April 20, 2024
Killing baby Hitler is a thought experiment in ethics and theoretical physics which poses the question of using time travel to assassinate an infant Adolf Hitler. It presents an ethical dilemma in both the action and its consequences, as well as a temporal paradox in the logical consistency of time. Killing baby Hitler first became a literary trope of science fiction during World War II and has since been used to explore these ethical and metaphysical debates.
Public debate around the question of killing baby Hitler reached its height in late 2015, after ‘The New York Times’ published a poll asking its readers the question. 42% said they would kill baby Hitler, 30% said they would not and 28% were undecided. Advocates of killing baby Hitler included Florida governor Jeb Bush and film actor Tom Hanks, while comedian Stephen Colbert and pundit Ben Shapiro were counted among the opponents of the policy.
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April 19, 2024
The Kia Challenge is a viral TikTok trend to which a series of motor vehicle thefts is attributed, targeting Kia and Hyundai vehicles in the U.S. manufactured between 2011 and 2021. The trend, which began in October 2022, has led to eight fatalities, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Until 2011, most Kia vehicles were manufactured with immobilizers—electronic security devices that prevent the engine from being started unless a proper key is inserted—a system present in most Hyundai vehicles until 2016. In Kia Sportage models manufactured in 2010, the immobilizer system comprised a transponder in the ignition key, an antenna coil in the key cylinder, and a SMARTRA unit. Kia vehicles manufactured from 2011 to 2021 and Hyundai vehicles manufactured from 2016 to 2021 that use a steel key, in comparison to a key fob and a push-button start mechanism, lack immobilizers.
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April 11, 2024
”No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens’ is the title of a series of articles perennially published by the American news satire organization ‘The Onion’ satirizing the frequency of mass shootings in the United States and the lack of action taken in the wake of such incidents.
Each article is about 200 words long, detailing the location of the shooting and the number of victims, but otherwise remaining essentially the same. A fictitious resident—usually of a state in which the shooting did not take place—is quoted as saying that the shooting was ‘a terrible tragedy,’ but ‘there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them.’ The article ends by saying that the United States is the ‘only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years,’ and that Americans view themselves and the situation as ‘helpless.’
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March 21, 2024
Catturd (b. 1964) is the online identity of right-wing American Twitter shitposter and Internet troll Phillip Buchanan. The account is known for its scatological humor, as well as spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation. Buchanan lives in Wewahitchka, Florida, on a ‘ranch in the middle of nowhere.’
He is thrice-divorced. He married his first wife, whom he met at a gym when she was 19 and he was in his early twenties, in 1986. The marriage was annulled in 1988. By 1991, Buchanan had married and divorced another woman. His third marriage happened a few years later, while he was working at a post office. They parted in 1998 and divorced in 2002. Buchanan claims to have served in the US Army. In the 90s, he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and later fronted a band in Tallahassee, Florida.
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March 19, 2024
In literary and historical analysis, presentism is a term for the introduction of present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Some modern historians seek to avoid presentism in their work because they consider it a form of cultural bias, and believe it creates a distorted understanding of their subject matter. The practice of presentism is regarded by some as a common fallacy when writing about the past.
The debate surrounding presentism in historical analysis is ongoing, with some arguing that completely divorcing moral judgments from historical inquiry may lead to a relativistic approach that fails to acknowledge the universal nature of certain moral principles. Balancing historical context with ethical considerations remains a challenge for historians and philosophers alike.
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February 28, 2024
The mango cult was the worship of mangoes in China after Mao gave a box of mangoes, given to him by the Pakistani Foreign Minister, to workers at Tsinghua University in 1968. Instead of being eaten, the mangoes were preserved in formaldehyde, or sealed in wax for veneration.
One dentist from Fulin, Dr. Han Guangdi, saw the mango and said it was nothing special and looked just like sweet potato. He was put on trial for malicious slander, found guilty, paraded publicly throughout the town, and then executed with one shot to the head. Mangoes are now common in China, and are seen as a common consumer good.
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February 13, 2024
In urban planning, Brusselization is ‘the indiscriminate and careless introduction of modern high-rise buildings into gentrified neighborhoods’ and has become a byword for ‘haphazard urban development and redevelopment.’
The notion applies to anywhere whose development follows the pattern of the uncontrolled development of Brussels in the 1960s and 1970s, that resulted from a lack of zoning regulations and the city authorities’ laissez-faire approach to city planning.
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January 11, 2024
According to a false conspiracy theory, medbeds (an abbreviation of ‘medical bed’ or ‘meditation bed’) are secret beds that can miraculously heal humans and extend life. The plausibility of such devices is pseudoscience. Medbed conspiracy theories often involve claims that the devices are utilized by members of a ‘deep state’ and billionaires and that the former President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, is still alive, lying on a medbed.
Belief in these devices is popular among QAnon influencers such as Michael Protzman, Romana Didulo, and YamatoQ. Various companies sell devices or access to beds that supposedly heal ailments via imaginary technologies while also including fine print on their websites disclaiming that no diagnoses, treatment, or cures are provided.
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January 6, 2024
EleutherAI is a grass-roots non-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research group. The group, considered an open-source version of OpenAI, was formed in a Discord server in July 2020 to organize a replication of GPT-3. In early 2023, it formally incorporated as the EleutherAI Foundation, a non-profit research institute. EleutherAI began as a Discord server on July 7, 2020 under the tentative name ‘LibreAI’ before rebranding to ‘EleutherAI’ later that month, in reference to eleutheria, an ancient greek term for liberty.
On December 30, 2020, EleutherAI released The Pile, a curated dataset of diverse text for training large language models.
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November 14, 2023
The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the ‘motte’) and one much more controversial and harder to defend (the ‘bailey’).
The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, insists that only the more modest position is being advanced. Upon retreating to the motte, the arguer can claim that the bailey has not been refuted (because the critic refused to attack the motte) or that the critic is unreasonable (by equating an attack on the bailey with an attack on the motte).
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October 30, 2023
A participation trophy is a trophy given to children (usually) who participate in any sport event or contest without requiring their success in competition. The term may be used more generally as an example of the celebration of mediocrity or of emotional coddling. In this rhetorical context, it is frequently associated with millennials, those of Generation Y.
The use of participation trophies has caused some controversy. Critics argue that they promote narcissism and entitlement among children to whom they are given, and are based on incorrect assumptions regarding supposed psychological benefits of self-esteem. Critics also note that some children also do not value them as much as they do ‘normal’ trophies that are given to winners. Defenders of participation trophies argue that they teach children that trying their best is good enough, even if they do not win.
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September 4, 2023
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential ticket wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide is elected president, and it would come into effect only when it would guarantee that outcome.
Introduced in 2006, as of August 2023 it has been adopted by sixteen states and the District of Columbia. These jurisdictions have 205 electoral votes, which is 38% of the Electoral College and 76% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force. Certain legal questions may affect implementation of the compact.
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