Like most authors today, I am expected to hustle a great deal–to ‘market’ my books. I am supposed to set out a shingle on social media–like a Facebook page, or a special Twitter account. I should post news of reviews, flattering things that people have said about my writing, and provide updates on podcasts, interviewsContinue reading “Self-Promotion And Failures Of Generosity”
Category Archives: Technology
Melting Glaciers And The End Of Civilization
These are the days of grim warnings about climate change, about an overheated, crowded, polluted planet, slowly cooking in a noxious stew of greenhouse gases, its rivers and oceans clogged with plastic and crude oil, its animals dying, its cities drowning, as floods and famine and hurricane and arctic freezes deliver blow after blow toContinue reading “Melting Glaciers And The End Of Civilization”
Praising One Partner, Dissing The Other
Sometimes, on Facebook, an innocent will post a photograph of himself and his female partner, and be greeted with a slew of admiring comments and ‘likes’. These will often be things like ‘you guys look great together’ or ‘fabulous couple!’ Sometimes there are comments about the wife or girlfriend’s looks: ‘X is beautiful’ or ‘XContinue reading “Praising One Partner, Dissing The Other”
Paying Attention To The Muses’ Visits
In The Year of Magical Thinking–a book on which I will write a bit more anon–Joan Didion quotes her late husband, John Gregory Dunne, as saying that having a notebook handy–to write down a thought, an idea, filed away for future reference and deployment–was the difference between being able to write and not. There is muchContinue reading “Paying Attention To The Muses’ Visits”
A Most Irritating Affectation
The most irritating affectation of the modern intellectual is to pretend to be technically incompetent. I exaggerate, of course, but I hope you catch my drift. Especially if you’ve encountered the specimen of humanity that I have in mind. (Mostly on social media, but often in person too.) The type is clearly identified: a clearlyContinue reading “A Most Irritating Affectation”
Learning From Freud: Addiction, Distraction, Schedules
In An Anatomy of an Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and The Miracle Drug Cocaine, Howard Markel writes: At some point in every addict’s life comes the moment when what started as a recreational escape devolves into an endless reserve of negative physical, emotional, and social consequences. Those seeking recovery today call this drug-induced nadir a “bottom.”…TheContinue reading “Learning From Freud: Addiction, Distraction, Schedules”
Schwitzgebel On Our Moral Duties To Artificial Intelligences
Eric Schwitzgebel asks an interesting question: Suppose that we someday create artificial beings similar to us in their conscious experience, in their intelligence, in their range of emotions. What moral duties would we have to them? Schwitzgebel’s stipulations are quite extensive, for these beings are “similar to us in their conscious experience, in their intelligence,Continue reading “Schwitzgebel On Our Moral Duties To Artificial Intelligences”
Flirting With Perfection: Spelling It Out
We often dream of perfection, but we rarely, if ever, achieve it. There was one exceedingly minor business, in one all too brief period, in which I did attain such heights: my spelling prowess in my early school grades. I do not know if I ever attained the competency levels of those who excel atContinue reading “Flirting With Perfection: Spelling It Out”
Mark Bennett Is A Sexist Tool
Over at the blog Defending People, Mark Bennett, a Houston-based criminal defense lawyer, writes a long, technical, closely argued post critiquing Danielle Citron‘s putative rebuttals of arguments–based on First Amendment concerns–against her proposals for ‘revenge porn’ laws. Bennett titles his post ‘F**ing Danielle Citron’ and at the end signs off thusly: P.S. “F**king” is fisking.Continue reading “Mark Bennett Is A Sexist Tool”
The Pietà, The Hammer, And The Stain
In The Renaissance: A Short History, Paul Johnson writes: [Michelangelo’s] first important commission, a Pietà (Mary with the dead Christ) [was] intended for the tomb of a French cardinal in Rome…It is by any standards a mature and majestic work, combining strength (the Virgin) and pathos (the Christ), nobility and tenderness, a consciousness of human fragility andContinue reading “The Pietà, The Hammer, And The Stain”
Samir Chopra 