Marc’s work has that rare combination of academic research expertise and up to the minute commentary- highly recommend

Or iow, how an obsessive concern with moral clarity leads to moral nihilism; this is in all seriousness a lesson I need to take to heart

It’s interesting how obsessive focus on defeating one specific moral enemy eventually results in abandoning morality altogether

Awesome thanks!

We would err badly if we put all our resources into technical education. The microchip will not abolish the need for analysis, for insight and for judgment. Schools and universities must equip the young not only with the ability to operate the miraculous new instrumentalities but also with the will to use them for the greater benefit of the human adventure. Education must encompass ends as well as means. That is why the liberal arts must remain the heart of the educational enterprise. The liberal arts remind us that human wisdom long predates the Computer Revolution - that, smart as we think we are, we still have things to learn from Plato and from Confucius, from Augustine and from Machiavelli, from Shakespeare and from Tolstoy. The liberal arts balance past and future, drawing on the experience of our ancestors to meet challenges darkly ahead. Technical education helps us to live with the microchip. The liberal arts help us to live with ourselves. They unmask what Hawthorne called the Unpardonable Sin - self-pride, self-love. They offer the great entry into that most essential of human qualities, self-knowledge. They instruct us, and stimulate us, and provoke us, and chasten us. They remind us that, as Paul said, we are members one of another. The Founding Fathers were steeped in the classics. That is one reason they were able to invent a constitutional democracy that is still vibrant and strong after two centuries dominated by the law of acceleration. As we move into the mysterious twenty-first century, we need to know how to run computers. We need even more to know how to run ourselves.

someone cooked here

Wow- what’s this from??

No worries lmk next time you’re back; I’m about an hour south on 26, in Spartanburg, SC; I get up to Asheville all the time

In all seriousness though: God bless Minneapolis. A righteous city that we’re all indebted to.

I lived in Tucson [Desert Portland] for awhile and have lived close to Asheville [Mountain Portland] for over a decade. Can confirm

Less than 12 parsecs!

+1 for Russia.
However, I think that Radev, unlike Orbán, will have limits on how much he’ll support Russia’s narrative within the EU.
EU money are more important.

The indeterminacy of the eschaton is meant to keep you focused on changing yourself today, right now- because no one knows when the hour will arrive.

This is why scriptures like the Qur’an and the Bible command the reader to prepare themselves for the Day of Judgment, not try and bring it about.

Authoritarian techno-futurists: “we must retvrn to Western Civilization!!!”

Liberals, opening a copy of the Catholic Catechism: “ok”

“In 2025, 48% of Americans ages 18-29 could not name a single concentration or death camp… Another 53% of surveyed Americans said that they had encountered Holocaust ‘denial or distortion while on social media.’”

The mightiest societies were deeply pluralistic. Rome was not nationalist. The society that produced the algorithm- the Muslim ‘Abbasid Caliphate- was half non-Muslim. The America that destroyed Hitler was a nation of immigrants.

“Inclusion into what?”- into civilization dude! That’s how it works!

My reaction as well!

Indeed! Well said

The fear of pluralism is the fear that people you don’t understand will have the same rights as you, that’s what always comes down to

Just occurred to me that the Prophet Muhammad's injunction against destroying fruit-bearing trees during war (and the exceptions he ordered) takes on new meaning in this context

Destroying an oasis' palm trees doesn't just take out the tree

It destroys the ecology that allows the oasis to exist

Ah even better

So now American politics is doing Dönme stuff, neat

You can’t fake being good with kids. One of the first things that made me like both Obama and Mamdani.

And yes, this perspective brought to you by ☦️

He is arguing that the USSR was good bc it held the uniquely evil USA in check. This is a dismissal of the profound suffering caused by the USSR just so he can make a point about the USA. In this view, the world revolves the USA (and around the one holding this view). (2/2)

Piker is the perfect embodiment of Chomskian American exceptionalism- the negative inverse of the right wing version: America is uniquely evil, instead of uniquely good. Both are self-oriented and simplistic. And frankly American liberalism has put up with the former for far too long (1/2)

This is the America that liberals want, and the America that can’t be suppressed

Just tbc my point here is intended to address the op in the screen shot’s use of the term “moderate”, not @goldwagnathan.bsky.social; my apologies if it seemed otherwise

You and I are saying the same thing iow

Yes, I def agree about how religion can be used for evil. I’m just using the word here in the sense of it’s true and intended use- which is the same a an appeal to conscience, bc people doing bad things also say they’re following their conscience, etc

At the level of Islamic political thought, the contest between Iran and the Gulf is a contest btw two modern Islamic versions of reactionary authoritarianism; the key difference is the Gulf is pro-USA and monarchical and Iran is anti-USA and its own unique vanguardist theocracy