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How the Right's Odyssey Rage Shows They Will Never Win the Culture War

So Christopher Nolan has gone and done it. The absolute madman has committed the perfect sin. An act of treachery and defiance so brazen that only a .gif of Jack Nicholson nodding evilly can do it proper justice. He cast Lupita Nyong’o as, of all people, Helen of Troy.

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🔒 The Internet is An Ever Expanding Graveyard

Something has been bothering me for a little while now. It was exacerbated recently by a short essay by Dave Karpf about the fact that Bluesky isn’t taking off. Like, at all.  And I know a lot of you are going to say “Well, of course it’s not

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Richard Dawkins Was Never Truly a Skeptic

Everyone’s dunking on Professor Richard Dawkins right now for coming to the conclusion that Anthropic’s “Claude” AI is a conscious being. There are two lines of thought on this: One is that Dawkins is making some genuine and insightful philosophical inquiries as to the nature of consciousness from

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🔒 How the Right's Odyssey Rage Shows They Will Never Win the Culture War

So Christopher Nolan has gone and done it. The absolute madman has committed the perfect sin. An act of treachery and defiance so brazen that only a .gif of Jack Nicholson nodding evilly can do it proper justice. He cast Lupita Nyong’o as, of all people, Helen of Troy.

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We're Making Pluto a Planet Again, and Dinosaurs Didn't Have Feathers

Editor’s  note:  Due to some nonspecific but nevertheless, let’s say, rather terse communications from the office of US FCC Chairman Brendan Carr regarding my content recently, I have agreed to some changes to make this newsletter less "partisan." To that end, please welcome this week’s

Home

🔒 Richard Dawkins Was Never Truly a Skeptic

Everyone’s dunking on Professor Richard Dawkins right now for coming to the conclusion that Anthropic’s “Claude” AI is a conscious being. There are two lines of thought on this: One is that Dawkins is making some genuine and insightful philosophical inquiries as to the nature of consciousness from

Home

What is Social Media to Do About Its Monsters?

One thing that Substack and Bluesky have in common as social media platforms is that every so often a local controversy will pop off on one of them that the other will bang on about as another example about why they are great and that other place is an irredeemable

Home

🔒 We're Making Pluto a Planet Again, and Dinosaurs Didn't Have Feathers

Editor’s  note:  Due to some nonspecific but nevertheless, let’s say, rather terse communications from the office of US FCC Chairman Brendan Carr regarding my content recently, I have agreed to some changes to make this newsletter less "partisan." To that end, please welcome this week’s

Home

Trumpism is Winding Down, But Complacency is Not an Option

Little by little, glimpse by flickering glimpse, there are signs that we are pushing our way through to the other side of this ten-year chronic societal illness.  Last year there was the one-two punch of landslide federal elections in Australia and Canada that thoroughly rejected candidates who promised to be

Home

🔒 What is Social Media to Do About Its Monsters?

One thing that Substack and Bluesky have in common as social media platforms is that every so often a local controversy will pop off on one of them that the other will bang on about as another example about why they are great and that other place is an irredeemable

Home

Unstoppable Farce Meets Immovable Object

I haven’t written about the Iran War before now because the whole thing just infuriates me, but now I stew in bafflement at its pointless, brutal, stupidity. The most concise way that it can be summed up for future historians is this classic tweet from 2014: But the topic

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🔒 Trumpism is Winding Down, But Complacency is Not an Option

Little by little, glimpse by flickering glimpse, there are signs that we are pushing our way through to the other side of this ten-year chronic societal illness.  Last year there was the one-two punch of landslide federal elections in Australia and Canada that thoroughly rejected candidates who promised to be