval rating vs. theirs. I actually have a monument in Washington, D.C., which certainly none of the current congressional fatheads will receive.

Thomas Jefferson

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Dude, Where’s My Insurrection?

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My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Henry Aaron

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Henry “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron was an outfielder with the Milwaukee Braves, Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers. He was a 25-time All-Star, was elected to the MLB Hall of Fame in 1982, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002.

He holds the MLB career records for RBI (2,297) and total bases (6,856), and was baseball’s home run king from 1974, when he hit number 715 off the Dodgers’ Al Downing, until 2007, when he was surpassed by the cheater Barry Bonds, who made a mockery of the most hallowed page of the MLB record book.

Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001 at the age of 37, and as Reggie Jackson said at the time, he would have hit 100 if anybody had pitched to him (he also had 177 walks). Aaron never hit more than 45 home home runs in a single season.

Muhammad Ali once called Aaron “the only man I idolize more than myself.”

RIP Henry Aaron

Hank Aaron 715

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How to Defeat Fear

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Once, there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear.

She didn’t want to do that.

Fear seemed too aggressive. It was scary. It seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave her the instructions for the battle.

The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side and fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small and fear was looking big and wrothful. They both had their weapons ready.

The young warrior aroused herself and went toward fear and she asked, “May I have permission to go into battle with you?”

Fear said, “Thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission.”

Then the young warrior said, “How can I defeat you?”

Fear replied, “My weapons are, I talk very fast and I get very close to your face. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me. You can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you do not do what I say, then I have no power.”

In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear.

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Biden’s Initial Approval Rating: 48 Percent!?

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Biden got 80 million votes (allegedly), fawning news coverage and he starts with a 48 percent approval rating?!

What does that suggest?

(Don’t say it out loud or you’ll be cancelled.)

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But At Least They Removed Trump

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A sex trafficking victim has filed a lawsuit against Twitter in a U.S. district court in California, alleging that the social media giant knowingly received and distributed child pornography.

According to the court filing, John Doe said he was solicited and recruited for sex trafficking as a minor. After his escape, material depicting his abuse was disseminated on Twitter.

“When Twitter was first alerted to this fact and John Doe’s age, Twitter refused to remove the illegal material and instead continued to promote and profit from the sexual abuse of this child,” the plaintiffs allege.

John Doe and his parent contacted Twitter multiple times about the content, but Twitter allegedly didn’t suspend the accounts distributing those materials until a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agent intervened.

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Iran Celebrates Biden’s Inauguration

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Iran, which was designated as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984, celebrated the inauguration of President Joe Biden yesterday. Seemingly oblivious to the concept of irony, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani called Donald Trump a “stupid terrorist” while expressing optimism that Biden would be a friendlier partner to the state sponsor of terror.

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I Scratch Your Back, You Scratch Mine 800,000 Times

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Amazon offered to help the Biden administration on Wednesday, shortly after President Joe Biden was sworn into office, with efforts to distribute the coronavirus vaccine, a proposal that the tech giant had not submitted to the Trump administration in the month since the vaccine was approved for public use.

— dailycaller.com

Amazon also requested that its 800,000 employees be prioritized for vaccination.

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Incitement of Violence

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Apple CEO Tim Cook said the removal of Parler from Apple’s online store was done because the company doesn’t consider incitement of violence free speech.

“We looked at the incitement to violence that was on there and we don’t consider that free speech and incitement of violence has an intersection,” Cook told Fox News anchor Chris Wallace.

Yes, “incitement of violence” is the party line and Tim Cook I guess is just a puppethead.

Despite the faux outrage over the Capitol riot, the virtuous left seems ok with using and endorsing violence when it suits them. Antifa has had ongoing riots in major American cities. Left-wing “protests” often include looting, smashing store windows, burning down people’s homes and businesses.

An MLK Day protest in New York City this week resulted in 11 police officers injured and 28 arrests.

If you try to get a conservative speaker on a college campus, people will show up in black clothing with masks, hoods, helmets, weapons, firebombs and try to violently shut the thing down.

How are all these things planned and incited? Not on Parler obviously. If Tim Cook or anyone else sincerely objects to incitement of violence (spoiler alert: they don’t), why aren’t they identifying other platforms and communication channels and shutting them down as well?

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2 + 2 = 4. Discuss.

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“The idea of 2 + 2 equaling 4 is cultural and because of western imperialism and colonization, we think of it as the only way of knowing.”

“The idea that 2 + 2 equals 4 is cultural is also cultural. It just originated from a much more stupid culture. If you want to achieve anything in life, go with the idea that 2 + 2 equals 4.”

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Thomas Jefferson: Snails, Coups and Fake News

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Thomas Jefferson

My fellow Americans –

I recently read that scientists at UCLA made snails “remember” things that never happened.

Why am I not impressed? Snails?! We have fake news that makes people remember things that never happened. Remember the “attempted coup” at the U.S. Capitol last week? That never happened.

That’s what the fake news called it: an “attempted coup.”

What is a coup? Isn’t it overthrowing an existing government and replacing it with a new one? The government is not a building. It’s not a room. Stealing Nancy Pelosi’s lectern doesn’t make you the new leader of the country. It’s not that easy.

We declared a coup in 1776. But we still had to fight a war for the next seven years to actually make it real. There was no coup or attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol. You just remember something that never happened.

Thomas Jefferson

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Woke White Boy on George Washington

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Woke White Boy

My niece was accepted to grad school at George Washington University. I had to point out that while George Washington did some good things, he was also a major slave owner and should not have a university named after him.

George Washington was not woke. You think it’s not fair to hold a guy born 400 years ago to current wokeness standards? Well, you’re wrong.

I wrote a letter to George Washington University to suggest that they rename it to Antifa University. Or if they want to keep the GWU initials, change it to Get Woke University.

Wake up, white people!

— WWB

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Thomas Jefferson: Founding Principles

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Thomas Jefferson

My fellow Americans –

In the aftermath of the recent unrest at the U.S. Capitol, I’m unpleasantly surprised by how many people believe they understand our country’s founding principles but in fact have no idea what they’re talking about.

Truth: The founding fathers were a bunch of bad-asses who were ready to overthrow the government because it put a tax on their breakfast beverage — and it wasn’t even coffee.

The founders were determined to have their concerns addressed by an unresponsive government one way or another. (Just bitching on Twitter until you got banned wasn’t an option in those days.)

Yes, we are too obsessed today with mindless entertainment and gadgetry to stage an actual revolution, but that is what we celebrate on July 4: the violent overthrow of an unresponsive government.

Thomas Jefferson

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