We often say things we don't really mean, which is fine as long as what we say doesn't make its way to where it looks like we do mean it. Avoiding that is getting more and more difficult and the consequences are quite serious. Read more (8 min, 2000 words).
A quick-and-dirty piece on what the hell people mean by "eugenics", promted by the fallout from a tweet by Richard Dawkins. Read more(7 min, 1700 words).
It's common to hear "postmodernism" used as a snarl word against an ill-defined lump of ideas and attitudes hostile to the idea of objective truth and standards. I sympathize with this but also recognize that this is an inadequate conception of postmodernism. In this article I talk about what it is, what it's often used to mean, and how we need words to refer to vulgarized academic ideas. Read more (17 min, 4200 words).
I spent a week without a smartphone, prompting nostalgia about how things used to be done in the past and thoughts about smartphone addiction and what it does to our relationship with reality. Read more (12 min, 2900 words)
Everything Studies 