Thanks for visiting my blog. About the top third of what I write goes into the "Above average quality" category, so that's a good place to start browsing. I have a book form PDF of my best essays titled "Something to read in quarantine: Essays 2018-2020". It's free and you can grab it here. If … Continue reading Welcome to de Pony Sum
The real climax of Call Me By Your Name
So I watched CMBYN for the first time on Sunday, and I have a theory about the real climax of the film. Maybe it's a bit pretentious for someone who has seen the film once to share a theory in a world of super fans, but here goes. As we've all noticed, the question "is … Continue reading The real climax of Call Me By Your Name
When people ask me how I write about so many different things and have so many ideas…
Deliberately awful ideas for aspiring authors
Almost anyone can, with careful prose and years of practice, take a brilliant idea and make at least an okay story out of it. But taking an awful idea and making it work- that's the sign of a true master (is it? I dunno, but it sounded cool).And who knows, maybe some of them will … Continue reading Deliberately awful ideas for aspiring authors
Welfare economics for humans
At the moment I’m doing a PhD in political economy. I am about six months in and as part of the process I have to write up a precis of my thesis and its core arguments. I thought it might be nice to share it here, so the thesis can benefit from the wisdom and … Continue reading Welfare economics for humans
You don’t have a first amendment right not to be censored on Facebook, but maybe you should.
One of the funniest things on the internet is when people claim that Facebook deleting their posts is forbidden by the first amendment of the United States. As a matter of contemporary legal theory, they haven’t got a leg to stand on. Yet I want to argue that maybe, in a better world, they’d be … Continue reading You don’t have a first amendment right not to be censored on Facebook, but maybe you should.
Life lessons I squeezed from a lifelong severe mental illness
In the past I've written both an essay on the philosophical aspects of what I learnt from OCD and another essay on the practical measures that helped me keep it under control. Now I wanted to convey the little life lessons I learnt from decades of chronic mental pain. Stuff that isn't directly about the … Continue reading Life lessons I squeezed from a lifelong severe mental illness
Two memes, one light hearted, the other less so
A little comment on Australia's recent tax cuts- please share around: And finally, I decided to face merge my two celebrity crushes (crushi is the correct plurarl actually- ed), Felix Biderman and Sufjan Stevens and it made Timothee Chalamet?
A different consequentialism
I don’t know if the views I outline here are novel or not- I asked some professional ethicist friends and they weren’t sure. I know that G.E. Moore said somewhat similar things, but I still need to do some reading to discern how similar. That’s next on the list once I get over this fever. … Continue reading A different consequentialism
What form of ethics is the least subject to rationalising what you wanted to do anyway?
"And now it frightens me, the dreams that I possessTo think I was acting like a believer, when I was just angry and depressed" -Sufjan Stevens, Ascension By rationalising ethics I mean finding an "ethical" argument for what you wanted to do anyway. You might think that a disadvantage of consequentialism as compared to deontology … Continue reading What form of ethics is the least subject to rationalising what you wanted to do anyway?
Results of the Justice & Mercy Survey
So you may be wondering why it has taken me so long to post the results of the Justice and Mercy survey. The truth is, the results themselves were uninteresting. Negative results all round, almost astonishingly so. There was no association between any of the demographic factors and mercy. There was no association between your … Continue reading Results of the Justice & Mercy Survey
