Wow. George Washington used a crude method for inoculating his troops for smallpox, knowing that many of them would die in the process, but it was for a greater good. I didn't know this connection between George Washington and smallpox. I now have much greater appreciation for the courage and innovative spirit of Washington.
Those who insist on interviewing candidates often make worse decisions. Shane Parrish at The Knowledge Project explains:
In the end, participants who were able to interview the students made worse predictions than those who only had access to biographical information. Why? Because the interviews introduced too much noise. They distracted participants with irrelevant information, making them forget the most significant predictive factor: past GPA. Of course, we do not have clear metrics like GPA for jobs. But this study indicates that interviews do not automatically lead to better judgments about a person.
This article contains many additional insights about interviewing. I highly recommend The Knowledge Project Podcast and Farnam Street Blog.
I love these images. The father of a girl who donated her heart is offered the chance to hear his daughter's heart again. Try to imagine someone seeing this video 100 years ago, wondering how the this story could be possibly be true. When I saw the stethoscope come out, that when I started feeling emotionally flooded by this video.
Bill Conner of Wisconsin rode his bicycle 2600 miles across the country to honor his daughter and raise awareness about the importance of organ, eye and tissue donation. Bill’s daughter, Abbey, died in January of 2017. She was an organ donor. On Father’s Day 2017, Bill heard his daughter’s heart beat again. After biking 1400 miles through several states, Conner stopped in Ventress, Louisiana to meet his daughter’s heart recipient, Loumonth Jack, Jr
One of my biggest concerns these days: We no longer seem capable of civilly discussing even the most important issues with each other. I fear where this might lead us, but I am extremely confident that this is a very bad thing for all of us.
I'm linking to a fascinating article at the intersection of cancellation culture, transgender issues, prominent filmmakers and women's athletics, written by a gay man (Glenn Greenwald), who arrived at the following disheartening conclusion:
My own thinking about the film in light of this controversy surrounding Navratilova seemed to establish that there was no room for Kimberly Reed, as a pioneering trans woman, to produce a nuanced, complex cinematic portrayal of another nuanced, complex LGBT woman pioneer: one that included Navratilova’s heresy on this issue but did not fixate on it or allow it to suffocate everything else that defined her life and who she is. At least, it seemed clear, there was no way in the current climate to produce a nuanced film without spending the rest of our lives being treated the way Reed College students treated Kimberly Peirce when she tried to show and talk about her own groundbreaking film.
I saw this announcement from Indigo Books on a Twitter feed. Indigo is a big book store in Canada. Here's a recent store announcement:
Indigo is a private company and they can do whatever they want, of course.
I have long been concerned about religions, though, and the Land of the Woke appears to be the birthplace of a new religion, at the same time as many traditional religions are losing members.
Here is the big clue that we are dealing with a religious cult: the phrase "without question or judgement." I don't accept anything without question or judgement. It's not like I understand everything, of course. There are many things about which I am an ignoramus and where my questioning and judgment hit dead ends. But I would never make an announcement that I am willing to accept anything, especially anything complex and potential harmful to young people, without at least trying to question it. Whenever an organization tells me that I cannot question something, that's the smell of religion.