On Jacob Bronowski
I’m happy to see this review online now. Bronowski was one of my heroes when young, and Sandefur has written a first-rate biography.
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How nazi-types are manufactured
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
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10 Questions from my thinkspot Live Q&A
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
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Trumpian trade wars, Argentina and Brazil edition
Let me see if I understand the reasoning: 1. Argentina’s and Brazil’s governments have screwed up their economies over the years. 2. So they devalued their government-controlled currencies. 3. That means American farmers earn less on their exports to Argentinean and Brazilian customers. 4. So the US government will retaliate by taxing steel imports from Argentina and Brazil. 5. Therefore, steel-makers in Argentina and Brazil will earn
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Is Disgust a “Conservative” Emotion?
New study, with implications for the hypothesis that political differences are driven by emotional dispositions. Abstract: “Extant political–psychological research has identified stable, context-independent differences between conservatives and liberals in a wide range of preferences and psychological processes. One consistent finding is that conservatives show higher disgust sensitivity than liberals. This finding, however, is predominantly based
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Child mortality’s wonderful decline: 13-second graph
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.
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My first livestream Q&A at thinkspot, Dec. 4
My subscribers at thinkspot can join me on Wednesday, December 4th at 7:30 Central Time for my first premium livestream Q&A session. Ask me anything about philosophy and my related areas of expertise, or any follow-up questions from my November livestream lecture. (If you’re not already on thinkspot, sign up to join the site and
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“Go back to the ovens!” shouted at Jews at a university in Canada
“Go back to the ovens!” shouted at Jews at a university in Canada, in the Toronto borough in which I was born. Quick thoughts: 1. Most Canadians are great people and will be appalled at this sub-human display. 2. The hostility was so bad that politicians from *both* sides of the major divide in Canadian
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