July 2010
14 posts
2 tags
Can't stop, won't stop
I didn’t think it had been that long since I posted, so fear not, loyal reader, I have a proclivity for producing profuse profundity.
There are some academics who insist that certain words have no english equivalent. Mores, Virtu, Schadenfreude, Polis, Ubermensch.
1. Let’s say they have no english equivalent. Have you noticed people using them as English? I certainly have....
2 tags
Ideological family tree
Ideology, such as it is
An ideology, broadly, is an encompassing belief system that offers (or purports to offer) complete answers to a collection of related questions. The usual collection of related questions are “who are we?” “why are we here?” “how should we live well?” Of course someone can adopt an ideology with respect to something complicated, like...
3 tags
humans: a cloud of essences?
Last night a friend asked me what I thought it was to be human.
I gave two prominent philosophical positions, our DNA and having a consciousness. Both are fairly weak, since those with more than 46 chromosomes are usually considered human if they have a particular debilitating syndrome. Consciousness has a lot of issues.
Often in articles or arguments I use the word ‘nature’ to...
7 tags
Interviewing Joseph Heath
It won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me that I am a very interested in the writings of U of T Philosophy prof Joseph Heath. He’s written three popular works, The Efficient Society, The Rebel Sell, and Filthy Lucre: economics for people who hate capitalism. I’m going to have various topics serialized in this blog and his work will be one of them. Without further...
4 tags
False consciousness
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. One claim that seems extraordinary to those whose egos aren’t in a state of perpetual bloat is the one that other people can’t see the forest or the trees when it comes to their own interests, when it comes to knowing what is best for them.
I see, hear, or read so many interviews where the subject claims that the world is...
3 tags
On that note
One problem that we are familiar with falling under the category of ‘big problem’ that doesn’t get solved by throwing a ton of money at it, is that of Canada’s First Nation communities.
Policy options are pretty clear. Self-governance is a joke that needs to be dismantled. A ton of raving leftists in Canada would scream at the thought. Some of their arguments invoke the...
2 tags
Patent this idea
The other day my mom came to town, and with her she brought a care package of food. The one unhealthy item was a 450g bag of twizzlers. I managed to eat this bag in one sitting, which I expected to make my stomach churn. Thankfully I avoided that, but its still pretty ridiculous. I suffer from a common cognitive deficiency, a temporal preference for short term interest, or I should say, immediate...
1 tag
Rap themes, part one
I spent about a hundred million dollars and I came from the ghetto
Often we in civilized society hear complaints about the overzealous commodity fetishism, narcisism, and black-male chauvinism expressed in rap music. These themes should be enjoyed when listening to rap. The idea that they are of recent advent, while the ‘golden age of hip hop/rap,’ has passed, is simply false.
We...
2 tags
Confirmation Bias
Let’s say that at some point a movie-style apocalypse occurs on our fair planet.
If you are amongst the credulous you might be inclined to believe that some people foresaw it and were warning us the whole time.
There are a large number of soothsayers and generally maniacal idiots spouting nonsense, all over the world, of different varieties, at any given time. No matter what particular...
2 tags
Simpsonic atheism
In season 9 episode 14 of the Simpsons, Bart and Lisa are watching a Biblical cartoon on TV recounting the plagues (if I recall correctly) or at the least, some sort of god-inflicted wanton destruction of humanity.
Bart is exhilirated and gives God a compliment (in the parlance of his age): “Oh, God is so in your face!” Homer replies: “Yeah, he is my favourite fictional...
6 tags
Anti-Consumerisms Litany
In my G20 post I briefly mentioned how opposite sides of a dichotomous argument often think being right implies the other side being wrong. It is almost as if humans think people arguing implies a) there is a right answer and b) that answer lies amongst the two answers they’ve selected or maybe c) organic human squabbles always coincide with truth-table propositions by natural law.
The most...
6 tags
What do we think of Keynes now?
Whenever American economists talk about anything there are underlying tones of ire based on their approval or disapproval of Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes, small government libertarianism and a market regulated by the government.
Can you guess who is who in this video?
It isn’t even that clear, since Matt DeLong (sic?) from UCLA says he agrees more with Friedman on broader...
June 2010
1 post
6 tags
G20 protesters
A play with a villain doesn’t always have a hero
As is usual in widespread arguments, dichotomies emerge and embed themselves in the dialogue, and the arguments over anti-globalization protests are a case study in this trend. Those who defend the protesters paint the cops as power-hungry thugs who act sans remorse and aggressively without provocation. Those who decry the protesters say the...
