I’ve joined thinkspot and will be using it as my main platform. Also on board as early adopters are Dave Rubin, Michael Shermer, Jordan Peterson, and a few others. thinkspot is being launched as an option to those sites quick to de-platform. “We’re in desperate need for a platform that doesn’t arbitrarily decide to throw […]
Announcement: I’m joining thinkspot Read More »
Two recent articles on Stoicism, one by philosopher Aaron Smith and a self-described “grumble” response by philosopher Roderick Long. Both focus on Stoicism but with some attention given to its differences and similarities with Objectivism. To that pair of discussions I add this short collection of quotations I use as a guide when I lecture
Stoicism: Smith, Long, and some quotations Read More »
Friedrich Engels arguing that communism is the logical consequence of German philosophy, starting with Kant’s revolution and progressing through Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel: “The Germans are a philosophical nation, and will not, cannot abandon Communism, as soon as it is founded upon sound philosophical principles: chiefly if it is derived as an unavoidable conclusion from
Engels on communism’s connection to German philosophy Read More »
Summary: Oberlin College students (and some administrators) behaved badly. The local business they targeted responded with a lawsuit for damages. The court agrees, ordering Oberlin to pay $11 million. The down-the-road response? Colleges everywhere will take note, and worried number-cruncher administrators will urge further restrictions on campus speech and action. So: (1) Bad ideology on
Activism backlash at Oberlin College will lead to more speech restrictions Read More »
Socialism and the surveillance state, Lenin’s 1917 version: “Only socialism will be the beginning of a rapid, genuine, truly mass forward movement, embracing first the majority, and then the whole of the population, in all spheres of public and private life. … [Then] the escape from this popular accounting and control will inevitably become so
Socialism and the surveillance state, Lenin’s 1917 version Read More »
A new episode of my podcast series, produced by Possibly Correct out of Toronto. Audio: iTunes Stitcher YouTube Topics and times: The decline of slavery as a moral achievement // History: Slavery practiced everywhere before modernity // The internal African slave society and trades // The Atlantic trade and where the slaves went // Early
The Stain of Slavery [Open College] Read More »
A podcast version is here. Our first discussion (2017) is here at YouTube or here in transcription.
Second Jordan Peterson interview — video released Read More »
Three data points: 1. The 1973 Roe v. Wade case was decided 7-2 by an all-male court. 2. A 2018 Gallup poll showed statistically small-to-trivial differences between men and women’s beliefs about whether abortion should be legal in all cases, illegal in all cases, or legal/illegal in some cases. 3. A 2018 Pew survey also
Abortion is not a men-versus-women issue Read More »