Send us a text

Pascal's Wager is about how to make an existential decision. Should we or shouldn't we change our behavior now in case something turns out to be true? This isn't so useful for converting people to Christianity but it does apply directly to climate change.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change

Send us a text

The idea that Western Canada should separate from the rest of Canada is now rising in popularity so I thought we should go over it.

Links
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/federal-transfers/equalization.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments_in_Canada
https://enr.elections.ca/National.aspx?lang=e
https://x.com/TheBreakdownAB/status/1919906263485329823
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys80Xc-esrU

Send us a text

What would Pierre Poilievre do as Prime Minister? How could Poilievre resolve his Trump-like rhetoric with a political need to oppose an expansionist Trump agenda? And what will Poilievre's most enthusiastic supporters do if he loses?

Send us a text

Blendr News is a Canadian online alternate media outlet striving to become the next major interpreter of the world for those dissatisfied with the Liberal Party of Canada. In this episode, I check in with one of their videos to see how it compares with reality.

Links

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1371346464021477

Fried Kemper's Obituary
https://beechwoodottawa.ca/en/services/john-joachim-kemper

Verlie Kemper's marrige announcement
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-province-verlie-margaret-kemper-marr/64281628/

Send us a text

Is the left creating their own populist movement to counter the right? Is it possible that it's happening by happenstance rather than by design? Do we need to be aware of the shape of our resistance lest it create bigger problems?

Send us a text

Do you want Canada to join the US? If so, why? And if you won't say, why not?

Send us a text

Poker as Life: Bluffing
There can exist a situation in information logic where a person knows something (usually that they themselves are lying) that they imagine no one else could possibly know. And in this way they manufacture a high level of confidence when asserting that a specific thing is true. It might be very interesting to examine this situation as a direct comparison to the "bluff" as used as a strategy in poker.

Bluffing might be the single best known part of the game of poker. Everyone knows it happens there a lot but I wonder if we imagine it happening there to a larger degree than in practice. The images people get about poker are often from some Hollywood movie in which a tense moment has an uncertain outcome and when the conclusion happens it comes out in the hero's favor. In this way we will be very likely to assume that bluffing is the entirety of poker when in actuality this is merely the part that is easiest to tell a visual story about.

Humans lie to each other all the time. Humans also tend to know that other people are lying to them and attempt to discover other people's lies. We do this on an intuitive level and attempts to describe this process with words very often leads to people being very visibly wrong. But when you don't know that other people have at least *some* skill in this, have temporarily forgotten, or have convinced yourself that you have covered it up in some way, this can greatly increase the likelihood of someone finding an opportunity to lie. Usually this is done for some imagined gain (which doesn't have to be monetary).

Pam Hemphill Lying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWlaW3aOl2Y

Send us a text

Is AI conscious? How could we tell? Is AI dangerous? Can we trust AI? Could AI come to trust us?

Stephen Mather is the co-host of the Matter Over Mind podcast which discusses quantum physics and psychology by turns.

https://open.spotify.com/show/3MfsQEbW0lvHic5UHYOREt

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matter-over-mind/id1788940184