A person whose desires and impulses are his own—are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture—is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character…
–J.S. Mill
Caution: 3,337 words ahead The premise of this post has some immediate, flagrant problems, so it would probably be better to just start off with that. Here's the premise: anti-racism is becoming like Stalinism. The obvious (and wrong) interpretation would be that I'm saying that the efforts of anti-racist activists have…
Read more →Alexis Madrigal spent some time with Facebook's UX designers and content strategists and wrote a profile and a critique of what he takes to be the company's design philosophy. There's a lot to like about this essay in terms of its focus and the questions it raises, but one flaw is…
Read more →Caution: 3,000 words ahead Many writers have argued that we live in an era of unprecedented narcissism, particularly when we're talking about Millenials—the most notable example is of course Jean Twenge. To me it's self-evidently true, but many disagree and write aggrieved and slightly pathetic articles contesting these points and praising…
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