inkbluesky

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. How do we know what we know in comparison to beliefs. Not an academic exercise. Confusing justified beliefs or knowledge with pure beliefs is at the root of many of problems of the human race. For both reasons of humanity and laziness I tend to think it would be nice for more people to know the difference and take it upon themselves to have a little humility when it comes to their beliefs. Cracked could add this to their Doomed list, Deadly hunt for ‘witches’ haunts Kenya villagers

It may be difficult for Western cultures to fathom, but in Western Kenya, beliefs in ghosts and witches are very real. And sometimes they have deadly consequences.

Justus Bosire stands in front of his house, which was destroyed by a mob that also killed his grandmother.

In late May, news outlets in Kenya told the story of 15 people, mostly elderly women, who were murdered in a witch hunt near the town of Kisii. The killings shocked the nation.

Here in the wise West some folks burned down a family’s home because their son had HIV. Anyway people are killing suspected witches or pretending the’yre witches to decrease competition for scarce resources wouldn’t be knowledge based actions, but based on beliefs.

a thousand miles from nowhere

I’m a thousand miles from nowhere,
Time don’t matter to me.
‘Cause I’m a thousand miles from nowhere,
And there’s no place I wanna be.

I got heartaches in my pocket,
I got echoes in my head.
And all that I keep hearing,
Are the cruel, cruel things that you said.

by Yoakam Dwight

Just a few days ago it was found that someone had hacked/abused Barack Obama’s web site to try and portray him as antisemitic. This writer from the LA Times in an attempt to show people how easy it is to do went to Obama’s web community and did the same thing as a joke, The Obama campaign deleted my blog post!

But today I saw that the post had been removed, and I can’t possibly imagine why. If you read the text of it, it’s clear (I hope) that I was making a statement about the way outlandish rumors originate, and how they spread. Here’s what I wrote:

Obama is DEFINITELY a Martian, and therefore DEFINITELY NOT an American citizen. I know because I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who said they were almost positive they’d heard someone say so.

You know darn well that as clever as the writer’s post was a few people believed it. The thing about rumors is that if you tell enough of them and get a few people to repeat them some usually bright people entertain the idea that maybe there is some truth to a few of those rumors. Rumor becomes belief which starts to be treated like knowledge. Obama rebuts rumors on new Web site

martian beach craft