The middle manager that doesn’t perform any useful work is a fun stereotype, but I also think it’s a good target to aim for. The difference lies in what to do once one has rendered oneself redundant. A common response is to invent new work, ask for status reports, and add bureaucracy. A better response is to go back to working on technical problems. This keeps the manager’s skills fresh and gets them more respect from their reports. The manager should turn into a high-powered spare worker, rather than a paper-shuffler.

doing a reverse mary sue self-insert where you make up an oc and give them all of your worst personality traits

To me there’s nothing powerful or subversive about this lexicon: it smacks more of a (literally) infantile fixation. Which makes it difficult to see why women would want to reclaim it.

I love the idea that Ayanokoji is actually mid at chess LOL.

This shit is stone cold.

In this speech, I tell the story of Captain Richard de Crespigny and Qantas Flight 32, and draw from it a lesson about the power of reasons. I hope you enjoy the speech and find it stimulating.

This is a video lecture on chapter 17, titled “Values in a Scientific World”, of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book, ‘Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?’ The argument that this chapter considers is one that claims that if one follow’s Occam’s Razor, then one ought to reject the reality of objective moral facts or laws. This is an argument for moral skepticism, and Shafer-Landau offers several responses to it and in defense of moral objectivism. In the end, he claims that this use of occam’s razor defeats itself. This lecture is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

Occam’s razor applies only to descriptive facts, not normative ones.

This is a video lecture about the different between descriptive claims or laws, on the one hand, and normative claims or laws, on the other. I also explain three different varieties of normativity: the moral, the prudential, and the epistemic. This video was originally produced for use in an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics. But it is a stand-alone explanation, so it can be used in any other context.

This is a lecture about chapter 14 of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book ‘Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?’ This chapter is about the popular argument that starts from the claim that there is persistent disagreement about moral matters to the conclusion that there are no objective moral facts or laws. Shafer-Landau is able to turn this argument against moral skepticism itself. This is a pretty long video lecture, but I spend a lot of time modifying the argument, which should be helpful in learning how to deal with arguments themselves. This is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

This video lecture builds off of a reading by MacKinnon & Fiala, wherein they canvas four arguments or reasons that moral skepticism or relativism are attractive. In the video I only discuss two of these reasons : (1) the existence pervasiveness, and persistence of moral disagreement and (2) the diversity of situations in which moral agents find themselves. This is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

Specifically, Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, “Chapter 3. Ethical Relativism » Reasons Supporting Ethical Relativism.”

This is a lecture about chapter 11 of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book ‘Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?’ It deals with Moral Skepticism, Moral Nihilism, Moral Subjectivism, Moral Relativism, as well as the global versions of all of these views, which are self-defeating. All of the uses of “Moral” are understood as equivalent to “Ethical”. This lecture is part of an introductory-level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

This is a short lecture video about a common argument that one often hears for the claim the truth of some claims are relative. The argument stems from the fact that different people have different perspectives and that those different perspectives are, in some sense, equal. All that is true, but it does not show the matters about which people have different perspectives are not factual matters regarding which some beliefs are simply truth and others simply false.

This is a video lecture about chapter 3 (“Moral Error”) of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book ‘Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?’. The argument relies on a distinction between internal and external moral critiques. This is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

This is a lecture about the metaethical terminology used by Shafer-Landau in chapter 3 of his book, “Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?” The theories distinguished include: moral objectivism, moral skepticism, cultural moral relativism, moral subjectivism, error theory (about moral discourse), and non-cognitivism (about moral discourse). It is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics, in the Metaethics unit of that course.

This is a lecture video about a short selection from book 3 of David Hume’s famous work of philosophy, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40). Hume was an empiricist. The lecture of basically a presentation of his argument from empiricism to the conclusion that there are no genuine, objective moral facts residing in actions themselves (rather, there are only sentiments of moral disapprobation or disapproval in us). This lecture of part of Introduction to Ethics.

Dealing with burnout is sooooooooooooooo easy all you need to do is operate at 40% indefinitely and be kind of mad at yourself the whole time.

A counterexample is any exception to a generalization. Counterexamples  are often used in science (and philosophy), as a means to setting boundaries. In mathematics at large,  well-chosen counterexamples may  bound possible theorems, disprove certain conjectures. This conspectus is (mostly) meant to gather and share counterexample book references (on algebra, analysis, calculus, logic, philosophy, probability, statistics, topology).

Most rejected, and all institutions let the clock run out on the deal. Guess Kornbluth set a trend. Trump has expanded the compact to all colleges: we’ll see if anyone bites.