Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

So, David; direct responses to your criteria don’t merit a reply? Gottcha. You’d say of my list that “only Emmett Till and the Tulsa race riot qualify”. OK. If George Floyd was not cancelled, nor Ahmaud Arberry, Breonna Taylor, or Eric Garner, then Hy…

In reply to Michael Brazier. Michael B; There’s no evidence that catching Omicron “confers natural immunity to the other variants”; it does not really work that way for other diseases; so expecting that for COVID is unrealistic. Vaccines will always be…

In reply to David Potts. “They are what we should expect if vaccination isn’t very good at preventing infection but is good at preventing severity/death.” To be fair, they are also what we’d expect if the Omicron variant is considerab…

In reply to sean samis. Hi Sean, The first part of this does not merit a reply. As to your list of “cancelations,” I’d say only Emmett Till and the Tulsa race riot qualify. But what the hell— let them all in. Unless you approve of the…

The exception given (temporarily) to Djokovic raised moral and political issues, prompting the controversy; this satisfies your Second criteria. Depriving him of participating in the Australian Open caused him a harm; along with prize money, deportatio…

In reply to David Potts. David; There’s nothing in the ABC news data to indicate the effect of vaccines; so that data does not tell us much at all about Omicron and vaccines. It is sheer speculation for you to opine on what the data tells us. Since thi…

Hi Irfan, Novak Djokovic was not canceled. Obviously. However, I think it is a useful exercise to try to say exactly why. It may help to sharpen our—or my, anyway—ideas about cancelation and what we’re really talking about here. “Cancelation,” as it ap…

In reply to sean samis. I think that, prior to Omicron, the vaccines were pretty effective in preventing infection, as indicated by the data you show. But it’s pretty clear that the game has changed. With Omicron, the situation seems to be pretty…

In reply to Roderick T. Long. By the way, I had intended to cite your social justice paper in a “footnote” at the bottom, but the library was closing, so I had to hurry up and post the damn thing. But: for a brilliant argument that coheres with my own …