The Great Typo Hunt: My Enemies Insert Errors Into Everything You Believe Is Wrong

From Anon:

I'm trying to read your book, "Everything You Believe is Wrong", but it's tough going. You need an editor! Case in point, in the section "Democracy is Discord" the first sentence in the second paragraph reads, "Consider that is was once much more likely for people within States to have a shared cultures than with the country as a whole, if only because States are comprised of smaller groups."

Of course the third word should be "it", and "a shared cultures" should be "a shared culture."

Your work is too important to not have a good editor.

I'd like to volunteer. I suspect you have many readers who would also volunteer. You could easily recruit ten from your daily readers. Just ask. Give each volunteer 10% of the text, either as plain text .txt, or as .doc, and let the good grammar roll.

Anon is one of several who wrote to say that they found the typos my enemies placed in Everything You Believe is Wrong.

This has to be my enemies. For I went over the chapters in this book many, many (many), times, and over a period of years. I rewrote each Chapter a dozen times. I ruthlessly cut the weak parts: I showed no pity. I ispell-ed it I don't know how many times. I read it aloud.

I sweat, I bled, I toiled. I labored. Until I was sick of the sight of the thing.

Yet, even I saw, right after publication, right there on the first damned page, the word sf appearing where so should be.

Now I ask you. How else is this possible unless my enemies, the vile creatures that they are, snuck in behind my back and played these dastardly tricks on me?

Well, exactly.

However, I have a plan to exact revenge. Part of the thanks go to Anon above. Part goes to others who have communicated secretly with me, hoping to bypass the vigilance of my enemies.

These folks are sending me, quietly, errors that they discover. But if I could beg the rest of you, as Anon above, to print them below in the comments, we would all benefit. For not everybody can catch each typo. As I always say, my enemies are many, and we are few.

This post will now appear permanently linked on the Books page, so conveniently found on the Menu bar above.

Once I have amassed all typos, I'll fix the text and ensure future copies are error free, guaranteed.¹

Typos, however, are only a small thing next to the arguments themselves.

BONUS Argument Answered

I am grateful for the help in uncovering typos, but even happier to answer rebuttals to the arguments in the book. That is, after all, the purpose of the book.

So far, I only had this exchange with a man on Twitter. Recalling all my tweets die (tragically) of coronadoom after one week, you won't find this after next Wednesday, so I repeat the exchange here.

Man: "@FamedCelebrity reading your book. On page 76 you state 'thus when the government says "You must claim these two men are married", you must not agree.' Is this based on the assumption two men married is immoral? I see no argument offered for the definition of morality applied."

Me: "Excellent question. Two men cannot be married because of the natural law definition of marriage. The government coercing you into saying what is false, and you know to be false, is immoral."

Lady (who interjected): "That's it. Marriage has had a definition since language began. The nature of same sex relationships--notwithstanding the similarities--is different from that definition. Compassion over truth leads to intellectual dishonesty."

Man: "I agree with the last part. But I don’t see how it follows that because marriage had an original definition, that definition is truth for all time. Many words have required refinement over the millennia. Also if you have evidence marriage was among the first words, please share."

Me: "First glib response is 'Ask your parents'. Short answer is: biology. The remaining arguments are too long for Twitter. Here is one (of many) using the word 'gmarriage', for 'government-defined marriage.'" I provided a link to "The Gmarriage Dialogue".

Man: "Interesting read, thank you for sharing. Enjoying the book. Refreshing to encounter a text that explicitly sets rules of engagement, saves a lot of headaches around what’s worth and not worth pursuing mentally."

This, of course, is what I had hoped to accomplish.

¹Guarantee not guaranteed.