Trump's uncanny knack for hiring only the very best worst people

They were the best of people, they were the worst of people.Trump promised excellence. “I’m going to surround myself with only the best and most serious people,” he said in a 2016 interview with The Washington Post. “We want top of the line professionals.”

The rate of turnover in the Trump White House is wholly unprecedented, exceeding that of any other administration in a century — interesting, given Trump’s 2012 tweet ridiculing President Barack Obama for his (much lower) turnover rate:

3 Chief of Staffs in less than 3 years of being President: Part of the reason why @BarackObama can’t manage to pass his agenda.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2012

Reviewing the history of Trump hirings and firings, a pattern emerges. Like some kind of reverse King Midas, every Trump hire is turned from the best person in the world to the absolute worst person ever, in a very short amount of time.

Let’s have a look at some of Trump’s most jarring 180s of the past several months:

Trump on George Papadopoulos
March 2016: “An excellent guy.”
October 2017: “Low level volunteer…who has already been proven to be a liar.”

Trump on Omarosa Manigault Newman
2016: “She’s a wonderful woman…She has done so much for me…she is a fine person…you are amazing. She works so hard, she feels so strongly.”
2018: “Wacky Omarosa…She was vicious, but not smart…nasty…a loser…nothing but problems…a lowlife.”

Trump on Steve Bannon
October 2017: “I have a very good relationship with Steve Bannon. Steve’s been a friend of mine for a long time. I like Steve a lot.
January 2018: “Sloppy Steve Bannon…a dog.” “Poor…a liar.”

Trump on Michael Cohen
April 2018: “A fine person with a wonderful family.”
July 2018: “Unethical…scumbag.  He’s a horrible person.”

There are only a few conclusions we can draw from Trump’s pattern of hiring only the best people who are also really terrible people that he must fire:

1. He’s a bullsh**ter

2. He’s an absolute terrible judge of character

Science tells us that those who are most susceptible to bulls**t are less analytic and less intelligent.  (I will leave it up to readers to make any inferences here about Trump’s base.)

Science also tells us that intelligent people are better judges of character. Trump insists he’s a “stable genius” with a high IQ, but, as Stephen Hawking said, “People who boast about their IQ are losers.”

Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure,it's not your fault

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2013

Trump’s public adulations of several notorious dictators also lends credence to the notion that he’s not very good at judging character. (After all, this is the guy who trusts ex-KGB agents more than he trusts US intelligence.)

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Trump is both a bullsh**ter and a terrible judge of character.  Either way, not the qualities you’d want in, say, the treasurer of your homeowners association, or your pet sitter.

Yet, these are the qualities of the man entrusted to make crucial decisions on the behalf of 322 million American citizens. We have a bullsh**ter, who is also a terrible judge of character, sitting in closed-door meetings with a hostile foreign power.

We may not be able to fire him, exactly, but perhaps those who thought Trump was the best person for the job now see that he is, in fact, the worst. Like so many Trump hires, maybe Trump will be sent packing, disparaged by the once-fawning masses as he walks out the door — a fitting return to civilian life for a man who bullsh**ted his way into the White House.

Symphony of Science: The Quantum World

Yet another stellar entry in the Symphony of Science canon. This latest entry is described as "a musical investigation into the nature of atoms and subatomic particles, the jiggly things that make up everything we see. Featuring Morgan Freeman, Frank Close, Michio Kaku, Brian Cox, Richard Feynman, and Stephen Hawking."

This is the eleventh video in the series. If you haven't spent any time with the others, you can view them all here.

What Does Science Have To Say About Life After Death?

Physicist and cosmologist Sean M. Carroll sure did step in it. Hot on the heels of Stephen Hawking's assertion that heaven (or any afterlife, for that matter) was "a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," Carroll has published a Scientific American piece entitled Physics and the Immortality of the Soul, that is quite clear on what physics has to say on the topic. And for such a nice guy, he certainly doesn't sugar-coat it.

Now there are many who, like Stephen Jay Gould, assert that there are things on which science and religion do not overlap. Many cite this non-overlapping magisteria when arguing the existence of God, the afterlife, or souls. However, we can't discount the degree of improbability of life after death given the laws of physics.

Carroll explains:

Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there's no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?

Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren't any sensible answers to these questions. Of course, everything we know about quantum field theory could be wrong. Also, the Moon could be made of green cheese.

Among advocates for life after death, nobody even tries to sit down and do the hard work of explaining how the basic physics of atoms and electrons would have to be altered in order for this to be true. If we tried, the fundamental absurdity of the task would quickly become evident.

Further on:

Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV. The questions are these: what form does that spirit energy take, and how does it interact with our ordinary atoms? Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. Within QFT, there can't be a new collection of "spirit particles" and "spirit forces" that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments. Ockham's razor is not on your side here, since you have to posit a completely new realm of reality obeying very different rules than the ones we know.

Carroll then goes into The Dirac Equation and demonstrates, as simply as a particle physicist can, that it requires an amazing amount of metaphysical shoehorning and the chucking out of everything we know to put any credence in the afterlife concept.

There's no reason to be agnostic about ideas that are dramatically incompatible with everything we know about modern science. Once we get over any reluctance to face reality on this issue, we can get down to the much more interesting questions of how human beings and consciousness really work.

I'm reminded of Carl Sagan's feelings on the afterlife:

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

If we think about where the concept of the afterlife originated, we must look to our ancestors -- ancestors who, if they were lucky, lived only a fraction of the time we will live.   These ancestors had only a fraction of the knowledge we now have at our fingertips -- knowledge of the interconnectedness of all living things, knowledge of the world, and of the cosmos.  Perhaps, as our knowledge and our lifespans continue to increase, we will find (as we are beginning to see in modern European secular societies), that we do not need the promise of an afterlife.  Isn't this life more than enough?

The Batshit Files: News Roundup | 5.18.11

Your daily bucket o' crazy:

• Kirk Cameron says Stephen Hawking is wrong about Heaven: "Why should anyone believe Mr. Hawking's writings if he cannot provide evidence for his unscientific belief that out of nothing, everything came?" Yes, Kirk, why would anyone believe something without evidence? Oh, wait. (TMZ)

• Harold Camping, the Christian broadcaster and President of Family Radio, the group claiming The Rapture is coming Saturday May 21, explains how it's all because of gay people. (Towleroad)

• The AFA's Bryan Fischer stated on his radio show that gays are literally Nazis and that they will "do the same thing to you that the Nazis did to their opponents in Nazi Germany." What a dick. (Right Wing Watch)

•  The following words actually came out of Newt Gingrich's mouth: “Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.” Is he a Jedi? (Firedoglake)

• Texas Governor and complete douchebag Rick Perry could make a run for president. *shudder*  (Religion Dispatches)

Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'

In an exclusive interview with The Guardian, the iconic cosmologist shares his views on life, death, and the afterlife.

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he said.

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," he added.

Hawking's comments on death and the concept of heaven are sure to provoke further backlash from those who took issue with comments in his 2010 book, The Grand Design, in which he stated that the universe did not require a creator.

Although Hawking has often been quoted by religious figures for his references to God, it has remained quite clear that Hawking's use of the word 'God' is metaphorical (as was Einstein's).

Hawking has said of his use of the word 'God':

"If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed. If you like, you can say the laws are the work of God, but that is more a definition of God than a proof of his existence."

"If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God."

In his brief interview with The Guardian, Hawking had a very simple suggestion for how humans should live their lives:

"We should seek the greatest value of our action."

Read the full interview here.