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A conservative take on the world
I've gotten a couple of very thoughtful emails about my dissing the idea of practical altruism, including a very long one. Basically: They're accusing of me of being a KANTIAN! For a Kantian, anything done out of material self-interest--or in response to merely natural needs--isn't dignified ...
So I know you've missed me: Well, I've been busy hearing about various scientific accounts of virtue at the meeting of the recipients of the University of Chicago Science of Virtues grant recipients. The payoff for you, over the next few weeks, is that I picked up a lot of blog-fodder. But I ...
This New Republic author shares with us abundant evidence that Republican leaders of various kinds have turned on Sarah Palin. It's true enough that many were seduced by the promise of a fresh face with a fascinating personal story, a big family, religious faith, and a cool "First Dude." And ...
I will talk about the work of each of the speakers below over the next few weeks. But it should be clear enough that this conference will explore most of the issues I've raised on this channel over the past few weeks. We'd love to see you on the world''s largest campus: Berry professor of ...
If you remember, I've decided to "celebrate" the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War by remembering failures of Southern and Confederate statesmanship. My first post affirmed the argument of Alexander Stephens of Georgia that secession itself was just stupid, from a Southern point ...
So I've been thinking some about the fact that "The Social Network" portrays people--even techno-meritocrats--as worse than they really are. I've been criticized, of course, for not recognizing the artistry in that approach as a revelation of the emptiness of our time. One reason I wasn't so ...
There have been a lot of words trying to explain why the Academy chose the last noteworthy King of England over the founder of Facebook. Here's one explanation: "The King's Speech" is an anesthetic movie, "The Social Network" an invigorating one—and their scripts' departures from the ...
The blogging scientist Minerva agrees with ME against the transhumanist on the future pressure to design or enhance your offspring or else. She's surprised that it's possible to agree with someone who was on Bush's Bioethics Council, but that may be because nobody told her there were lots of ...
Listen, I'm too old to REALLY care about Lady Gaga. But I've seen her on a couple of award shows and interviewed on SIXTY MINUTES. I gotta admit it: She has a kind of admirable self-discipline in her savvy, intense devotion to her art as she understands it. Unlike, say, Madonna or Taylor Swift ...
The transhumanist Kyle Munkittrick has come after me for not making arguments. Mainly he seems ticked off that I speculated that the biotechnological enhancement of children might well not be so voluntary. His response doesn't seem to me to be an argument: He asserts it will be voluntary. But ...
So I've said before evolution is getting more personal. I'm now going to say a few things about the personal point of view of our time. I'm just trying to lay out the facts as I see them among sophisticated Americans. Like about most social trends, the reasonable conclusion might be that things ...
So the BIG THINKers have reminded us that one of the most personal and technologically promising ideas of our time is DESIGNING BABIES--or making the result of our reproduction better than natural. I've had a lot to say on this prospect over the years. For now, I'll raise some considerations ...
Before talking more about happiness, I need to say something about the middle-class way of life we almost all live. To be middle class is to be a free being who works. An unfriendly way of describing "being in the middle" might come from some Marxist: We're free like aristocrats to work like ...
1. According to our really cool BIG THINK physicist, Michio Kaku, evolution has stopped for our species. 2. But that doesn't mean we can't change ourselves. 3. So, in the case of our species, impersonal natural evolution has been displaced by conscious and volitional evolution. 4. Natural ...
The author of our Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, carefully distinguished in private letters between the modern life devoted to the pursuit of happiness and happiness itself. He says that Epicurean philosophers found happiness through their serene recognition of the truth of atheistic materialism ...