January 28, 2022 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

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January 28, 2022 8:27 pm Robert Zimmerman

Embedded below the fold in two parts.

To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, well worth your time, go here.

2 comments

wayne
January 30, 2022 at 7:21 am
“Rabbit Seasoning” (1952)
[pronoun trouble]
https://youtu.be/6e1hZGDaqIw
2:04
BtB’s Original Mark
January 30, 2022 at 8:36 am
Wayne – With Bugs Bunny I expected a good non-postmodern laugh.

But noooo! I’m sucked back into the variation of the Simulation which includes 543 pronouns.

Thanks Wayne for wrecking my morning coffee buzz while looking out at frozen sheets of pristine snow covered farmland.

I guess I’ll return to listening to that PKD novel you previously linked to. Like PKD, I will accept the experience of radical instability in the boundaries that define me and my corner of this awesome frozen world.

And now that I’m back in the Simulation, I can genuinely say I take offense at this heteronormative Bugs Bunny video. And please don’t reply with the lame excuse that it’s an animation from 1952.

And Wayne, don’t take my WOKE criticism personally. I, myself, like every good citizen now participate in regular confessions regarding our Non-Woke thought crimes (or misdemeanors). I recently confessed that I am intimidated by the sheer size of the spectrum of gender identities. The PC police will probably jump on me for this, but this whole choose/name your pronouns thing is becoming too much for me to handle. In my defense, I’ve been given dispensation since I suffer from face blindness which falls under the Americans with Disability Act. For the record, I have nothing against those who want to change their gender. More power to them. However unfair issues arise when people around me who are genetically XX or XY change their pronouns on a whim. These ‘thems’ then expect everyone to cater to their choices. I’m sorry, but no, with my face blindness condition I cannot see the new gender cues that apparently the rest of society can.

But the biggest problem is this whole them/theirs thing. These are plural pronouns. The problem is simply one of confusion. Using plural pronouns for singular persons is confusing, and irritating when reading or listening. Are they talking about one person, or more than one? Sometimes, who knows!
Now, let me be clear, I’m 100% against bigotry in any form whatsoever, period. I’m suggesting that we simply come up with a new word/pronoun for those who don’t want to use he/she. I honestly don’t see the big deal about coming up with a new word. But, even then, trying to force choosing/naming one’s pronouns all the time is not something I can mentally deal with. No offense to anyone, but just no. This dog is too disabled for those new tricks

January 28, 2022 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

2 comments

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