Tag: Opinion
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Book review: Sapiens
“Sapiens: A brief history of humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari has gotten mostly outstanding reviews. It’s also received praise from such well-known people as Barack Obama, the android Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. I just finished reading it and I agree with most people that it is a fascinating read. Despite that, I am not…
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Vegetarian
The last couple of months, I have been considering a lifestyle change. Part of that includes more exercise but also healthier living in general. Part of that is a change in diet and even adopting a vegetarian lifestyle. There are several reasons why being a vegetarian is appealing to me but also several reasons why…
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Virus
In the iconic 1999 film “The Matrix” there is a scene where Agent Smith, while interrogating Morpheus, compares humanity to a virus. Consuming all resources in an area and then moving on to another area and then another again. There is definitely some truth to this analogy. I had a stark reminder of that last…
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Zwarte Piet
Each year the discussion rages again in the Netherlands: Zwarte Piet, innocuous expression of Dutch tradition or horribly racist? In this post, I give you my opinion on the matter. Insofar as it can be heard among the din of arguments pro and contra “Zwarte Piet”.
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Cake
Should bakers opposed to gay marriage be forced to bake a wedding cake for gay couples? This is the discussion I got involved in on Twitter with Gideon. Unlike many debates on Twitter, this one stayed civil and didn’t descend into profanity and calling each other stupid, which was refreshing. I had to leave the…
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The meaning of life
It’s been a while since I posted so I thought I might try to deal with one of the bigger questions to ask: what is the meaning of life? Religious people often remark that without belief in God, atheists can’t possibly have meaning in their lives. To put the argument simply, it goes like this:…