The livestream is free to my followers at thinkspot. Here are the questions posted so far: 1. How would you say a proper judicial system should handle the testimony of a firm believer in a postmodern-based ideology that is required to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Solver […]
Today’s Q&A livestream at thinkspot (January 18, 2020) Read More »
I’ve seen four hypotheses advanced: 1. Natural cycles of drought: Throughout its history, Australia has had seasons of unusually high temperatures and numbers of fires. 2. Arson: So far, over 180 arrested for arson, including this guy. 3. Anti-human-management policies: Deadwood not removed, fire breaks allowed to grow over, and firefighters’ access to them blocked.
Fires in Australia: four causal claims Read More »
“By the mid-fifteenth century crimes subject to the death penalty … included the following: rebellion, fraud, bigamy, incest, arson, theft, adultery, carrying off a woman against her will, blasphemy, moving signs of property boundaries, attacking someone, high treason, child murder, using dishonest weights and measures, murder, counterfeiting, rape, attempted suicide,* striking someone to death, converting
Death penalty in 1400s central Europe Read More »
[Grégoire Canlorbe is a French intellectual entrepreneur. He currently resides in Paris. He interviewed me for The Foundation for Economic Education. Excerpt below:] Grégoire Canlorbe: Both Rand and Nietzsche vehemently despise the ancestral notion of “Common Good”, dating back at least to Aristotle. Nietzsche eloquently and provocatively sums up his grievances against it in paragraph 43
Do Rand and Nietzsche both despise “Common Good”? Read More »
For our ongoing contest, alert reader George King sent me this libido-sapper from Jean-François Lyotard’s 1974 Libidinal Economy. 355 words: “We should not continue to confuse the closure of representation, that sarcastic discovery, that sham dropping of the scales from our eyes, by those thinkers who come and tell us: what is outside is really
Philosophy’s Longest Sentences Contest — Lyotard edition Read More »
Two key excerpts from a 2019 European Parliament resolution, 80 years after the start of WW II: “B. whereas 80 years ago on 23 August 1939, the communist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a Treaty of Non-Aggression, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and its secret protocols, dividing Europe and the territories of independent states
On the alliance of Communists and Nazis, 80 years later Read More »
Two recent sad results: 1. Freelancers want to work for companies, but government says No. 2. Women want a women-only club, but government says No. The right to free association has both a positive and a negative application. The positive right is to associate with whom you choose. The negative is not to associate with whom you
Free association rejected — two variations Read More »
A reminder: to defeat alt-rightists, neo-fascists, and neo-Nazis we need to get our philosophical game on. That’s the implication of my 2010 Nietzsche and the Nazis. Support for that thesis from a new book by philosopher Susan Neiman: “Outside Germany, many still think the Nazis’ strength depended on illiterate mobs, a view unfortunately reinforced by
How nazi-types are manufactured Read More »
Here are ten questions I took up from my subscribers during last week’s livestream session at thinkspot: 1. “What are the three most related and worrisome things that have happened since writing, Explaining Postmodernism? 2. “What are your thoughts on Nassim Taleb’s notion that democratic socialism is most effective at the local scale?” 3. “What
10 Questions from my thinkspot Live Q&A Read More »
The graph is at Facebook, based on Gapminder data. Let us give thanks to science, technology, reason, freedom, entrepreneurship, humanism, and the belief in progress — i.e., the Enlightenment vision made real. Here also is a longer-timeline static chart. Click to enlarge. Source.
Child mortality’s wonderful decline: 13-second graph Read More »