updated remaining images

content/post/George-Wills-American-Conservatism.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Will On American Conservatism"
 date: 2020-03-31T16:23:15Z
 tags: ["conservatism"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "politics"]
+image: /img/will-conservatism.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "american-conservatism|/img/will-conservatism.jpg|The Conservative Sensibility" >}}
-
 George Will, On The Character of American Conservatism (From his book "[The Conservative Sensibility](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Conservative-Sensibility-George-F-Will/dp/0316480940/)" )
 
 ------

content/post/freedom-and-its-betrayal.md

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ title: "Freedom and Its Betrayal"
 date: 2020-03-29T15:55:08Z
 tags: ["freedom", "Rousseau", "enlightenment"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "politics"]
-image: isaiah-berlin.jpg
+image: /img/isaiah-berlin.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 

content/post/hayek-on-social-justice.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Hayek on Social Justice"
 date: 2020-03-04T11:41:56Z
 tags: ["hayek", "social justice", "socialism"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "politics"]
+image: /img/hayek.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "friedrich-hayek|/img/hayek.jpg|Friedrich A Hayek" >}}
-
 Did you know that Friedrich Hayek wrote extensively on the topic of Social Justice and Progressivism? One of the best places to look for his wisdom on the topic is "[Law, Legislation, and Liberty](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Law-Legislation-Liberty-statement-principles/dp/0415522293)". He devotes an *entire* chapter to the subject, there. Here is an extended snippet from that chapter:
 
 > It is perhaps not surprising that men should have applied to the joint effects of the actions of many people, even where these were never foreseen or intended, the conception of justice which they had developed with respect to the conduct of individuals towards each other. ‘Social’ justice... came to be regarded as an attribute which the ‘actions’ of society, or the ‘treatment’ of individuals and groups by society, ought to possess. As primitive thinking usually does when first noticing some regular processes, the results of the spontaneous ordering of the market were interpreted as if some thinking being deliberately directed them, or as if the particular benefits or harm different persons derived from them were determined by deliberate acts of will, and could therefore be guided by moral rules. This conception of ‘social’ justice is thus a direct consequence of that anthropomorphism or personification by which naive thinking tries to account for all self-ordering processes...

content/post/is-ought-a-semantic-solution.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Is-Ought: A Semantic Solution"
 date: 2020-06-19T22:03:54Z
 tags: ["hume", "is-ought dichotomy", "metaphysics"]
 topics: ["philosophy"]
+image: /img/lassie-and-timmy.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "lassie-and-timmy|/img/lassie-and-timmy.jpg|Lassie and Timmy" >}}
-
 David Hume is famous for the "is-ought" problem, which comes from this famous passage, in his "Treatise on Human Nature":
 
 > In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. **For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained;** and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. (Treatise 3.1.1)

content/post/locke-destroys-filmer-with-facts-and-logic.md

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ title: "Locke Destroys Filmer With Facts and Logic"
 date: 2020-05-17T20:29:14Z
 tags: ["locke", "filmer"]
 topics: ["philosophy"]
+image: /img/pwned.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
@@ -17,5 +18,3 @@ The opening paragraphs had me in stitches:
 > *If any one think I take too much liberty in speaking so freely of a man, who is the great champion of absolute power, and the idol of those who worship it; I beseech him to make this small allowance for once, to one, who, even after the reading of sir Robert’s book, cannot but think himself, as the laws allow him, a freeman: and I know no fault it is to do so, unless any one, better skilled in the fate of it than I, should have it revealed to him, that this treatise, which has lain dormant so long, was, when it appeared in the world, to carry, by strength of its arguments, all liberty out of it; and that, from thenceforth, our author’s short model was to be the pattern in the mount, and the perfect standard of politics for the future..."*
 
 SIR ROBERT FILMER: YOU HAVE BEEN PWNED.
-
-{{< fluid_imgs "pwned|/img/pwned.jpg|PWNED" >}}

content/post/marxism-and-exploitation.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Marxism and Exploitation"
 date: 2020-05-11T20:12:45Z
 tags: ["marx", "exploitation"]
 topics: ["philosophy","politics"]
+image: /img/lady-labor.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "lady-labor|/img/lady-labor.jpg|Lady Labor" >}}
-
 What is exploitation?
 
 Marxists make a great deal of hay out of the term. What are they talking about?

content/post/oakeshott-on-being-a-conservative.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Oakeshott on Being a Conservative"
 date: 2020-05-03T17:36:52Z
 tags: ["conservatism"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "politics"]
+image: /img/oakeshott.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "michael-oakeshott|/img/oakeshott.jpg|Michael Oakeshott" >}}
-
 Michael Oakeshott, "[On Being A Conservative]( https://andrebartholomeufernandes.com/on-being-conservative-by-michael-oakeshott/)" (Excerpts):
 
 ------

content/post/pansychism-is-a-red-herring.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Pansychism Is a Red Herring"
 date: 2020-04-03T16:49:27Z
 tags: ["panpsychism", "theism", "consciousness"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "theology", "psychology"]
+image: /img/panpsychic.png
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "panpsychic|/img/panpsychic.png|The Panpsychic" >}}
-
 As I've progressed in my study of physics and metaphysics over the last 5 years, I've gradually come to realize that we're all whistling through a kind of graveyard. I don't know when it began or who started it, exactly, but on thing is for sure: we really don't like thinking about it.
 
 What am I talking about?

content/post/philosophy-hypocrisy-and-failure.md

@@ -3,12 +3,11 @@ title: "Philosophy Hypocrisy and Failure"
 date: 2020-05-04T17:44:51Z
 tags: ["marx", "socialism", "intellectuals", "hypocrisy"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "psychology"]
+image: /img/school-of-athens.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "the-school-of-athens|/img/school-of-athens.jpg|The School Of Athens" >}}
-
-A moment of synchronicity occurred for me, yesterday morning. A Twitter user I follow fairly closely, tweeted about the decrepit state of Karl Marx's character (borrowing from Paul Johnson's famous book, ["*Intellectuals*"](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intellectuals-Marx-Tolstoy-Sartre-Chomsky/dp/0061253170/) ), and argued that Marxists would all invariably turn out like him. At nearly the same time, one of my fellow philosophy students on the University of London student Facebook group posted an apocryphal story about how pedantic and brittle Wittgenstein was toward his hosts the Keynes, and implied that this was what it meant to be an analytical philosopher.
+A moment of synchronicity occurred for me, yesterday morning. A Twitter user I follow fairly closely, tweeted about the decrepit state of Karl Marx's character (borrowing from Paul Johnson's famous book, {{< newtab title="*Intellectuals*" url="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intellectuals-Marx-Tolstoy-Sartre-Chomsky/dp/0061253170/" >}} ), and argued that Marxists would all invariably turn out like him. At nearly the same time, one of my fellow philosophy students on the University of London student Facebook group posted an apocryphal story about how pedantic and brittle Wittgenstein was toward his hosts the Keynes, and implied that this was what it meant to be an analytical philosopher.
 
 I find these declarations fascinating. I remember once having similar thoughts about Ayn Rand. Her philosophy was very explicitly about living according to a blend of Kantian rule-following, and Aristotelian praxis virtues (although, I am certain she would object to this characterization). This would result in a life of ecstatic goodness and beauty, according to her. But, if you know anything about the following she gathered in New York in the 1950s and early 1960s, you'll know that the attempt to realize the dream quickly became a self-induced nightmare, and a predictable tragedy in many ways.
 

content/post/preparation-not-triage.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Preparation, Not Triage"
 date: 2020-04-07T17:20:19Z
 tags: ["pandemic", "lockdown", "emergencies"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "politics", "sociology"]
+image: /img/masked-man.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "masked-man|/img/masked-man.jpg|Masked Man" >}}
-
 It's been just over a month since my employer sent me home with my laptop and a headset, and just about three weeks since Boris told us all (in the UK) that we had no choice but to stay home.
 
 In that time, thousands have flocked online to start video channels, podcasts, and other collaborative projects. Many existing independent media producers have shifted their content, and now talk almost entirely on topics related to the quarantine and the virus.

content/post/religions-true-and-false.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Religions, True and False"
 date: 2020-07-10T17:28:26Z
 tags: ["secularism", "cults", "ideologies"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "psychology", "theology"]
+image: /img/escher.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "escher|/img/escher.jpg|The Harrowing Of Hell" >}}
-
 The following are things that are presently being informally labelled "religions" by various commentators:
 
 - Environmentalism (Michael Shellenberger, "Apocalypse Never" )

content/post/sentience-as-a-moral-ground.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Sentience as a Moral Ground"
 date: 2020-05-08T17:54:58Z
 tags: ["sentience", "moral worth", "justice"]
 topics: ["philosophy"]
+image: /img/sentience.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "sentience|/img/sentience.jpg|Sentience" >}}
-
 In a [Psychology Today interview posted today](https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/science-and-philosophy/202005/is-harming-animals-ever-justifiable), Stevan Harnad has this to say, in response to criticisms over his equating The Holocaust with animal slaughter. I'm going to set aside his All Capital Letters Defense Of His "Eternal Treblinka", and instead, focus on his argument defending "sentience", which as we'll see, is only barely an argument:
 
 >  ...The Holocaust is Humanity’s Greatest Crime Against Humanity. But the Eternal Treblinka we inflict on animals is Humanity’s Greatest Crime. The difference is obvious: Jews were slaughtered because they were Jews; animals are slaughtered for the taste. For the victims, it makes no difference.

content/post/social-media-is-groupthink-programming.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Social Media Is Groupthink Programming"
 date: 2020-06-15T21:50:34Z
 tags: ["joe rogan", "jack dorsey", "twitter"]
 topics: ["psychology", "sociology"]
-draft: true
+image: /img/witch-trials.jpg
+draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "witch-trials|/img/witch-trials.jpg|Witch Trials" >}}
-
 I think something is deeply wrong with social media. Mainly, I think this about Twitter, but that may just be because Twitter is the most glaring symptom of whatever this problem is. The following is a short snippet from a podcast {{< newtab title="discussion between Joe Rogan and Jack Dorsey" url="https://open.spotify.com/episode/60pgpGgZmGuQ0E4ho0L99c" >}} (dated **Feb. 2, 2019**). It's at the point where they're discussing the nature of the medium, and the various forms that content on Facebook and Twitter can take:
 
 ----

content/post/steele-on-the-history-of-the-culture-war.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Steele on the History of the Culture War"
 date: 2020-07-05T16:45:50Z
 tags: ["culture war", "liberalism", "conservatism"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "politics", "sociology"]
+image: /img/steele-shame.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "steele-shame|/img/steele-shame.jpg|Shelby Steele, Shame" >}}
-
 Shelby Steele, {{< newtab title="Shame: How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country" url="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06XCK22Q2/" >}}
 
 ----

content/post/systemic-racism-is-real.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Systemic Racism Is Real"
 date: 2020-07-09T17:17:04Z
 tags: ["racism", "welfare state", "paternalism"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "sociology", "politics"]
+image: /img/civil-rights-protests.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "civil-rights-protests|/img/civil-rights-protests.jpg|Civil Rights March" >}}
-
 Martin Luther King, Jr. was the last black leader to point Americans to the divine inspiration in the Declaration of Independence, and to make us face our own hypocrisy honestly. We shot him dead for it. In his place, we substituted Lyndon Johnson, who sold us a false absolution from white guilt through condescending paternalism that maintained the status quo by making it look like charity and radical liberation.
 
 In this sense, the complaints about ongoing systemic racism are true. Before the "Great Society" and the "War On Poverty", black America had been making enormous forward strides economically and culturally. After those programs took root, entire generations of blacks were lost to poverty, drugs, violent crime, and existential despair. The effect of Johnson's welfare state was not lost on his liberal allies, either. One of the most famous canaries in that coal mine was {{< newtab title="Daniel Patrick Moynihan's famous report on 'The Negro Family' in 1965" url="https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/webid-moynihan" >}}. 

content/post/the-barometer-of-the-soul.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "The Barometer of the Soul"
 date: 2020-03-31T16:06:35Z
 tags: ["aesthetics", "music", "art"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "psychology"]
+image: /img/musicians.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "musicians|/img/musicians.jpg|The Musicians" >}}
-
 When I was in my twenties, I loved listening to great performances of the Tchaikovsky, Bartok, and Mendelssohn violin concerti. I was captivated by the pathos of the music, and admired the passion and athleticism of the artists performing them. Conversely, I used to dread, as a choir singer, the plodding, predictable clockwork of the baroque masters: Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi.
 
 Now, I am in my mid-fifties, and the tables have turned. Whenever I listen to the Bartok or the Mendelssohn, all I can hear are braying donkeys and the screeching trucks of a subway train. Likewise, in the choir which I now participate, I absolutely relish the baroque works. They seem both more textured and intellectually complex than the Romantics, but also more soothing and introspective.

content/post/the-choice-of-pilate.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "The Choice of Pilate"
 date: 2020-04-06T17:11:06Z
 tags: ["jesus", "pilate", "belief", "choice"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "theology"]
+image: /img/pilate-and-jesus.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "jesus-and-pilate|/img/pilate-and-jesus.jpg|Jesus Faces Pilate" >}}
-
 The story of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion involves the Roman empire. The fifth presiding governor over the territory of Judea incorporating the Hebrew tribes, was Pontius Pilate. Pilate is often quoted in undergraduate philosophy for asking Christ, "what is truth?". He's also often cited in pastoral homilies for his choice to "wash his hands" of the guilt of Christ's crucifixion.
 
 For most, this is thought to be the central moment of choice in the Pilate story. Does he give Jesus over to the crowd, or does he risk a riot to spare him? But I think this is only half the story. You see, Pilate had another choice to make. One much more momentous, and one that made his hand-washing inevitable, once he took it.

content/post/the-death-of-the-transcendent.md

@@ -3,8 +3,10 @@ title: "The Death of the Transcendent"
 date: 2021-06-13T21:30:02Z
 tags: []
 topics: ["philosophy", "psychology", "culture"]
+image: /img/ugly-modern-art.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
+A good one from Paul Joseph Watson:
 
 {{< youtube GBChoazsluM >}}
 

content/post/the-dysfunctional-self-dichotomy.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "The Dysfunctional Self Dichotomy"
 date: 2020-03-17T15:10:25Z
 tags: []
 topics: ["philosophy", "psychology"]
+image: /img/dichotomous-self.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "dichotomous-self|/img/dichotomous-self.jpg|Competing False Selves" >}}
-
 The world today seems divided into two camps: those seeking self-satisfaction, and those seeking self-denial. I think both of these attitudes toward life are mistaken, but an inevitable reaction to the evacuation of virtue from the center of our moral lives.
 
 The **self-satisfaction seekers** are those who have elevated into the place of virtue, a kind of incontinent pleasure drawn from the unimpeded exercise of the will. These people valorize freedom, only insofar as it serves the satisfaction of the self, whatever that happens to be in the moment. Freedom, for them, is liberation of the will. The post-modern impulse to deny the reality of history, of culture, and even of biology, all center around a disconnected will that longs to spread itself over existence like a blanket.

content/post/the-identity-metastasis-machine.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "The Identity Metastasis Machine"
 date: 2020-04-01T16:36:13Z
 tags: ["social media", "narcissism", "social contagion"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "sociology", "psychology"]
+image: /img/schizophrene.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "the-schizophrene|/img/schizophrene.jpg|The Schizophrene" >}}
-
 When I was a boy in middle and high school, there were lots of other kids who, during one year were stoners, and the next, were computer nerds; one year were jocks, and the next, were stoners; one year were D&D geeks, and the next, were into cars. This is as it should be. Your tween/teen years should be fluid. They should be a point in time in your life, when you experiment and play with different ways of being. They should be an opportunity to determine what kind of person you want to be when you're done with your teens.
 
 At the risk of outing myself as one of those elderly curmudgeons who complains about "kids these days", there is something else rather important about when I grew up in the 1970's and 1980's. Namely, there was no internet, and of course, no social media. The only place one could "broadcast" an "identity", was within one's own circle of friends, or at most, through the A/V club or drama class, where one might earn a reputation throughout the school. Changing schools was basically akin to the witness protection program. Nobody knew who you were, and you could become anyone you wanted to be. When you finally left school and went to work, all your childhood hijinks disappeared in the vapor of old memories, and that was that. In other words, the cost of experimenting was very low.

content/post/the-loss-of-self-awareness.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "The Loss of Self Awareness"
 date: 2020-06-29T22:13:16Z
 tags: ["gilbert and sullivan", "satire", "meaning", "self-knowledge"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "psychology", "sociology"]
+image: /img/not-a-pipe.png
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "not-a-pipe|/img/not-a-pipe.png|Not A Pipe" >}}
-
 In the early 90's, I attended a performance of the Mikado put on by the college troupe my younger brother was involved in. There was one member of the cast who'd taken it upon himself to refuse to *act* when on stage. He would appear, shuffle to the places he was supposed to stand, and then shuffle off, when the scene required it.
 
 I asked my brother what that guy's deal was, and he said they couldn't remove him because of the threat of a complaint against the school, and that he was "protesting" the caricature portrayal of asians in the musical, by refusing to act. I rolled my eyes and went one with my life.

content/post/the-meaning-of-christmas.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "The Meaning of Christmas"
 date: 2020-03-24T15:39:06Z
 tags: ["christmas", "parmenides"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "theology"]
+image: /img/the-promise-of-christmas.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "christmas-meaning|/img/the-promise-of-christmas.jpg|The Promise Of Christmas" >}}
-
 If you live in the west for any serious length of time, you become familiar with the story: Mary has an audience with an angel, who tells her she is to become a mother. God visits her, and pronounces her the mother of the Son Of God. She and her oddly accepting husband Joseph head off into the desert to be counted in Bethlehem, where the boy is born in a manger, and proclaimed the savior of the world.
 
 If you’re an atheist of the modern stripe, then you’ll also be familiar with the common objections to this: comparisons to gods in similar myth traditions, comparisons to stories of Caesar Augustus’ birth, and empirical questions like, “can a woman become pregnant without being inseminated?”

content/post/the-motherhood-pandemic.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "The Motherhood Pandemic"
 date: 2020-04-02T16:43:47Z
 tags: ["feminism", "intersectionalism", "anti-realism"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "Sociology", "psychology"]
+image: /img/motherhood.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "mother-nature|/img/motherhood.jpg|The Nature of Mothering" >}}
-
 The rational self-aware consciousness has equipped the human ape with a profoundly effective shield against the vagaries of natural insults against mammalian biology such as exposure to the elements, biological parasites, disease, and hunger. We are able to conceive of and build shelters and beds; imagine and create clothing, armor, and tools. And, now, we are able to engineer the effects of biology itself, to defend against bacteria and viruses.
 
 But, this impulse to escape the cruel bonds of mother nature, has taken us to heights we never imagined possible, say, a thousand years ago. Having harnessed electricity, coal, and oil, we have constructed for ourselves a world in which there are almost no fetters left. The consequence of the industrial revolution, is that virtually all agricultural and domestic tasks have been relegated to the workings of various pieces of machinery; and, the advent of the bio-sciences has resulted in near-liberation from the mammalian burdens of siring and rearing offspring.

content/post/the-origin-of-causality.md

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ title: "The Origin of Causality"
 date: 2020-03-06T14:58:00Z
 tags: ["causality", "change", "order", "metaphysics"]
 topics: ["philosophy"]
+image: /img/causality.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 

content/post/the-platonism-of-aristotle.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "The Platonism of Aristotle"
 date: 2020-06-02T21:01:35Z
 tags: ["aristotle", "plato"]
 topics: ["philosophy"]
-draft: true
+image: /img/plato-and-aristotle.jpg
+draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "plato-and-aristotle|/img/plato-and-aristotle.jpg|Plato And Aristotle" >}}
-
 This is for my friends here, who wonder how it is that I can claim that Plato and Aristotle are not as diametrically opposed as the dominant narrative about them claims. The following is an extended snippet from [*Plato and Aristotle in Agreement? Platonists on Aristotle from Antiochus to Porphyry*](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Plato-Aristotle-Agreement-Platonists-Philosophical/dp/0199684634/) , by George E. Karamanolis. While the snippet isn't a definitive refutation of their supposed opposition, it is the beginning of a sustained argument that claims to show just that. You can read the book yourself, to find out more. And, given that the author is Greek, I'm going to take that as definitive :D
 
 ------

content/post/the-regression-of-libertarianism.md

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ title: "The Regression of Libertarianism"
 date: 2020-09-15T19:14:44Z
 tags: ["libertarianism", "new hampshire", "free state"]
 topics: ["politics"]
+image: /img/naked-libertarians.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 

content/post/the-universality-of-human-consciousness.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "The Universality of Human Consciousness"
 date: 2020-06-30T22:26:55Z
 tags: ["mind", "consciousness", "god"]
 topics: ["philosophy"]
-draft: true
+image: /img/andeluvian-man.jpeg
+draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "andeluvian-man|/img/andeluvian-man.jpeg|Michelangelo's Man" >}}
-
 In academic circles right now, it is very trendy to study and write on the philosophical thought of ancient tribal Africans and near-easterners. Keen attention is paid to thinkers who "got their first" - which is to say, if you can find an African thinker that stumbled upon the cosmological arguments of Aquinas or Anselm chronologically before Aquinas and Anselm thought of them, or an Indian thinker who discovered the is-ought dichotomy chronologically before Hume, you'll be an instant academic hero.
 
 To be sure, there have been debates raging in academia for decades, about the amount of intermingling and admixture that went on between various peoples in the ancient world. And, to be sure, most of this has been motivated by a jealous desire for attribution. It's incredibly petty and demeaning, to be frank. If my guy got there first, then our guys are smarter than your guys, nya-nya-nee-boo-boo.

content/post/three-kinds-of-philosophers.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Three Kinds of Philosophers"
 date: 2020-03-30T16:02:02Z
 tags: []
 topics: ["philosophy", "psychology"]
+image: /img/three-philosophers.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "three-philosophers|/img/three-philosophers.jpg|Three Philosophers" >}}
-
 I have been thinking a bit about what a philosopher is, and in the tradition of Aristotle, have naturally been drawn to try to categorize them. It seems to me that there are three distinct roles for philosophy: Analysis, Interpretation, and Speculation.
 
 The analytical philosopher is driven, as Simon Blackburn describes, to "give an account" of the universe and our experience of it - to reduce it, or explain it in simpler, more precise, or more fundamental terms. He is a reductionist, at heart. Examples: Descartes, Russell, Freud, Quine, and Aquinas.

content/post/three-views-of-truth.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Three Views of Truth"
 date: 2020-03-07T15:02:04Z
 tags: ["truth", "metaphysics", "meaning", "logic"]
 topics: ["philosophy"]
+image: /img/meanings.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "truth-meanings|/img/meanings.jpg|Truth and Meaning In Language" >}}
-
 I think there is a lack of subtlety in the modern debate around meaning and truth. People struggle with ham-fisted dichotomies and adversarial arguments that never go anywhere, because of this low resolution notion of meaning. I want to suggest that we think of meaning in three different ways, and that each of them has a context and a scope that is appropriate to that distinction.
 
 ### VALENCE

content/post/two-forms-of-totalitarianism.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Two Forms of Totalitarianism"
 date: 2020-03-26T15:45:13Z
 tags: ["fascism", "communism", "individualism", "collectivism"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "politics"]
-draft: true
+image: /img/totalitarianism.jpg
+draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "totalitarianism|/img/totalitarianism.jpg|Totalitarianism" >}}
-
 Fascism is a form of tribalist totalitarianism. A traditional particularist tyranny, which privileges a core ethnic identity, and views the individual as an 'organ' in the 'body politic', which must conform in order for the organism to succeed. Where the individual rejects "the body", he will, after the fashion of Rousseau, "be forced to be free". History tends toward the ascendance of the most righteous organism, in this view.
 
 Communism is a form of universalist totalitarianism. A non-traditional, quasi-scientific tyranny, which privileges a wholistic "rational order", above ethnic identity, nationality, or any particular feature of individual identity. Where the individual is given any regard, it is merely as an atomic component of a mass. History tends toward the unification of all organisms, in this view.

content/post/two-kinds-of-legitimacy.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "Two Kinds of Legitimacy"
 date: 2020-06-12T21:40:25Z
 tags: ["chaz", "riots", "legitimacy", "statism"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "politics"]
-draft: true
+image: /img/chaz.jpg
+draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "chaz|/img/chaz.jpg|CHAZ" >}}
-
 It seems to me, there are two kinds of state authority. The first, is what I have already talked about yesterday. Philosophical legitimacy - a rational grounding for the moral claim to the privileged use of force. But there is a second kind of state authority, that emerges only in the actual exercise (or restraint of exercise) of power. Psychological legitimacy - the confidence that subjects and citizens have in the state's exercise of its privilege. It is this second kind of legitimacy that I think is relevant to us, in the present circumstances.
 
 Over the course of the last four days, a loosely organized band of lightly armed leftist insurrectionists, under the banner of "Antifa" and the "John Brown Gun Club", have cordoned off a six block area in the center of Seattle, Washington, and claimed it as their own. City police have abandoned the area, leaving hundreds of actual law-abiding land owners and residents to fend for themselves, while they wait for further instructions from Seattle's feckless mayor, and clueless Governor.

content/post/what-is-a-community.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "What Is a Community?"
 date: 2020-04-04T16:54:39Z
 tags: ["social media", "fandoms", "locals"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "psychology", "sociology", "technology"]
+image: /img/community.png
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "community|/img/community.png|The Community" >}}
-
 I have been thinking about this a lot, since joining Locals. There are two approaches to this, in the common vernacular. First, the naive answer, which is that a community is roughly synonymous with a professional affiliation or a social association. Like being a member of a legal bar, or being a "Cubs Fan", or an alumnus of some university. Second, there are the sociological definitions, which distill "community" into a set of shared abstract properties, like "interests" or demographic characteristics, such as the "community of python developers", or the "LGBT community".
 
 There is something fundamentally wrong with these notions of "community". They all boil down to *set collections* of identified individuals. Membership in a community need require nothing more than the possession of the necessary properties that get you classified into the requisite sets. This is why sociologists will tell you that you "belong" to many "communities". Because the property of being a sports-ball fan puts you in one automatically, and the property of being a particular color or nationality automatically puts you in another, and the property of having a particular skill puts you automatically in yet another, and so forth.

content/post/where-are-all-the-old-people.md

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ title: "Where Are All the Old People?"
 date: 2020-09-22T19:28:33Z
 tags: ["storytelling", "age", "generations"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "culture"]
+image: /img/old-man.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 

content/post/you-reap-what-you-sow.md

@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@ title: "You Reap What You Sow"
 date: 2020-06-07T21:16:34Z
 tags: ["hobbes", "analytics", "fact-value dichotomy"]
 topics: ["philosophy", "theology"]
+image: /img/leviathan-color.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-{{< fluid_imgs "leviathan-color|/img/leviathan-color.jpg|Leviathan In Color" >}}
-
 In a recent debate online someone complained to me, after I had pointed to one problem with idea of the Sovereign in Leviathan, that Thomas Hobbes would not have cared about such things as the "fact-value dichotomy". He went on to assert that the analytics were simply misinterpreting the Enlightenment. I think he is mistaken.
 
 It is true that Hobbes would not have 'cared' about the fact-value dichotomy. Indeed, he would have barely been able to make any sense of the idea if you were to pose it to him. But this does not make what he did, any less relevant to it. Hobbes (and later Hume and Rousseau) laid the groundwork for what Nietzsche would later make conscious through his storytelling, and what analytics like Mackie and Russell would systematize through their critiques of ethics and metaphysics in the wake of it all.