Why We Should Still Read Charles Bukowski Essay - “The author of this essay is the proud owner of 25 books, poetry collections, and short story anthologies written by the man widely recognized as the godfather of the literary movement known as ‘dirty realism.'” 10/11/2024
Richard Dawkins Wins in the End Essay - “Admirably, Dawkins continually made it clear that his objective was to promote a clear understanding of the world as discovered through the scientific method, and if scientific facts caused offense with anyone, then so be it.” 10/10/2024
The Origins of a Partisan Essay - “Citizens wore red and white, the colors of the Pahonia, the traditional flag of Belarus, a symbol made illegal in 1995 shortly after President Aliaksandr Lukashenka came to power.” 10/6/2024
Why Postmodernism Still Matters Essay - “Finally, postmodernism influenced numerous intellectual variants that today are popular public philosophies, and we need to understand the intellectual foundations of such systems of thought if we want to evaluate them properly.” 10/5/2024
You Can (and Perhaps Should) Repeat Yourself Essay - “And, relatedly, one also begins to wonder if there are certain ways of phrasing the key points that have already been formulated, capture them perfectly, and, thus, cannot really be improved upon.” 10/1/2024
Reading Samuel Moyn’s “Liberalism Against Itself” in an Election Year Essay - “It becomes apparent that, while not a Marxist himself, Moyn regrets Marxism’s arguable descent into irrelevance, if only because its extended dialogue with liberalism enriched the latter while spotlighting liberal failings and hypocrisies.” 9/30/2024
The Paradox of Capitalism Essay - “For example, how many retirees can relate to Jack Nicholson’s professional exile in About Schmidt, a film about a man trying to find purpose after a career as an actuary, when the title character returns to the office one day in a pathetic last-ditch effort to show he is still relevant?” 9/27/2024
Darryl Cooper: Revisionist History and Misplaced Empathy Essay - “Perhaps it is because of my own bias toward [Darryl Cooper as a friend, but the responsibility for such imprecise talk is something I place on [Tucker] Carlson, not on his interview subject.” 9/26/2024
Bruce Springsteen Turns 75 Essay - “It is just Springsteen and his sparse vocals seeming to sing out into the empty expanse of the American West and its sprawling landscapes where hope—at least until the final track—is nowhere to be found. One can feel it was recorded in winter.” 9/23/2024
Mythos Americanos: Who Took the Grit out of Integrity? Essay - “Trying to nail down the source of the intensity of my response, I kept coming back to a sense of a deep, existential nostalgia for what I could only think of as integrity.” 9/17/2024
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