Existentialists Deployed to Afghanistan

March 13, 2002 – 12:00 am

Everyone’s doing their bit for the war:
Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, or ‘Black Berets’, will be parachuted into the combat zones to spread doubt, despondency and existential anomie among the enemy. Hardened by numerous intellectual battles fought during their long occupation of Paris’s Left Bank, their first action will be to establish a [...]

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Metaphor, Morality, and Politics

March 10, 2002 – 12:00 am

[ via Doc Searls ] I’ve been reading a facinating essay by philosopher and cognitive scientist George Lakoff. He identifies and describes the metaphors at the core of Conservative thought that explain such seeming paradoxes as being anti-reproductive choice, yet pro-death penalty.
He argues that both the Conservative and Liberal worldviews share the “Nation as Family” [...]

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Fifty Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels Socialists Should Read

February 11, 2002 – 12:00 am

[ via Boing Boing Blog ] China Miéville (Perdido Street Station) put up his list of 50 science fiction and fantasy novels which a socialist, or other politicaly minded person, should read.

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Metaphors of Terror

February 6, 2002 – 12:00 am

[ via Doc Searls ] George Lakoff’s essay on 9/11 enlightened me as to why people can react to the attack the way many people, including Bush, did. If you accept you’re in a war between absolute good and evil, you’re able to things you’d otherwise dare not do:
Nothing is more important than the battle [...]

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Categorical Syllogisms in Java

November 30, 2001 – 12:00 am

[ via Must See http:// ] This is for my friend Lucy who’s taking her philosophy (logic) final this week. Venn diagrams to go please!

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Nine Virtues, Three Professions

January 2, 2000 – 12:00 am

Earl Cooley, one of the fathers of Online Fandom, expands Larry Wall’s cannonical list of the virtues of a programmer to the help desk and Web design.

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A little Monday Night Sophistry

December 20, 1999 – 12:00 am

[ via the Potsmaster ] Here’s an informal paper playing with the notion that everything is just a simulation running on someone else’s computer.

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Critiques of Libertarianism

November 5, 1999 – 12:00 am

Handy bookmark to have when you’re under saturation bombing from Ayn Rand quoters on /.

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Hermeneutics in Everyday Life [ Flutterby ]

January 30, 1999 – 12:00 am

Suppose you’re traveling to work and you see a stop sign. What do you do? That depends on how you exegete the stop sign.
A serious and educated Catholic rolls through the intersection because he believes he cannot understand the stop sign apart from its interpretive community and tradition. Observing that the interpretive community doesn’t take [...]

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Y2K: Who Will Do What and When Will They Do It?

November 15, 1998 – 12:00 am

An essay from the Awakening book mentioned previously. This is an expansion of the version in the book that includes several diagrams.
The key points are that people, companies and governments are still unwilling to share information on Y2K which is needed to locate points of failure so we can build contingencies, and that we have [...]

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Phil Agre uses the Rhetoric of the Conservatives

November 15, 1998 – 12:00 am

A delightful piece by Prof. Agre, where:
Just once, I would like to see someone rant about conservatives in the same tones of hysterical exaggeration that now pour forth from every medium, 24 hours a day, in excoriation of the real and imagined perfidy of liberals. What would this sound like? Let me offer an [...]

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Tony Kushner’s Editorial on the Murder of Matthew Shepard

November 9, 1998 – 12:00 am

Powerful Stuff.
A lot of people worry these days about the death of civil discourse, and would say that I ought not call the Pope a homicidal liar, nor (to be ecumenical about it) the orthodox rabbinate homicidal liars, nor Trent Lott a disgusting opportunistic hatemonger. But I worry a lot less about the death of [...]

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Daniel C. Dennett responds to Gould.

October 10, 1998 – 12:00 am

Philosopher Daniel Dennett, author of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and advocate of the strong adaptionist stance responds to Gould.
Link

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Steven Pinker’s Response to Gould’s Comments on the Strict Adaptionist Paradigm

October 10, 1998 – 12:00 am

Author and linguist Steven Pinker responds to Gould.
Link

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Bureau of Public Secrets

October 10, 1998 – 12:00 am

Just in time for the Spectacle of Impeachment, the Situationalist International rides again.
Link

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