October 6, 2021
For my sins, I recently stumbled back onto Twitter. The first casualty of social media is peace of mind—but since I’m also reading about stoicism, which places tranquility as the highest good, I’ve resolved not to use social media to amplify messages of distress and outrage. And boosting these messages is something I used to […]
September 9, 2021
I have conflicted feelings about computers. As a boy, I loved nature and playing in the garden more than anything. I thought computers were sinister, inherently bad, maybe even evil. Then, around 1990, my parents bought my brother and I an Amiga 500. At first, I was disappointed. What did I want with a computer […]
August 25, 2019
How should we live, considering that human history–as we’ve known it so far–may be coming to an end? If the ice caps melt, if the Amazon burns, if the world becomes a hot and desperate place we will lose the narrative of progress and security upon which our choices and values are based. What is […]
June 11, 2019
If we believe that consciousness is the only ground of meaning and value (i.e. a universe without any conscious beings to experience it might as well not exist) then three conclusions may follow. 1) There would be nothing more worthwhile doing than enriching the conscious experience of self and others through activities like philosophy, meditation, […]
July 27, 2015
The Story of Stuff is a powerful indictment of consumerism. In twenty minutes it paints a horrific picture of the planet-stripping supply chain that furnishes us with ephemeral gizmos. For instance, did you know that for every binload of recycling you put out, there are 70 bins of waste produced further up the chain? Most astonishing is […]