David Roth memorably described the job of neoliberal economists as finding “new ways to say ‘actually, your boss is right.’” Cory Doctorow If science has value, it lies in its independence from considerations of political power. Objective truth, insofar as we can determine it, requires no further validation. The biological theories of Trofim Lysenko areContinue reading “On the science of economics”
Tag Archives: philosophy
On the real and the virtual
It’s coming from the feelthat this ain’t exactly real,or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there. Leonard Cohen, “Democracy” A few weeks ago, we came home to a sad discovery: the corpse of a male goldcrest on our kitchen windowsill. They are tiny, beautifully-feathered birds, and we hadn’t even realised we had them living nearby.Continue reading “On the real and the virtual”
On the death of a thousand cuts
For if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated hisContinue reading “On the death of a thousand cuts”
On patriotism
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Doctor Samuel Johnson Let me begin by distinguishing firmly between love of one’s country, on the one hand, and love of one’s government on the other. Governments of all stripes routinely wish to conflate the two, for the obvious reason that a government’s life would be muchContinue reading “On patriotism”
On the self-limiting nature of stupidity
Texas farm blaze kills 18,000 cows in deadliest barn fire on record in the US Headline in THe Guardian, 14/04/2023 It is not, of course, news that people do stupid things. People have been doing stupid things for as long as there have been people. I don’t have statistics for this, because no such statisticsContinue reading “On the self-limiting nature of stupidity”
On creeds
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason It’s Easter week as I write this, and an apt time, perhaps, to talk about creeds. A creed isContinue reading “On creeds”
Garbage in, garbage out
On two occasions I have been asked, “Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” … I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher[ Once upon aContinue reading “Garbage in, garbage out”
On renunciation
Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging. St Francis of Assisi I’m writing these words on the first dayContinue reading “On renunciation”
On living in the moment
Sometimes it doesn’t matter that there was any time before this time. Sometimes it doesn’t matter that it’s night or day or now or then. Sometimes where you are is enough. It’s not that time stops or that it hasn’t started. This is time. You are here. Jeanette Winterson, The Gap of Time Once uponContinue reading “On living in the moment”
On the return of the peasant
The most dramatic and far-reaching social change of the second half of [the twentieth] century, and one that cuts us off forever from the world of the past, is the death of the peasantry. Eric Hobsbawm I fear I must disagree with the late Professor Hobsbawm. The death of the peasantry has been much exaggerated,Continue reading “On the return of the peasant”
The sound of falling leaves 