Kansas Classrooms

I can’t teach you about safe sex because it might encourage you to become promiscuous.

I can’t tell you what airbags do. That information will make you think it’s okay to start crashing into things.

I’m sorry class. We can no longer study Mexico. As you’d all run away to Tijuana if I told you what was there.

If I teach you girls how to rescue a burnt casserole, how can I trust you to follow the teachings of Héloise?

I’m afraid I can’t tell you how Hannibal crossed the Alps. If I did, you crazy kids are likely to conquer the prom with elephants. Oops.

Trigonometry will no longer be taught. You could use that knowledge to calculate the trajectory of eggs thrown at my Geo Metro.

We won’t be using safety glasses this year in shop class. I believe anyone who gets a word chip in their eye have it coming.

Science has been cancelled because your parents prefer to believe in magic.

– Big Fat Whale, Brian McFadden 2006

On Joseph Smith

“No, it’s a matter of logic! If you’re going to say things that have been proven wrong, like that the first man and woman lived in Missouri, and that Native Americans came from Jerusalem, then you’d better have something to back it up. All you’ve got are a bunch of stories about some asswipe who read plates nobody ever saw out of a hat, and then couldn’t do it again when the translations were hidden!”

– Stan Marsh

A Pointless Lexicon

In this lexicon, a pointless word is defined as a unit of language that—although not meaningless in it self—has a meaningless definition.

E.g. the word, or rather the compound, inner self is not meaningless in the sense that it has a no definition; however, that definition is vacuous, rendering the compound pointless. That is to say, there is no need to assume that there is such a thing, other than the fact that there is a word for it. A unit of language conveys meaning, and this is bewitching—as Ludwig Wittgenstein would say—for meaning engenders a certain significance. Again, consider Wittgenstein, “Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.”

“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

• dogma, a meaningless statement considered to be true, regardless of evidence.
• fate, the false impression that everything that happens was meant to happen.
• honour, the veneration of mindless devotion.
• karma, the delusion of that which goes around will eventually come around.
• luck, the name given to the inconceivability of the improbable.

“Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.” – Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam

On Infinity

“If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.”

– Ludwig Wittgenstein

Principles of Positivism

Briefly put, positivism is the philosophical doctrine which states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method, refusing every form of metaphysics. There are five main principles behind positivism:

• The logic of inquiry is the same across all sciences (both social and natural).
• The goal of inquiry is to explain and predict, and thereby to discover necessary and sufficient conditions for any phenomenon.
• Research should be empirically observable with human senses, and should use inductive logic to develop statements that can be tested.
• Science is not the same as common sense, and researchers must be careful not to let common sense bias their research.
• Science should be judged by logic, and should be as value-free as possible. The ultimate goal of science is to produce knowledge, regardless of politics, morals, values, et cetera.

“But what use is the unicorn to you if your intellect doesn’t believe in it?” – Umberto Eco

Sexy [Adj.]

• In psychology, that which can sexually attract or arouse; is of sexual appeal; or suggestive of sex.
• In mathematics, prime numbers that differ from each other by six.

‘Sex: What kind of moron are you that you look up sex in the urban dictionary?’ – Urban Dictionary

31/iii mmxvi

Lake Baikal in Russia is a thousand times older than any other lake on Earth.

The Hundred Years War lasted for 116 years.

The original 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube has 43252003274489856000 different states; that is to say, over 43 quintillion.

Humans have the same number of hair follicles as chimpanzees.

Rehoboam, Methuselah, Salmanazar, Balthazar, Nebuchadnezzar, Melchior, Solomon, Goliath and Melchizedek are all sizes of champagne bottle.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

Hypotenuse [Noun.]

In geometry, the side of a right triangle opposite the right angle.

“About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.”
– Gilbert and Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance (1879)