Ballot Prayers: Exploring the Implications of a Democratic Faith
The January 6th Insurrection is often framed as a direct assault on democracy. While there are certainly good reasons for doing so, casting the...
The Invader, Self-Knowledge: Four Science Fiction Films that Intuit the Human Future. Part 1:...
Ex Machina (2014)
Arrival (2016)
Annihilation (2018)
I Am Mother (2019)
I am a huge science fiction film buff. In my adolescence, I was a prolific reader of so...
Someone Else’s Story: Cultural Appropriation in Fiction
My novel, A Beautiful Land, tells the story of a land that is physically beautiful but once was a place of terror. As I...
Reviving Electoral Democracy
It sometimes seems that we approach the theory and practice of democracy with one hand clasped firmly behind our back. Although reams of ink...
To Salt or Not to Salt the Pasta Water: A Reflection on “Useless” Human...
I love the weird bends of our behavior that come about from taking our made-up rules too seriously. This phenomenon seems to me like...
Is There a Silver Lining to Algorithm Bias? (Part 1)
In a world where AI’s reach continues to expand, the challenge of managing algorithm bias has become increasingly apparent. The recent missteps by Google's...
Mistaking Good Looks for Goodness: Yusuf Dikeç and the Halo Effect
You can’t miss it. Turkish marksman, Yusuf Dikeç, has gone viral. People are praising his cool demeanor and ‘novel’ ‘effortless’ technique. What does this...
Reconsidering Truth and Politics
In 2016 the sociologist Arlie Hochschild published Strangers in Their Own Land. The book appeared in the final days of that year’s presidential election...
Property and Contract Are Dead. Long Live Economic Rights!
“It passed away, as most social systems do, in its sleep, leaving its citizens unaware that it was gone. No society more fully reflects...
A Drama for the Sages
The performance might have been plugged as “Only Philosophers in the Building.” This past March, for Kant’s 300th birthday, the North American Kant Society...