Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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(Our World in Data) Bans on highly toxic pesticides could be an effective way to save lives from suicide
Pesticide poisoning is a common method of suicide in many low- to middle-income countries. Banning highly toxic pesticides and substituting them with less fatal ones can save lives.
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(Policy of Truth) Goya’s “Lucha Con Palos” (1820-23)
Francisco Goya, “Fight with Cudgels,” (1820-23) It’s not the most famous, but it is, I think, the best of Goya’s malevolent paintings. The genius of the painting is its sheer strangeness: at first sight, it seems commonplace, but on second glance, something about it seems off, and that second glance provokes questions. The two fighters…
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(QC RSS) Motives
d’aww
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(xkcd.com) Pull
This is a syndicated post, originally published by xkcd.com at xkcd.com.
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( Comments for Policy of Truth ) Comment on Great Moments in Pedagogy by Roderick T. Long
He wants to win the tragedy contest in the Festival of Dionysus.Glad I could help. LikeLike
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(Policy of Truth) Great Moments in Pedagogy
Professor, can I ask you a question? What does Sophocles want? –Exasperated student to my friend Charles Persky, Professor of English at Hunter College, City University of New York (1970-2017)
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(The Comics Curmudgeon) Egyptomania
Comics Curmudgeon readers! Do you love this blog and yearn for a novel written by its creator? Well, good news: Josh Fruhlinger’s The Enthusiast is that novel! It’s even about newspaper comic strips, partly. Check it out! Mary Worth, 8/31/25 Yes, Olive, you “saw” that she was struggling in the water, with your “eyes,” as…
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(The Comics Curmudgeon) Ancient-ish times
Comics Curmudgeon readers! Do you love this blog and yearn for a novel written by its creator? Well, good news: Josh Fruhlinger’s The Enthusiast is that novel! It’s even about newspaper comic strips, partly. Check it out! Hagar the Horrible, 8/30/25 Look, despite the fun (“fun”) I have here detailing all the anachronisms in Hagar…
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(Danny O’Brien’s Oblomovka) LLMs for the Old and Infirm
A few people have asked me (an old man) how I manage to use LLMs in my life without being driven insane by their horrid new-fangledness, their hallucinations, their wanton sycophancy, the hype, the grift, and the everpresent risk of being lured into psychosis. The simple answer is that, as a command-line fogey, I use…
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(A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry) Fireside Friday, August 27, 2025 (On Defending History)
Hey folks, Fireside this week! As I noted a couple of weeks ago, things are probably going to get more than a little fireside-y over the next few weeks, simply because of the start of the semester – and a semester in which I am undertaking a set of entire new preps (that is, teaching…
Got any book recommendations?