McWhorter video on Anti-racism, Victimhood, Testing, and Woke Language

A video of an interview of John McWhorter

11 a.m., January 22, 2023

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This Sunday we will watch John Stossel interview Professor John McWhorter, author of “Woke Racism.”
Professor John McWhorter argues that condescending leftist ideology hurts black people. He argues that “Woke Racism” hurts black people in many ways: from treating them as incapable of logic, to calling for abolition of tests, to insisting that violent kids stay in schools. He says that all these ideas are propped by a religion-like ideology that “requires that you sequester your brain for illogical thinking.” They are also driven by a desire to claim victimization status, and to somehow cast oneself as continuing the civil rights struggles of the past. McWhorter compares Black culture of today with that of the 1950s. Even though racism was far worse then, he claims, Black people were pragmatic in their willingness to make the best our of a terrible situation, instead of wallowing in victimhood. The disparity of performance on testing, for example, was not as gaping as it is today.
John Stossel is a libertarian television presenter, author, consumer journalist, and pundit. He has been a host a host on ABC News, Fox Business Network.
John McWhorter is a famous American linguist with a specialty in creole languages and Black English. He is currently associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University. He has also authored books on race relations and African-American culture. McWhorter characterizes himself as “a cranky liberal Democrat.”

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A video of Michael Shellenberger: “Why I Changed My Mind about Nuclear Power”

A video of a talk by Michael Shellenberger

11 a.m., January 15, 2023

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This week, we will discuss a follow-on to last week’s presentation with the video, “Why I Changed My Mind about Nuclear Power” by Michael Shellenberger. This week we will have lots of time for Q&A to discuss among ourselves our thoughts about nuclear Power’s Pros and Cons.
You can view this video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciStnd9Y2ak.

Michael Shellenberger is co-founder and Senior Fellow at the Breakthrough Institute, where he was president from 2003 to 2015, and a co-author of the Ecomodernist Manifesto. Over the last decade, Michael and his colleagues have constructed a new paradigm that views prosperity, cheap energy and nuclear power as the keys to environmental progress. A book he co-wrote (with Ted Nordhaus) in 2007, Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, was called by Wired magazine “the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring,” while Time Magazine called him a “hero of the environment.” In the 1990s, he helped protect the last significant groves of old-growth redwoods still in private hands, and bring about labor improvements to Nike factories in Asia. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

You can attend our forums in person with fellow humanists in the Maple Room of the Mountain View Community Center at 201 S Rengstorff Ave, Mountain View. Lunch will be served after the forum. We request a $10 donation for lunch.
If you attend in person, COVID protocols will be followed. Vaccinations and masks will be required. If you have symptoms that may be COVID, kindly attend on Zoom (see below).

———-

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 smart phone, 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)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
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You can find international phone numbers to call here.

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Nuclear Energy is the best solution to the climate crisis

George Erickson

11 a.m., January 8, 2023

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On Sunday, January 8, Dr. George Erickson will join us on Zoom to discuss nuclear energy and climate change. 

Dr. George Erickson is a best-selling author of five pro-science books and a retired dentist. He has spent parts of 38 summers ”bush-flying” in Alaska and Arctic Canada and is a former VP of the American Humanist Assoc., a former president of the Minnesota Humanists and a former member of the New Brighton, MN Environmental Quality Commission. 

He is a member of the National Center for Science Education, a member of the Thorium Energy Alliance – and a member of a group of about 100 independent physicists, engineers, MDs, energy experts and journalists who are deeply concerned about climate change, the environment and energy issues. 

He has exchanged climate change/energy emails with Dr. James Hansen, former chief climate scientist at NASA – now Climate Change scientist at Columbia Univ., whom he often quotes in his image-rich book, Unintended Consequences: The Lie That Killed Millions and Accelerated Climate Change – the book on which his presentations are based. After reading a sampling of Dr. Erickson’s published op-eds on climate change and energy issues, Dr. Hansen called them “brilliant.” 

Dr. Erickson travels the country at his own expense, giving presentations on the environment, climate change and energy issues at colleges, schools and affinity groups. Unintended Consequences: can be downloaded for free from the home page of www.tundracub.com. Contact him at tundracub7@gmail.com or 218-744-2003 

You can attend our forums in person with fellow humanists in the Maple Room of the Mountain View Community Center at 201 S Rengstorff Ave, Mountain View. Lunch will be served after the forum. We request a $10 donation for lunch.
If you attend in person, COVID protocols will be followed. Vaccinations and masks will be required. If you have symptoms that may be COVID, kindly attend on Zoom (see below).

1/8/23 George Erickson 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 smart phone, 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)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
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+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
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You can find international phone numbers to call here.

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Let’s Have a Fun Talk about an Atheistic Christmas

Videos of Penn Jillette, Catholic evangelist Glen Scrivener, and atheist musician TyLean Polley

11 a.m., December 18, 2022

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This week we will discuss how atheists celebrate the Christmas season. We will show two short videos to introduce the subject of Atheists and Christmas and other year-end holidays, where they came from, and the pros and cons of celebrating the holiday season without the serious religious aspects of this day.

Can we say Merry Christmas and still be an atheist? Is saying Happy Holidays the only thing to say? Do you celebrate Saturnalia, Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah, or whatever religious holiday we can think of around or on 25 December? Some rotate through them all, others just ignore them.

The two short videos we will discuss are:
Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller Fame): “Don’t Leave Atheists Out on Christmas”
“Don’t Leave Atheists Out on Christmas”
“Debating an Atheist who took Christ out of Christmas Carols” There is more to this than the title suggests.
“Debating an Atheist who took Christ out of Christmas Carols”

You can attend our forums in person with fellow humanists in the Maple Room of the Mountain View Community Center at 201 S Rengstorff Ave, Mountain View. Lunch will be served after the forum. We request a $10 donation for lunch.
If you attend in person, COVID protocols will be followed. Vaccinations and masks will be required. If you have symptoms that may be COVID, kindly attend on Zoom (see below).

———-

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 smart phone, 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)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
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+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
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You can find international phone numbers to call here.

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The Power from Above

Christine Hoffman

11 a.m., December 11, 2022

Join the Humanist Forum, in person with our presenter OR on Zoom.

We will discuss a higher power critical to the creation and sustenance of humans and life on earth. This power is of course… the sun. After a very brief introduction on how the sun creates energy, the main focus of the talk will be on how this energy can be harnessed to electrify, heat and cool our homes. We will cover the basics of photovoltaic and concentrating solar thermal technologies. Finally we will touch on the limitations and challenges of this amazing power.

Speaker Bio: Christine Hoffman has been a lifelong environmentalist, and waste-reduction advocate. She holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics, with her thesis work focusing on optimizing nonimaging solar concentrators. She currently teaches machine learning and data mining, but also aspires to become an entrepreneur for a company that uses technology to solve logistical issues of container reuse.

You can attend our forums in person with fellow humanists in the Maple Room of the Mountain View Community Center at 201 S Rengstorff Ave, Mountain View. Lunch will be served after the forum. We request a $10 donation for lunch.
If you attend in person, COVID protocols will be followed. Vaccinations and masks will be required. If you have symptoms that may be COVID, kindly attend on Zoom (see below).

221211 Christine Hoffman.mp4 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 smart phone, 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)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+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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