Philosophy

The Real Scrooge [Open College transcripts]

We’re posting the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Most are available only to subscribers, but here for the holiday season is the thirtieth, on Scrooge’s hero’s journey: To speak of pride, friendship, liberality, and an overarching wisdom about how they all contribute to a fully self-realized life—all of that is to make Dickens’s Scrooge

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Sex Dolls — Why Not? [Open College transcript]

We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the notes and transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the twentieth: Newly-engineered materials and robotics have made the physical experiences closer to the real thing, and artificial intelligence has enabled the robots to respond verbally and non-verbally more realistically. Perhaps robots will soon be able to pass sex-and-romance

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Talley’s review of Explaining Pomo — and its negative critics

Matt Talley: “I recently finished Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks. I had heard some really negative remarks from a few FB friends so I was curious to see how they held up after reading the book myself.” The comments after Talley’s review are worth reading too. See also my Open College response to two sets

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Today’s systemic witch-hunters

Be not deceived by apparent progress: systemic witchcraft still plagues our society. In December 1484, the Pope issued the “Witches Bull,” sanctioning the “correcting, imprisoning, punishing and chastising” of witches: “Many persons of both sexes … have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and

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The Stain of Slavery [Open College notes]

We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the notes and transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the nineteenth: Professor Henry Louis Gates, Chair of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University wrote: “without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been

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A Conversation with Dr. Jordan Peterson [Open College transcripts]

We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the eighteenth: Jordan Peterson: “Your book Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault in particular has been quite controversial, so I thought we’d start with that …” Audio versions of the podcast are available free at my website, YouTube,

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Artists Need Free Minds and Free Markets [Colombia talk]

I’ll be speaking (by Zoom) at the Media Entrepreneurial Marathon today (November 21, 2020) at 9:30 Central Time. The conference is sponsored by a large group of Latin American idea and entrepreneurship organizations committed to creative and business freedom. Related: How great artists become great: Liszt. Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky. Beethoven. Creative geniuses as selfish: Maria

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