Richard Feynman famously said that marketing was an inherently immoral job, because it consisted of selling something as being better than the marketer knows it to be. I tried that argument on our VP of Marketing, back in the day, and she said that “MarCom” – Marketing Communications – was OK. Well, that still leaves the rest of marketing on the hook.
As we discussed in my piece on butter packaging, marketing claims often do amount to lies – excuse me – “deliberate excursions from the truth.”
You tell us, O theologians! that “what is folly in the eyes of men, is wisdom before God, who is pleased to
Jean Meslier
confound the wisdom of the wise.” But do you not pretend that human wisdom is a gift from Heaven?
While chemistry was being invented, anaesthesia was also invented, rather by accident – with great effect on art. Priestly was busy discovering oxygen at that time and the scientists of the day were unhindered by concerns about human subjects boards, lawsuits, or comprehension of what they were doing.
Davy’s experimental approach appears to have been to produce bags of various gasses, then he inhaled them to see what they did. Lucky for him, he didn’t manage to get a big lungful of nitrogen or cyanide.
Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.
Silkscreen ink is cheap! Then all you need is a foam roller and something with a cool texture. If you want to get fancy, you can cut a mask out of cardboard, matboard, ABS plastic, or (other cheap material I love to use) tile-board.
Guante also did the brilliant “Ten Responses to the Phrase ‘Man Up’”
Voltaire by Houdon
Eloquence was born before the rules of Rhetoric, as languages were born before Grammar.
Verbal abuse and written abuse are important social tools. If you’re going to use them (or defend against them) you may as well do a good job and be properly equipped. In this series, I am going to offer some of my opinions about strategy regarding verbal abuse. To be clear: this is not a canonical treatment; I welcome your feedback – especially if it’s well-aimed and cruel.
Is this the right room for an argument?
I hope to expand this into a full series including a variety of techniques as subtle as eye-gouging and groin-kicking are in a street-fight. This section is groundwork and throat-clearing, so it’s going to be delivered more in the tone of a short lecture than as strategic or tactical maxims. As Anne Elk said, “This is a theory, which is mine. And this is it.”
We start with the 5 minute argument.
When I was a kid I often got various forms of food poisoning (due to my habit of eating wild fruit and buying not-very-well-refrigerated ham sandwiches from street vendors) so I had a lot of experience at throwing up, hurling, chundering, blowing chunks, and otherwise making the bucket ring.
October, 2006 I recorded my reaction upon opening a package of Andes mints that I had purchased…