Comments Elsewhere

I’ve heard too many people in the last two weeks going on and on about how what will really solve the problems with the Federal government is if they’d just repeal the 17th amendment and get rid of direct election of Senators. I have a better suggestion, while we’re repealing shit. #AbolishTheSenate

MonkeyWrench Books is a great anarchist bookstore in Austin, which very kindly offered us a venue for a book talk during the Markets Not Capitalism tour a couple years back. Here’s what they are working on now, please consider tossing a few coins in the hat: “The radical, all-volunteer collective I worked at earlier this year, MonkeyWrench Books, is looking to renovate and partner their space with Red Rabbit Cooperative Bakery! In addition to this, they’re hoping to build custom-made bookshelves, tables and display racks; redo their floors, as well as stock up their shelves with new titles from ranging categories. To do this, they’re looking for a few bucks from whoever might sympathetic to their cause. Any donated amount will only get them closer to their goal! Support these projects, for you can’t get better synergy than a volunteer collective and a worker coop joining forces.”

O.K., here are my controversial philosophical theses for the day. 1. Acidic soil is good for azaleas. 2. The fact that acidic soil is good for azaleas is a fact about nature. 3. The color of an azalea (for example, the fact that it is red) is a property of the azalea. 4. Mathematical facts (for example, the relationship between the horizontal distance, vertical distance, and direct-line distance between me and the azalea) can be objects of direct perception. Now it’s time to go read “The Clouds.”

So now I’m seriously arguing about whether or not it’s a fact about nature that tree poison is bad for trees.

American hero. #AbolishThePolice

So hey, FTR: if you’re debating about moral realism with someone, and you point out that something is a “value judgment,” that’s not actually a telling point against the moral realist. “Value judgment” only means “something other than a fact about the world” if you begin by assuming that moral realism is false. Moral realists don’t begin with that assumption.

Good God I want to destroy the Java Virtual Machine and all of its works.

Things I am picking up from reading Aristophanes: grown men in classical Athens apparently thought that dumping a jug of water on everyone was really, really funny.

A. Because he is the President of the United States. #AbolishThePresidency #StopDeportation #AbolishICE #PoliticiansWontSaveUs

Suppose you had a Passive Spectator time machine. You can’t use it to change anything, only to observe or record a past thing or event just as it was. Let’s say it consumes an obscene amount of energy to run it, so practically speaking you could use it only two or three times in a century. What would you use it to find out or bring back?