Reality Tunnel Vision

 Last night was the first debate in the 2024 cycle between presumptive nominees Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It was not a good night for Biden. If we're being honest if anyone else had been on that stage with Trump and given the same answers Biden did we'd be talking about how handily they won the debate. As it is many of us are worried that this is the choice of candidates we have. The most unfortunate aspect is that Biden's performance has the focus all on him, and no one is paying attention to the stream of lies that came from Trump. But even more than the lies, there were more telling moments of accidental truth that came out last night that flew under the radar thanks to Biden's mumbling and thousand yard stares. The first came when Trump was talking about abortion. He said he would not make abortion medication illegal. He was talking about  the difference in opinion about limits, and he stated, that "we have to get elected". I have seen no one comment on

  I recently had what I felt was an odd exchange on Reddit. Someone was saying that a story posted was untrue because the poster said something about $45 for a steak being expensive. They said that $45 for a steak was in fact very cheap. I pointed out that while that may be true for the area where they live, some things have different costs in different parts of the country. In my area, for example, a $45 steak is pretty expensive. I was met with a rather bewildering rage for this idea that things do not cost the same amount of money in every town and city in the country. One commenter insisted that he travelled for work and had definitely eaten where I live and that $45 steak was cheap. He went on to say that my ignorance of the cost of steak where I live must be attributable to my terrible taste in food. All because I pointed out that someone else's experience might be different than their own. The same day on a later thread I saw people claiming that basically all white people a

 I write this the day after Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of election fraud by a New York jury. Many are celebrating and many are angry. There's a lot to unpack and some of the arguments making the rounds are pretty out there. There are some like Elon Musk who seems to be upset that power and money were not sufficient to protect Donald. There are some claiming it is politically motivated, overlooking the fact that Trump's attorneys helped choose the jurors who eventually found him guilty. There are deliberate misinterpretations of the jury instructions. But the one I am choosing to address here is: Bill Clinton did the same thing and nothing happened to him. Let's start with the obvious flaw. The focus of this argument places the emphasis on the sex act. But sex acts are not and never were what either man got in trouble for. In Clinton's case he lied under oath about it. In Donald's case he made payouts and conspired with a magazine to publish stories i

  I learned about the concept of reality tunnels from Robert Anton Wilson. I have always found it a useful tool in thinking through issues, in seeing someone else's point of view in a debate, and in challenging myself to make sure my own b.s. was clouding my perception on issues any more than I could help. If you are not familiar with the idea of reality tunnels, it is a pretty simple concept. Most people think that there is a fundamental reality that is immutable and that we can all agree on based on our senses. The idea of reality tunnels is that even the reality you experience with your senses is being filtered through your perceptions and biases. In other words, think of the famous cartoon, of which there are innumerable versions, where there is a number on the ground and the man on the left says six and the one on the right says 9. Both are right, because from the vantage they are viewing the number that is what each sees. The "reality" that you perceive