12 JAN 2015 by ideonexus

 Prescriptivism and Descriptivism

So, you seem to be at an impasse. On the one hand, you have generations of grade school English teachers rightly warning their pupils that people might chuckle at them if they use the word ‘irregardless’. On the other hand, you have the scientific rigor of the modern linguistic community touting descriptivism as the torch-bearer of truth and enlightenment. Are you doomed to choose between a democracy of solecisms and a library of thousand-page tomes of writer’s regulations? Are things r...
  1  notes
 
01 JUN 2013 by mxplx

 "Healthy Aging" is not enough

“The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” http://www.longecity.org/forum/page/index.html/_/articles/action/brokenportal2010
Folksonomies: science immortality
Folksonomies: science immortality
   notes


Achieving indefinite life extension is the most important, urgent, and time-sensitive cause ever undertaken in the history of humanity,Regardless of whether we ultimately find that we can achieve indefinite life extension or not, we need to go all the way and see. Our lives- this amazing shot at this incredible mysterious existence- depend on it. We can not afford to sell ourselves short on this. 

sentiments expressed by proponents of the compression of morbidity, though very noble and well meaning, are misleading and harmful to this cause.

29 MAY 2011 by ideonexus

 Rhetoric of Beer Advertising

Beer commercials are notorious for this kind of treatment. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak," goes the advertising truism. Well, why not? When you're pushing a product made from rotten vegetation whose primary effects are to dull your wits, pad your paunch, and make you belch, any sizzle would be a big help.
  1  notes

Selling the product of rotting vegetation involves a lot of sex.