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 29, 2024
The Liz Truss Lettuce was a 2022 media stunt featuring a livestream of an iceberg lettuce to satirize the brief tenure of British Prime Minister Liz Truss, symbolically competing with her to see which would “last” longer. The lettuce was declared “victorious” when Truss resigned after just 45 days.
The prank started on October 14th when British tabloid newspaper the ‘Daily Star’ began a livestream of an iceberg lettuce next to a framed photograph of Truss, who was appointed prime minister the previous month. This act followed an opinion piece in ‘The Economist’ that compared the expected brevity of her premiership to the shelf life of a head of lettuce. With the October 2022 United Kingdom government crisis occurring weeks into her tenure, many political commentators opined that Truss’s resignation was imminent. She announced her resignation on October 20th, before the lettuce had wilted.
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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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August 29, 2023
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people is a slogan popularized by the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) and other gun advocates. The slogan and connected understanding dates back to at least the 1910s, and it became widely popular among gun advocates in the second half of the 20th century, so much so that some have labeled it a cliché.
Gun control proponents claim the slogan is an example of bumper sticker logic and supports the larger folk psychology behind gun advocacy. In colloquial use, both parts of the statement are largely considered true. However, when the statement is used in the context of gun debates it becomes misdirection and can be considered a fallacy.
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July 20, 2023
A spread is a prison meal made by inmates. Spreads are often made with commissary ingredients, such as instant ramen and corn puffs. Spreads can be simple meals, or elaborate and inventive combinations of ingredients.
Spreads may be used to supplement or replace the government-mandated meals provided to prisoners by the prison, due to the unpalatable and insubstantial nature of many prison meals.
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The Daily Omnivore 