Wisdom Builder

Three Tidbit Stories

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Futurism

Where human ideas, technology, and culture might be heading.

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Futurism.

3 random tidbit stories in about 3 minutes.

1.

Futurism FAQ.

Was Pythagoras’ thinking flawed?.

The short answer is yes and no. Pythagoras’ belief system often overpowered his science, yet his empirical observations stood the test of time. This makes him a rational pragmatist—someone who accepts empirical truths but also accommodates personal beliefs, sometimes at the cost of reason. Unfortunately for his reputation, many of his personal beliefs were wrong.

The longer answer is that Pythagoras is a fascinating case study in both sound and flawed thinking as well as an interesting use case of pragmatism as defined in chapter 22 of 30 Philosophers. For my new look at pragmatism, there are three types: empirical, rational, and irrational. An empirical pragmatist is someone like me. Someone who is trying to live their life believing in no irrational ideas. In general, I believe in common things until proven wrong, but I also pay close attention to questioning everything, and like any skeptic, I keep an open mind to evaluating ideas.

Unlike empirical pragmatists, rational pragmatists like Pythagoras mix sound reasoning with personal beliefs. Some of those beliefs, like the divine nature of numbers, didn’t stand up to scrutiny. Most people are rational pragmatists. They believe in common knowledge but also hold onto the family’s religious beliefs. Most of my friends, and most people I know, are rational pragmatists, which mostly aligns with common knowledge, but they embrace things in support of their spirituality and specific religion. Beyond that, they are generally cautious about adopting ideas that lack evidence.

In contrast to both, the irrational pragmatist rejects even common truths, dismissing evidence outright. They frequently say things like “there is no such thing as truth.”

That Futurism FAQ,

was first published on TST 1 year ago.

2.

Futurism Story.

Stegosaurus.

Lived 152 to 145 million years ago.

Stegosaurus is the classic plated dinosaur most people picture: large back plates, a small head, and a spiked tail used for defense. It lived late in the Jurassic, especially in what is now the western United States, and is best known from the Morrison Formation. This is the famous, fully recognizable stegosaur of popular imagination — the polished, later form of a branch that had already been evolving for quite some time.

We’re pretty sure Stegosaurus plates stood upright; the real debate now is their exact arrangement, not whether they lay flat.

The last stegosaurs went extinct in the Early Cretaceous, likely around 130 million years ago, probably due to gradual ecological change rather than a single extinction event.

That Futurism Story,

was first published on TST 4 months ago.

3.

Futurism FAQ.

What inspired Orwell’s 1984 and Orwellian thought?.

To understand the birth of Orwellian thought, let’s pick up George Orwell’s story in Burma in the 1920s. Before Spain, Orwell was already changing. As a young man serving in the Indian Imperial Police, he saw the daily machinery of empire up close and came away deeply disturbed by it. That experience helped turn him against imperialism and toward sympathy for ordinary people crushed by power. Over the next several years, through books like Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell’s thinking moved further toward socialism, but it was still developing. He was already becoming Orwell, but the full shape of Orwellian thought had not yet arrived.

Then came Spain. In late 1936, Orwell went to support the elected Republican government against Franco’s Nationalist forces. For a time during the Spanish Civil War, he experienced a genuine sense of solidarity and shared purpose. But what he found was not just a struggle against Franco. He also found propaganda, factional infighting, suppression, and political dishonesty within the anti-fascist side itself. Stalinist forces turned on other leftist groups, including the POUM militia Orwell had joined. He was wounded by Stalinist-aligned communist forces within the Republican camp. Hunted by other leftist groups within the POUM militia Orwell had joined, he was forced to flee. Spain did not create Orwell’s conscience, but it sharpened it under fire. It forced him to confront a hard truth:

Your own side can betray its ideals too.

That is the heart of Orwellian thought. It is not just distrust of dictators on the other side. It is a moral defense of truth, plain language, and ordinary human decency against propaganda, cruelty, and ideological corruption from any side. Orwell came to see that once loyalty to a cause becomes more important than loyalty to truth, corruption has already begun. That is why Orwellian thought still matters. It names a pattern in political life:

Corruption starts the moment when language is twisted, facts are manipulated, and power begins demanding loyalty over reality.

Orwell carried that sharpened vision into the public works that made him famous. In Homage to Catalonia, he told the truth about Spain as he had lived it. In essays like Politics and the English Language, he warned that corrupted language helps corrupt thought. In Animal Farm, he exposed how revolutions can be hijacked by new tyrants. And in 1984, he gave the modern world one of its clearest warnings about surveillance, propaganda, and the political destruction of truth itself. Orwellian thought was forged in the 1920s and 30s, and the Spanish Civil War was the furnace that helped forge it.

That Futurism FAQ,

was first published on TST 4 months ago.

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