• Yes, Your Opinion Can Be Wrong

    Yes, Your Opinion Can Be Wrong

    The worst phrase to show up in any discussion: “It’s just my opinion.” Is your opinion informed with cogent facts? It could very well be right. And more than likely, you will not preface the statement with “It’s just my opinion…’ Is your opinion something you pull out of your…

  • #baristalarry has an #esprorience

    #baristalarry has an #esprorience

    Stopping in to @bmc_denton, Barrista Larry makes a latte with a little help from our Customer Service Mgr, Aaron, and then has a full-on esprorience. 😉

  • Why are the most important people in media reading The Awl?

    All swept along by algorithms of persistent evolution. A nice companion piece to the blog entry from Philosophical Disquisitions on the import–philosophically and sociologically–for thinking the importance of algorithms in our lives… But Herrman and Buchanan are wary of the distorting effects [social media] platforms bring. There’s a sense that social…

  • The nerd’s guide to learning everything online

    The nerd’s guide to learning everything online

    When I meet youth who have gaps in their education about American or World history, American or World literature, or the basics of science, I recommend them to find John Green’s Crash Course project with this brother,  Hank. Fill in some of those gaps, and have a good time doing it. Indeed,…

  • The Philosophical Importance of Algorithms

    The Philosophical Importance of Algorithms

    Interesting insights from a philosopher I will be keeping an eye on… Once we appreciate the increasing ubiquity of algorithms, and once we understand the two translation problems, the need to think critically about algorithms becomes much more apparent. If algorithms are going to be the lifeblood of modern technological…

  • The Impossibility of Hugging Yourself

    When we apply this idea to infant development, it becomes clear that focusing on the sense of touch forces us to see the infant in a more active role where s/he has to “reach out” towards the world and comprehend an object outside themselves that is different from them. Through…

  • #blacklivesmatter Socio-economic conditions across the US

    According to Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Senior Director of the Economic Department at the NAACP Financial Freedom Center, “It’s one thing to end segregation, but it’s another thing to talk about billions of dollars of investment.” When the United States invested in a middle class in the 1940s and 1950s, it was…

  • The Radical Solution is Absolution

    The Radical Solution is Absolution

    We are exhausted by capitalism. The problem: how do I make a living without others taking advantage of me or without me taking advantage of others? This is a serious question and one that must be wrestled with at every age. A solution that makes any investment of self morally worthwhile…

  • #Fracketeering: Solutions for the Society of Control

    #Fracketeering: Solutions for the Society of Control

    My colleague Adam Briggle has been very active intellectually and politically with local bans on fracking in my hometown of Denton. In a dialog we had recently, I mentioned to him that fracking bans–and the ban on bans–could be read differently than helping the oil and gas industry at the expense…

  • Fracking and environmental (in)justice in a Texas city

    Ecological Economics publishes a peer reviewed econo,if and environmental justice study of shale gas development in my hometown of Denton, Texas. The article is co-authored by my  colleagues Matthew Fry, Jordan Kincaid and Adam Briggle. You can access the full text for free here until August 22nd. The authors encourage sharing far and…

  • The Tribe Official TRAILER (2015)

    Ukrainian director Grigoriy Fesenko’s “The Tribe”–about a deaf teenager struggling to fit into the boarding school system–happens in sign language with no subtitles. Looks brilliant.

  • Buddhism and Psychedelic Methods

    Buddhism and Psychedelic Methods

    Austin Hill Shaw examines the nature of creativity, cosmology and psychedelic communion. Shaw practices in the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition, “taking refuge in the Buddhist path” since 2002. Rather than seeing the use of psychedelic substances as antithetical to a Buddhist practice, Shaw considers them as a powerful, “occasional”, means for…

  • From “Remediation” to “No Excuses”: The Indignity of Deficit Thinking | the becoming radical

    While apologists for Southern heritage remain unable or unwilling to confront the blatant racism of the Confederacy, many today remain nearly universal in our inability or unwillingness to recognize and then confront racism, classism, and sexism in the form of deficit thinking. Deficit thinking, as Stephens represented, is imposing onto groups…

  • International Peace Scholarship for Emmanuela Opoku

    Emmanuela Opoku, my wonderful colleague and fellow in @UNT_Philosophy‘s PhD program, has been awarded a $5,000 International Peace Scholarship from the Philanthropic Educational Organization (P.E.O.) Opoku, a native of Ghana, came to North Texas in the 2014 fall semester to further her studies in environmental ethics and philosophy. Her research project focuses on floods…

  • Further down into the microcosm

    Emilie Ringe stands next to the new Titan Themis gives researchers the ability to create three-dimensional structural reconstructions and carry out electric field mapping of subnanoscale materials. © Fair use for educational purposes Rice University, renowned for nanoscale science, has installed microscopes that will allow researchers to peer deeper than…

  • Project Vox

    Project Vox concerns the next major scholarly development: the acknowledgement that a number of early modern women have been unjustly ignored in our narratives. From Lady Masham, Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway in England to Émilie Du Châtelet in France, many women played significant roles in the development of modern…

  • Interrupting Pride for Black Lives

    Black, queer, trans, criminalized – the young people who put together Sunday’s event are living on the front lines of struggle in this country. They are to our times what the early trailblazers of the gay rights movement were to theirs. They have been deemed disposable. The abuse they endure…

  • SCOTUS: Constitutional Right to Same-Sex Marriage

    SCOTUS: Constitutional Right to Same-Sex Marriage

    Still waiting for the mandate of when this will go into effect but, as Justice Anthony Kennedy said, ” The constitution promises liberty to all within its reach.” Expect folks like Gov. Abbott of Texas and Gov. Jindal of Louisiana to slow walk implementation. via Same-Sex Marriage Legal Nationwide, Supreme…