I must admit that since my education and career is in STEM I am oriented to logical thinking which seems to be related to critical thinking but not the same thing exactly. I never had a class called critical thinking and when I look at thoughts on it on the internet they seem a bit unsatisfying. I don’t have many readers but some are oriented to critical thinking and I welcome comments. I’ll start with something more well defined; Logic.

Figure 1 is about the idea of TRUE, FALSE and Unknown where in the example, saying something is known is not in itself a statement of which state, true or false is known. …

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” -Voltaire

I see many on the political left cheering big tech platforms censoring the political right. I’m not just talking about Trump the shit talker. It even went beyond censoring Trump’s supporters. Facebook limited Ron Paul who is definitely not a Trumpster, apparently because he criticized the actions of big tech. When the pendulum swings they may regret that.

Intolerance of views expressed by those not in lock-step with the left gets shouted down on college campuses by students who have learned to not question what their authoritarian professors say. …

Will there be any Medium writers who for just one day, 1 Jan, put aside their venom and write nothing negative?

If you are trying to win an argument a bad truth is one that is in opposition to your cause. It is especially true with lawyering an politics (lots of lawyers). It is also true on social media which includes the Medium platform where people are concerned with their cause being the truth, and sadly, the only truth.

People want to win in the battle of being right. This often means that they will ignore or disingenuously claim to debunk truths that don’t support them winning. It makes a honest search for the whole truth difficult if not impossible. …

In Adam Gussow’s book “Whose Blues” he mentions the concept of bad facts. It’s not that they are not factual or inherently bad, but because they are bad for your case; unfortunate truths contrary to your views.

I often refer to facts about opposing views as being a ratio where the numerical value of that ratio is difficult to determine and people with opposing views will think that that ratio is one more favorable to their viewpoint. One thing that seems most often true in my view is that the ratio is not likely to be 1:0 (100% in favor of one point of view). If you think your truth is 100% true and anything and everything contrary is bullshit making it worthy of absolute dismissal you are probably willfully running from some amount of bad truth. …

Read what I wrote. It was not a defense of Trump, it was a damnation of the Democrats. Is this really the best that America can do?

The roots of all racism is low expectations of a group. That applies to members of all races looking at all races. If you have low expectations about me because I’m white you are every bit as racist as a Klansman and yammering about positions of power does not find a lie.

White supremacism has a strategy of perpetuating low expectations about black people to hold them down. That must be understood. It is as much about instilling low expectations about black people in black people as in white ones. That must be understood since it’s about causing black people to hold themselves down. …

I recently read two insightful articles here on Medium (links at the end of this) that set off a thought train in me. They made me think of my own biracial daughters.

Beyond racial bigotry which occurs at different levels for different people, being foreign in your own land is something often not thought of. My oldest daughter was a concierge at the Ritz Carlton when a basketball championship was taking place in Phoenix. A famous player was staying there who asked her, “What are you?”

“American.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.”

Born in the USA. …