A BLOG of PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS & SPECULATIONS

A World of Disorderly Notions

Published on Thursday July 14th, 2011

“A world of disorderly notions, picked out of his books, crowded into his imagination”

Colloqium

Further Reflections

June 2nd, 2013

Racism, Stalinism & Politeness

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…

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May 15th, 2013

Critique of User Interface Illusions

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…

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April 3rd, 2013

Compassionate Violence in Buddhism

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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