The Power of Our Words

Sally Kohn

Videos of talks by Sally Kohn, Robb Willer, and Mark Forsyth

11 a.m., October 1, 2023

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This Sunday’s topic is the Power of Our Words. We will watch and discuss three videos on this topic.

In Let’s Try Emotional Correctness (5 minutes, https://www.ted.com/talks/sally_kohn_let_s_try_emotional_correctness), Sally Kohn tells what she learned as a progressive lesbian talking head on Fox News.

In How to Have Better Political Conversations (12 minutes, https://www.ted.com/talks/robb_willer_how_to_have_better_political_conversations), Robb Willer, a social psychologist who researches moral values, shows how to communicate with the other side of the political divide.

Finally, in What is a Snollygoster? A Short Lesson in Political Speak (6 minutes, https://www.ted.com/talks/mark_forsyth_what_s_a_snollygoster_a_short_lesson_in_political_speak), Mark Forsyth gives an example of how the significance of a word can change with time and circumstances.

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Consequences of Climate Change

David Friedman

David Friedman

11 a.m., September 24, 2023

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This Sunday we are happy to have David Friedman joining us in person to talk about the economics of climate change.

Most criticism of the current climate orthodoxy questions either whether climate change is happening or whether it is anthropogenic. In my view the real question is neither of those. It is what the net consequences are. Climate change has large negative consequences, large positive consequences, both spread through a long and uncertain future; I do not believe we know whether the net effect is positive or negative. The widespread belief that it is predictably negative is based in part on ignoring the positive consequences, which get very little public mention, and in part on a biased, in some cases dishonest, presentation of the evidence.

Prof. Friedman is an American economist, physicist, legal scholar, author and anarcho-capitalist theorist. He was a professor of law at Santa Clara University from 2005 to 2017, and is currently Professor Emeritus. His is a contributing editor to the libertarian journal, Liberty.
Prof. Friedman is a longtime member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, where he’s known as Duke Cariodoc of the Bow. He is a science fiction fan and has written two fantasy novels, Harald and Salamander.
This should be a very interesting forum.

9/24/2023 David Friedman from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Also, we will continue to present our forums on Zoom. To join and be able to ask questions and make comments, click here.
No password is needed — our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer (if it’s not already installed), and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smartphone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
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You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
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My Theory of Everything – Putting Time in Motion and Worlds in Brains

Martin Squibbs

Martin Squibbs

11 a.m., September 17, 2023

Join the Humanist Forum, in person OR on Zoom. Martin Squibbs will present to us in person.

I have long held the theory that time may not be a real physical 4th dimension as it is commonly believed to be, and modeled in the sciences. Instead, perhaps reality is simply the motion of physical things in only 3 dimensions, absent of time. And within this reality, our brains are creating virtual, abstracted “forms” of physical reality beyond them, and storing these forms as memories. These forms being our perceptions, and these memories being their past. And you and I, ourselves, exist here in our brains, and experience these perceptions and observe these past memories as our objective world in mind. In this case, I believe time, or more accurately time bases, may be just particular types of these objective past memories; regular repeating ones. We, ourselves, remember and count these different times, and use them to order and measure the relative duration of our other past memories. And we also use these times to order and measure the duration of futures we imagine and predict in our minds; these futures being our projections of yet-to-be-perceived, experienced and observed past objective memories. So between our self and our brain, we create our future objective memories here in our brain.

9/17/2023 Martin Squibbs from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Also, we will continue to present our forums on Zoom. To join and be able to ask questions and make comments, click here.
No password is needed — our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer (if it’s not already installed), and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smartphone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
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+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
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Climate Change: Why Facts Don’t Matter

Helen Floersh

A video by WISECRACK about Climate Change

11 a.m., September 10, 2023

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This Sunday we will discuss a “Climate Change: Why Facts Don’t Matter,” a video that examines why climate change denialism survives in the face of overwhelming evidence. It covers many of the attempts to falsify data about the greenhouse effect and global warming, and create the illusion that there is doubt among those who have studied it.
This video is produced by WISECRACK, sponsored by Curiosity Stream, and hosted by Helen Floersh .
WISECRACK is a collective of academics, filmmakers, artists and pop-culture junkies who are curious about the world and explore big ideas like philosophy and critical thinking.
Curiosity Stream is an American media company and subscription video streaming service that offers documentary programming including films, series, and TV shows.

You can preview this 22-minute video at https://youtu.be/MMCL_ooDWJ0?si=XRD6Q0GO2aJn44hU

———-

Also, we will continue to present our forums on Zoom. To join and be able to ask questions and make comments, click here.
No password is needed — our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer (if it’s not already installed), and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smartphone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
Passcode: 250634

You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
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+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
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You can find international phone numbers to call here.

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Hot or Not: Steven Koonin Questions Conventional Climate Science and Methodology

Steven Koonin

A video about Hot or Not: Steven Koonin Questions Conventional Climate Science and Methodology

11 a.m., September 3, 2023

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This Sunday we will watch and discuss a video from Uncommon Knowledge from the Hoover Institution about “Hot or Not: Steven Koonin Questions Conventional Climate Science and Methodology.”

“In this wide-ranging discussion, based in part on his 2021 book,Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, Koonin gives a more refined look at the science behind the climate issue than the media typically offers, guiding us through the evidence and its implications. As Koonin explains in this interview, he was “shaken by the realization that climate science was far less mature than I had supposed” and that the “overwhelming evidence” of catastrophic implications of anthropogenic global warming wasn’t so overwhelming after all.”

You can preview this 55-minute video at https://www.hoover.org/research/hot-or-not-steven-koonin-questions-conventional-climate-science-and-methodology

———-

Also, we will continue to present our forums on Zoom. To join and be able to ask questions and make comments, click here.
No password is needed — our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer (if it’s not already installed), and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smartphone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
Passcode: 250634

You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
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+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
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+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
You can find international phone numbers to call here.

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