Why Transhumanism Is Unrealistic and Immoral Essay - “Utopians often produce evil because their movement’s aspirations become paramount—that is, more important than avoiding acts ‘traditionally perceived as immoral.’ If enough people follow Istvan on the transhuman roller coaster, people could eventually get hurt.” 9/3/2024
Portrait of a Stubborn Ukrainian Essay - “He was flanked by fields of dead sunflowers that could not be harvested because of the renewed Russian offensive.” 8/29/2024
The Hidden Obstacles of Parenting from Prison Essay - “But enhancing the experience of children with incarcerated parents does not require a wholesale restructuring of prisons. Most parents in prison desperately want more contact with their kids, hoping to break the destructive cycles they have been caught in.” 8/23/2024
Optimism vs. Reality in Longevity Science: Analyzing Zoltan Istvan’s Senescence Inference Essay - “Although [Zoltan] Istvan’s general pessimism is understandable, the Senescence Inference takes the pessimism too far for a number of reasons.” 8/11/2024
When We’re Overly Optimistic about the Pace of Life Extension Research Essay - “Sadly, biological humans are likely to be mortal for centuries more unless a dramatic increase in both resources and life extension scientists is marshaled.” 8/1/2024
The Danger in NATO’s Slow Attrition Strategy in Ukraine Essay - “Aside from the hazard of China or Iran adding to the number of ongoing wars, the currently slow attrition strategy is only working against President Putin because he is trapped.” 7/26/2024
Our Fractured Togetherness: The Political Realism of Lynn Nottage Essay - “Given the depth and severity of the divisions displayed in Sweat, we are led to wonder if healing is even possible. But as a ‘doctor of American democracy,’ [Lynn] Nottage not only offers troubling diagnoses of our diseases but also prescribes remedies.” 7/25/2024
On the Idea of National Decline Essay - “It is, I believe, more than anything else, the undeniable reality of technological progress that lulls us into accepting the more general—and plainly false—proposition that things will just keep on improving in every respect.” 7/23/2024
The Triumph of Eros Over Thanatos: The Imperishable Beauty of “Holding the Man” Essay - “In short, I am in love with the story of Tim and John. It has enchanted and devastated me for years now, which is why I will use their first names.“ 7/19/2024
The Taliban Dilemma: How to Engage with Those Whose Values We Oppose Essay - “In this instance, should those who believe in the rights of women sit down with those who do not, potentially risking legitimizing groups like the Taliban, in the hope that through dialogue they can influence them?” 7/18/2024
This is England? Thoughts on Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer Essay - “Prime Minister Starmer’s father wanted his children to lead ‘useful lives’ and Starmer undoubtedly succeeded in that—two, three, four times over. Yet it is unclear, as yet, just how useful he will be as Labour Prime Minister.” 7/16/2024
The French Election and Europe’s Post-Historical Collapse Essay - “While I was always a philosopher, I was originally a fairly apolitical one, and it was my first year in France that awoke the political part of my being, for I saw all around me where socialism, oikophobia, and multiculturalism were leading.” 7/10/2024
The Power of Chicken Soup for the Anti-Woke Soul: Nellie Bowles’s “Morning After the Revolution” Essay - “While it might be intellectually fascinating to dig into the Marxist or postmodern roots of wokeness, Bowles’s book is a welcome reminder that sometimes things are simply crazy on their face. And maybe all that is required to defeat the crazy is to point it out.” 7/8/2024
Why I Stand by Relocation: A Rejoinder to Ben Burgis Essay - “To kick him or them out of the country would indeed be to violate the non-aggression principle (NAP) of this strict version of libertarianism. But I do not always write from this point of view. Sometimes, often in my writings on Israel, I do so from the perspective of classical liberalism…” 7/6/2024
Was Chamberlain Actually More Strategic than Churchill, Roosevelt, and Biden? Essay - “Prime Minister Chamberlain’s premature death in 1940 and his transformation into a cautionary tale has meant that he was not available to remind his successors that appeasement was just one-facet of a multi-dimensional diplomatic strategy.” 7/5/2024
The End of Capitalism Essay - “For Herbert Marcuse, German philosopher and notorious member of the Frankfurt School, Marx did us a service in trying to expose capitalism as a historically-contingent mode of production based on reified social relations that do not facilitate—in fact, impede—the harvesting of reason as the path to the flowering of human autonomy, and flourishing.” 7/2/2024