Month: March 2022

Suburbs and shopping malls seemed to go hand in hand

P&C drink and review an amber ale from Guinness, then, with special guest Longinus, discuss mall culture.

Longinus gives a quick history of the development of suburbs and malls. Shopping centers evolved into department stores, and the next step was malls. They were mostly to serve the growing suburbs.

Malls started popping up all over the place. Investors got involved, and malls were built as investment vehicles rather than to serve actual communities.

The boys review Patches, What if, Nightfall, and Breeds There a Man

P&C drink and review a homebrewed Black Saison, then — with special guest Longinus — continue their “shortcut to the classics” series with a review of some of Isaac Asimov’s short stories.

Asimov was an amazingly prolific and wide-ranging author. This is just a taste of his impressive body of work.

Patches — The conflict and contrast between individualistic humans and a collectivist entity that seeks to liberate humans from their quarrels and conflicts.

What if — A married couple on a train meets a man with a device that can show them what would have happened if the circumstances of their life had been different.

Nightfall — A planet with constant sunlight from six suns faces the prospect of total darkness, which is predicted to have devasting psychological effects on the population.

Breeds There a Man — The essential, genius scientist in a Manhattan Project-like venture is going insane because of a strange theory about how humanity is being regulated and controlled by mysterious forces.

Words change, but these changes come with an agenda

P&C drink and review O’Hara’s Irish Red, then find that they can’t communicate. The words they try to use have taken on new and confusing meanings.

Orientation. Diversity. Identity. Transition. Reassignment. Privilege. Trigger. Equity. Tolerance. Pronouns. Even the rainbow.

The new definitions of these words are intended to force you to think in a different way — to adopt a particular view of the world, and of your neighbor.

The boys don’t like it.

A brief history, plus some fun Irish facts and humor

The boys drink and review O’Hara’s Irish Stout, then celebrate March 17th.

They do a quick review of Irish history, starting back in pre-history, through the Celts, Caesar, St. Patrick, the Vikings, Brian Boru and the English occupation, and up to modern times. They ask why is Ireland divided north and south, and wonder about the demise of the IRA.

They also discuss the two spellings of whiskey, the potato famine, St. Patrick’s Day customs, Irish beer, and how much Irish blood Pigweed and Crowhill have in them.

What is suffering, and why does God allow it?

The boys drink and review Cigar City’s White Oak Jai Alai IPA, then discuss suffering.

Does suffering disprove the existence of an all-powerful, perfectly good God? What is the nature of suffering, and why does it exist? What is the proper response to suffering? Why do Catholics “offer it up” when they experience suffering?

Would humans be capable of enjoying a world without suffering? Don’t we need obstacles to overcome?

Finally, the boys discuss transhumanism, and how there might be a future in which men have been altered to eliminate all suffering.

Companies pretend to care to distract us from their misdeeds

P&C drink and review Pilsner Urquell, then discuss how businesses are using wokeness as a smokescreen to pretend to be virtuous.

The boys discuss what “woke” means, then review some of the work of Vivek Ramaswami.

Corporate wokeness is all a magic trick. They keep our eyes on woke BS to keep our attention away from their misdeeds. “Never mind that we use Chinese slave labor. Look at the rainbow flag on our LinkedIn profile!”

Wokeness has become a substitute for religion and traditional morality for many companies. It’s filling a gap created by the secularization of society.

Does this ancient Chinese text have any relevance today?

P&C drink and review Pigweed’s latest IPA, then discuss Sun Tzu’s classic.

It’s an ancient book that might date back to the 6th century BC. It came out of a time when Chinese intellectuals were classifying and organizing things — including warfare.

While it’s explicitly about war, it’s often re-interpreted and re-applied as a general commentary on strategic thinking.

The Art of War is relevant to things in the news right now, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Are we living in a simulation? What does that have to do with God?

The boys drink and review another Pastryarchy offering from DuClaw, Irish Cream Dessert Stout, then wonder whether we’re living in a simulation, and whether it matters.

From Descartes’s skepticism to Nick Bostrom’s famous paper, P&C review some of the top arguments for why our world might not be what we think it is.

If simulated humans can have first-person experience, we are almost certainly in a simulation. Or are we? There are interesting arguments both ways.

Then the boys discuss how the simulation question relates to the God question. Does the possibility that we are in a simulated universe shed any light on God’s existence?

Is this a good heuristic for questions about God’s existence? That is, if you ask such and so question about God in the real world, how does that compare to an analogous question in a simulated world?

If the alarmists are right and we have to act, what should we do?

The boys drink and review Still Holidazed and Confused from Hysteria Brewing, then discuss how to save the planet.

P&C decide to buy in to climate alarmism (for purposes of the show) and discuss what we’d have to do to save the planet. What would have to change? If radical change is necessary, what would it look like?

Most of the normal suggestions are simply window dressing — polishing the brass on a sinking ship.

If you really wanted to make a significant change, P&C give you some ideas.