November 2011
38 posts
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College Professors & Facebook →
What if professors started using the platforms of Facebook and Twitter as ground for the lecture hall? TED talks have become more and more popular, and the format that are used for them could easily be used for college lectures. Also, there could be a screen set up that would stream questions from Twitter using a specific hashtag. This has been used at conferences and business meetings quite...
October 2011
34 posts
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Insanity and Genius... →
I don’t know which one this is. It is seriously bordering that fine line between insanity and genius. I am going to hunt down whatever film comes out of this and watch it, that is for certain!
“Dau” by Ilya Khrzhanovsky
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“Liberty is the most precious possession of all mankind. Food and water are...”
– Victor Hugo
Here, the French novelist and author of Les Misérables (1862) eloquently expresses what we’d today call the deontological libertarian argument: freedom for freedom’s sake.
(via whakahekeheke)
Which is the reason why poverty-stricken people don’t EVER sale their children into...
A Teleological Suspension of a Blog Name: Response... →
attorneyatmetaphysicallaw:
Quick Note: This is a spur-of-the-moment writing and I have not developed my critique as fully as I would like to and I think there is a lot of unnecessary ideas and fluff here. Please consider this a rough draft.
The following passage is taken from the Some Objections section of J….
If this argument was expanded and tightened, I would appeal to it in an...
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On Rights
On Friday, I had the opportunity to meet with my political theory tutor and discuss the concept of rights. For starters, my tutor, Dr. Elford, is an extremely intelligent guy, but also so laid back and chill. He is who I want to be, when I get my Ph.D. He has got to only be in his late 20s/early 30s.
Anyways, we started off the conversation discussing what exactly rights are. Essentially,...
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What I'm Reading.
“Libertarianism without Inequality” by Michael Otsuka: A defense of left-libertarianism, and the idea that liberty should be highly valued but not at the cost of equality.
“Practical Ethics” by Peter Singer: An overview of various ethical topics, such as euthanasia, animal rights, abortion, and poverty. I am focusing on the section of poverty for my Oxford thesis.
...
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Thoughts From Last Semester: What say you?
I seek a philosophical idea that would combine both modernity and postmodernity in a way that bridges the gap between normalizing, oppressive meta-narratives within modern thought and the potentially chaotic and destructive desires of postmodernism. One thought I have had in my readings of postmodernism is a theory of the autonomous rationality of the individual. I would define this idea as one...
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Religion, Gods as Contingency? →
This article attempts to describe religion as contingency because of the multitude of belief systems and “gods” that are created by man.
I tend to agree that our individual (and even institutional) beliefs are as much influenced by culturally accepted norms as they are by any sort of revelation. However, I think that the anthropomorphization of gods speaks more to the inexplicable...
Reading about Aquinas’ natural law theory and thinking to myself, “Who really cares? Wasn’t this stuff invalidated years ago?”
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Philosopher, Christian, Afterlife Skeptic? →
Apparently, Niebuhr is someone I need to read. How he has managed to become influential in so many circles is very interesting… and something that few theologians or even Christian philosophers have or will be able to achieve.
Although I disagree with his concept of imperfectability, it is necessary to retain a skepticism towards utopian aspirations of various ideologies. It is quite...
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Who says we need to wait until Friday?
Found one of my new favorite Tumblr blogs: PoliticalProf.
Read through the most recent page of postings and already learned about SOF and how mixed up the GOP nomination race is. So much learning!
Any other similar blogs I should be aware of, with professors tumbling about politics or philosophy, preferably?
The Hipster Libertarian: Americans force innocent... →
aheram:
NPR is reporting that U.S. and Afghan soldiers have allegedly forced innocent villagers into a gruesome Death March:
Villagers from a violent part of southern Afghanistan say that Afghan troops, along with several American mentors, forced civilians to march ahead of soldiers on…
Oh dear God… And I revert to what Stanford psychologist and founder of the Stanford Prison...
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The Evil 1% →
creative-education:
The “occupy” protest movement is thriving off the claim that the 99% are being exploited by the 1%, and there is truth in what they say. But they have the identities of the groups wrong. They imagine that it is the 1% of highest wealth holders who are the problem. In fact, that 1% includes some of the smartest, most innovative people in the country – the people who invent,...
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Why I Will Be Supporting Obama in 2012. →
Reading through this, most of what he has done are things I would support. I don’t see many if any conflicts between my values and his, owing to the restricted power he has had with GOP stonewalling. Perhaps a bit too weak economically and too similar to Bush when it comes to the War on Terror, but otherwise I am supportive.
Official numbers are not kept on such things historically, but...
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Maybe where I am at, as well... →
thebogandtheriver:
My time at Oxford has been full of deep questions and concerns about faith. While I’ve been in a place of deep security in God’s plan— more so a challenging place wherein to learn to trust God— a lot of my conversations here with friends dig and pursue the things that crawl under our skin. Friends have been frustrated with church. I’ve been frustrated with church. We have felt...
Why do we have rights?
What I have to write about for my next Political Theory paper… Choice Theory, Interest Theory, and more!
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ShortFormBlog: Gov. Jerry Brown signs open-carry... →
shortformblog:
That makes them the fifth state to have such a ban: Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law amidst heavy opposition from pro-gun politicians and organizations. The law makes it a misdemeanor to carry an exposed, unloaded gun out in public or in one’s vehicle, with penalties ranging from a…
Thank God. What makes people think that allowing people to carry around guns...
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Morality? Whatever. →
kohenari:
One of central questions I raise in every one of my classes deals with the problem of morality. Specifically, I want my students to struggle with the idea that there might or might not be some overarching morality out there. But, of course, most of my students already believe that there is no such thing as an overarching morality to which we can appeal and they bristle at my argument...
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Billie Jean + Ukulele = →
Possibly the greatest thing ever. How does he do this? Michael Jackson on Hipster. So cool.
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Let Justice Emerge.
Why is everyone in such a rush to make demands of the Occupation Movement?
Do they not realize that it took years for the Nineteenth Amendment to emerge from the Women’s Suffrage movement in the United States?
Do they not realize that it took years for the Civil Rights Act to emerge from the civil rights movement?
Do they not realize that the Arab Spring originated as a leaderless,...
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Watchshortformblog:
capitalnewyork:
@OccupyTheHood
A reaction to OccupyWallStreet’s limited diversity: “With anything, the white community has a cold, we have the flu,” Malik, the group’s creator, says. The group, which is planning movements throughout the country, also has a Facebook page.
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I read Plato’s Euthyphro earlier today and I can’t get the ideas out of my mind… “is something pious because it is loved by the gods, or is something loved by the gods because it is pious?”
Taking this question that was asked by Socrates and applying it to a modern theistic understanding of God is not too troublesome, because he later qualifies that he is talking...
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