I'm a 30ish reformed apathetic. It's not that I never cared what was going on in the world, I just couldn't stay interested in it; news and politics couldn't hold my attention long enough for me to learn much about it, and the one strong opinion that I've always held is that if you don't understand an issue, you have no business making decisions on it, or swaying the opinions of those who do make the decisions.
In recent years though, my interest in the world around me has been growing. This is probably generally true for a lot of people around my age, not just because we're putting our twenties behind us, but also because we're a highly "connected" people, with social media being such an ingrained part of our lives. I graduated high school just before "Social Networking" really started to evolve; MySpace was weeks away from its debut, and Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were still years away. Now, while I help to create a business and work on figuring out how I might really fit into the world long-term, information is coming at me from all sides, 24/7. Some of it is sinking in, and I'm forming some strong opinions.
Of course this information is often filtered and biased, so one of my hobbies is to track down the original source and try to get clarity on what's really going on, which I've been sharing with anyone who'll listen for a while now. That's where the idea for this blog came in. Every other week or so I'll choose an issue or announcement that the media (mainstream or alternative) has been buzzing about, break it down to its basic ideas, and share my opinions here for discussion. In the meantime, I won't be shy about sharing links of interest and adding a few lines of commentary along the way, so there won't be weeks of silence between the occasional rants.
Most of what you'll read here will have to do with the intersection of science and politics, with the occasional nod to the keep-your-church-out-of-my-state camp, since there's a lot of crossover. If I were to write a tl;dr for the blog as a whole, it would probably read simply:
Trust the science. No decisions without real data!
Why "Rational Warlock"?
"Rational"
This is the main reason for the blog. I see so many arguments against the advancement of scientific knowledge and its application for the benefit of human beings based on emotional resistance to change, religious bias, and plain ignorance that I just wanted to add my voice to those that actually do some research and try to understand an issue before passing judgement.adjective
synonyms: logical, reasoned, sensible, reasonable, cogent, More
"Warlock"
OK, this part is just for me. I'm also a role-player, and this is a title I often wear in fantasy worlds. It'll also get the attention of a lot of the folks who resist things from an irrational perspective, so that alone makes it worth-while.Plus, I kinda like the sound of it.
