philosophy

“Woke” is a new ideology and its proponents should admit it
“What I find most fascinating about the wokeness culture war – and what makes it interesting – is that it is incredibly difficult to define what it is actually about.” I largely agree with this piece: it’s a new-ish thing (although not that new, it was around in LiveJournal days before catching on more widely) and it’s fair enough to identify it and give it a name.
(tags: liberalism woke Politics philosophy)

Liam Kofi Bright, White Psychodrama – PhilPapers
“I analyse the political, economic, and cultural circumstances that have given rise to persistent political disputes about race (known colloquially as “the culture war”) among a subset of Americans. I argue that they point to a deep tension between widely held normative aspirations and pervasive and readily observable material facts about our society. The characterological pathologies this gives rise to are discussed, and a normatively preferable path forward for an individual attempting to reconcile themselves to the current social order is suggested.”
(tags: race philosophy politics culture)

Covid fears have stopped social dancing in its tracks. – The Washington Post
“Some day, we’ll hit the dance floor again. And it will be glorious.”

Books mention “hope”. What *was* “hope”?
(tags: covid19 dancing lindy-hop swing)

Cluster of Coronavirus Disease Associated with Fitness Dance Classes, South Korea – Volume 26, Number 8—August 2020 – Emerging Infectious Diseases journal – CDC
“During 24 days in Cheonan, South Korea, 112 persons were infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 associated with fitness dance classes at 12 sports facilities. Intense physical exercise in densely populated sports facilities could increase risk for infection. Vigorous exercise in confined spaces should be minimized during outbreaks.”
(tags: dance health covid19)
Philosophy in the Shadow of Nazism | The New Yorker
The Vienna Circle
(tags: empiricism philosophy)

There’s a lot wrong with this viral list about the Lisbon Treaty – Full Fact
A large number of our readers have asked us to factcheck a list of claims about the Lisbon Treaty, or “what will actually happen if we stay in the EU”, which has gone viral on social media.

The list has appeared in numerous versions across different platforms since mid-December. The text at the beginning and end is often different, but the central list of claims is virtually identical across most of the versions we’ve seen.

Much of it is wrong. The list is a mixture of false claims, and claims that have some truth but could be misleading given the context.
(tags: brexit politics lisbon propaganda eu europe)

Stoicism’s Appeal to the Rich and Powerful – Ex Urbe

(tags: stoicism philosophy)

How to Buy a Car Without Interacting With a Human – The Toast
I wonder whether this works in the UK…
(tags: shopping cars money car)
Debugging Vim by example – David Winterbottom
“This post illustrates a range of debugging and profiling approaches for Vim by walking through real issues I’ve recently investigated, diagnosed and resolved. “
(tags: vim debugging)

Quine’s Naturalism – 3:AM Magazine
“Sense data, Quine came to realize, are just as much theoretical posits as the electrons, bacteria, and chromosomes we supposedly construct from them. We do not see ‘patches of green, brown, and grey’ when we are walking through a forest; we see trees, logs, and squirrels. This is why it requires severe training to teach amateur painters to reproduce their everyday three-dimensional view of the world on a two-dimensional canvas.”
(tags: quine philosophy naturalism science epistemology)
Parliament is now at war with government – and it’s winning
“The content of Theresa May’s defeats over the last couple of days isn’t particularly meaningful, but the fact they happened at all suggests that parliament’s guerrilla war against the government has started. And it seems to be winning.”
(tags: constitution brexit politics parliament)

Ask HN: Best way to learn modern C++? | Hacker News
Thread with book and video recommendations
(tags: c++ programming)
Epistemic extremism – UseOfReason
Contra Internet (“shoe”) atheism: I don’t need to be able to prove a thing to you before I can rationally believe it.
(tags: philosophy belief epistemology Atheism proof)
Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes
How Office Lens might do it, but open source. Introduces various colour spaces.
(tags: images python colour RGB HSV)