John Holbo

@jholbo

Professor of Philosophy, Illustrator of Philosophers

2.249 Folgt5.501 Follower12.007 Posts

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art education

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John Holbo@jholbo· 28d

So when I was a kid my aunt, who was odd, gave me Books 2 & 3 of the Circle of Light series. So I didn’t have Book 1 so they sat there on the shelf for years, unread. So I bought Book 1 & I’m reading it to my daughter while she sews or whatever. It’s good so far. We are up to where Gandalf shows up.

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 14

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 12

Was Lincoln the first Spinozist US President? (From Matthew Stewart, “An Emancipation of the Mind”).

“The young Lincoln was every bit as radical as his sources, according to Herndon’s report; he studied Paine and Volney intensively and “assimilated them into his being.”64 In a conversation recorded by Herndon, Lincoln emphatically embraces the “fatalism” for which Volney was famous: “There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.”65 Lincoln adds that “there is no freedom of the will” and that “there was no conscious action of man that was not motivated by some motive, first, last, and always.”66 In sum, Herndon concludes, the early Lincoln “was an elevated pantheist, doubting the immortality of the soul as the Christian world understand that term. He believed that the soul lost its identity and was immortal as a force.”67 In such a universe there is no room for a personal God. Lincoln’s attachment to Paine shows up at unexpected moments in his life. At a busy point in his legal career, for example, Lincoln somehow found the time to study a six-volume edition of Euclid. Paine, as it happens, singles out Euclid’s work as the “one ancient book that authoritatively challenges universal consent and belief.”68 In his first notable speech, delivered at the Young Men’s Lyceum shortly after Lovejoy’s murder, Lincoln quietly pays homage to the author of The Age of Reason when he argues that, in the face of threats to American democracy, “reason—cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason—must form all the materials of our future support and defense.”69 In the free-spirited taverns of New Salem, Lincoln counted as a radical. He would open up chapters of the Bible only to rip the contents to shreds. He “was enthusiastic in his infidelity,” one of Herndon’s informants records; so much so, that sometimes…”

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 10

Modern cat and birds.

Big Charley Harper book beside cat. Nice shadow curves.

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 9

Always thought there should have been a "Bed, Bath - and the Beyonder!" issue. Why not ONLY bathroom scenes?

That scene were Enchantress almost drowns Volcana, while the Absorbing Man is waiting for the bathroom.

That scene where Spider-Man teaches the Beyond how to go to the bathroom.

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 6

Or there's always ...

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 6

Which indie band? Wrong answers only.

Raphael's "The Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia"

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 6

Old cat young cat

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 4

Conservatives: the problem with liberals is that they don’t get what it means to be an American. Also conservatives: if you want to know what an American is like, picture an evil vampire chasing people out of America, which is a blood-drenched castle, if the Supreme Court does not nullify the 14A.

Wanye: “My mentions are full of people bleating, “why aren’t you more clear? If so many people misunderstand you, then that’s your fault. Maybe you’re just a bad communicator.”

But the problem with that is that people keep writing really great essays, like this one, that demonstrate that my views are really not so mysterious and unknowable.”

He’s quote-tweeting an Eigenrobot post that kicks off with this weird Dracula screencap that does not seem bot exemplify American-ness very well.

Eigenrobot: “If you enjoyed "What is a woman," you'll surely love "Go ahead. Define 'American.'"
A notable problem with this latter case is that once who "is" "American" becomes a matter of public contention, it both reveals substantial disagreement and solidifies that disagreement. This is a problem because nationhood, as with other sociological groupings, is conditional on broad ingroup buy-in on criteria for membership.”

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 4

Goose chase meme: ‘freedom, spirit and opportunity’ based on what?

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 4

Even on the 4th of July, Vance can’t bring himself to express gratitude for the ideas and ideals - expressed in the Declaration - that have made 250 years of Americans possible. Sheesh, would a simple ‘thank you’ to our better angels kill him?

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 2

Remember like last week when that guy said there are secret good arguments against the 19A, proving there are no liberal intellectuals (and no you can’t see the arguments she lives in Canada.) Yeah, now he’s saying the 14A is empirically false. Also everyone knows it. No, he’s not taking questions.

“You cannot actually become an American just simply because you were born here. That’s not true. Nobody actually thinks that true. At best, the people who claim that it’s true are using the ambiguity of natural language to obfuscate.”

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 2

Special Snowflake Spenglers, each bearing up under the weight of insight into the decline of liberalism, each thus siding with Trump more in sorrow than anger, each disallowing himself the luxury of any illusion. Each cursed with Cassandra-like vision due to: they elected a black guy!

Eigenrobot: maybe the closest we get to a golden path for the US at this point is to cleanly sort out electoral coalitions into a third worldist party and a hajnalist party

but realistically hajnalis are devoted to civil war rn

"best i can do is a caudillist party" pawn stars dot jpg

“new hobby is watching the dwindling population of classic-sense liberals from my generation as they crack, one by one, in response to the slow accumulation of events.

this has been ongoing since the second obama term. the initial wave rapidly broke left in the awokening; the reaction rightward has been slower but more persistent. the current liberals who remain are slowly breaking right, maybe because anyone who was going to break left already had the opportunity to do so profitably ten years ago.

how does this manifest? occasionally i notice someone saying something i would have thought outrageous ten years ago. often hysterically, sometimes with palpable restraint. or i'll notice specific people liking tweets of mine that complain about some phenomenon that one isn't supposed to _mind_ as a respectable liberal.

the center is slowly getting hollowed out though … [he goes on like this a few more sentences]

trump has a thoroughly vulgar soul. you cannot expect any noble thing to come from his rule.

ofc its conceivable that he ends up making america "great" but i dont think he could ever make it worthy.

…

I blame Obama tbh

John Holbo@jholbo· Jul 2

Old people can be so sweet. [Clueless screencap]

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 30

"François Hemsterhuis (also Frans Hemsterhuis; 27 December 1721 – 7 July 1790) was a Dutch writer on aesthetics and moral philosophy.[1]

Biography
The son of Tiberius Hemsterhuis, he was born at Franeker in the Netherlands. He was educated at the University of Leiden, where he studied Plato. Failing to obtain a professorship, he entered the service of the state, and for many years acted as secretary to the state council of the United Provinces. He died at the Hague on 7 July 1790. Through his philosophical writings he became acquainted with many distinguished persons—Goethe, Herder, Princess Adelheid Amalie Gallitzin, and especially Jacobi, with whom he had much in common. His most valuable contributions are in the department of aesthetics or the general analysis of feeling. His philosophy has been characterized as Socratic in content and Platonic in form. Its foundation was the desire for self-knowledge and truth, untrammelled by the rigid bonds of any particular system.[1]"

Classic Calvin and Hobbes, "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie".

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 29

It has buffo charm, almost Chestertonian!

"But what is a description, without a sketch of the weather?—In these Pantheist days especially, when a hero or heroine’s moral state must entirely depend on the barometer, and authors talk as if Christians were cabbages, and a man’s soul as well as his lungs might be saved by sea-breezes and sunshine; or his character developed by wearing guano in his shoes, and training himself against a south wall—we must have a weather description, though, as I shall presently show, one in flat contradiction of the popular theory. Luckily for our information, Lancelot was very much given to watch both the weather and himself, and had indeed, while in his teens, combined the two in a sort of a soul-almanack on the principles just mentioned—somewhat in this style:—

‘Monday, 21st.—Wind S.W., bright sun, mercury at 30½ inches. Felt my heart expanded towards the universe. Organs of veneration and benevolence pleasingly excited; and gave a shilling to a tramp. An inexpressible joy bounded through every vein, and the soft air breathed purity and self-sacrifice through my soul. As I watched the beetles, those children of the sun, who, as divine Shelley says, “laden with light and odour, pass over the gleam of the living grass,” I gained an Eden-glimpse of the pleasures of virtue.

‘N.B. Found the tramp drunk in a ditch. I could not have degraded myself on such a day—ah! how could he?

‘Tuesday, 22d.—Barometer rapidly falling. Heavy clouds in the south-east. My heart sank into gloomy forebodings. Read Manfred, and doubted whether I should live long. The laden weight of destiny seemed to crush down my aching forehead, till the thunderstorm burst, and peace was restored to my troubled soul.’

This was very bad; but to do justice to Lancelot, he had grown out of it at the time when my story begins. He was now in the fifth act of his ‘Werterean’ stage; that sentimental measles, which all clever men must catch once in their lives, and which, generally, like the physical measles, …

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 29

In retrospect, understandable "The Water-Babies" sold better. But I'm curious.

From Wikipedia:

Yeast: A Problem was the first novel by the Victorian social and religious controversialist Charles Kingsley published in 1848.

Themes and sourcesedit
Motivated by his strong convictions as a Christian Socialist Kingsley wrote Yeast as an attack on Roman Catholicism and the Oxford Movement, on celibacy, the game laws, bad landlords and bad sanitation, and on the whole social system insofar as it kept England’s agricultural labourer class in poverty.[1][2][3] The title was intended to suggest the "ferment of new ideas".[4]Yeast was influenced by the works of the philosopher Thomas Carlyle, and by Henry Brooke's novel The Fool of Quality.[5][6]

Publicationedit
Yeast was first published in instalments in Fraser's Magazine, starting in July 1848, but as the radicalism of Kingsley's ideas became apparent the magazine's publisher took fright and induced the author to bring his novel to a premature close.[3] In 1851 it appeared in volume form.[

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 28

Went book-and-comics hunting this morning. Found good stuff.

Dagar the invincible comic + a hardback copy of James Branch Cabell’s “Jurgen”

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 25

'I wear the chain I forged in life ... I made it point by point, and column by column; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it, and also this is erroneous hyperboleee, " wailed the doomed spirit, as it faded out behind a paywall.

According to an emerging conventional wisdom, the United States suffered a catastrophic loss in the war and memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran that were worse than Vietnam and comparable to the United Kingdom’s embarrassing defeat in the Suez Crisis in 1956.

This is erroneous hyperbole ...

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 24

Are they trying to keep people out or … ?

“BOG VENUS (DC COMICS) CAN MANIPULATE THE MICROSCOPIC ALGAE INSIDE OF A PERSON'S BODY AND USE IT TO ATTACK THEM FROM THE INSIDE OUT.
POWER/ABILITY TO:
Manipulate algae.
The power to manipulate algae. Variation of Protist Manipulation.

Also Called

Alga/Algae Control
Alga Manipulation
Capabilities

The user is able to manipulate algae, a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms.”

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 23

Wilhoit’s Law: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

“Third, and most gallingly, DOJ is making this argument in a context in which it is making no argument that xAI is acting legally. In other words, the central premise of DOJ’s submission is that xAI can be flagrantly breaking the law (and heavily damaging the environment), and only the executive branch of the federal government has the constitutional authority to do anything about it.”

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 22

Young cat freaking out, pretending to be a black panther about to pounce.

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 20

It will always turn out to have been even dumber than we thought. www.newsweek.com/map-greenlan...

“"Securing access to these minerals is also critical for national security, so we can understand why Donald Trump's administration has identified Greenland's resource potential as a potential method to combat China's dominance over the critical minerals supply chain," he added.
"On top of this, Greenland is strategically located as a buffer county to the U.S., and offers proximity to strategic shipping routes, however we believe its importance as a source of minerals is undoubtedly a key reason for this interest."

No kidding the article has a quote from the guy that says if the US destroys NATO we might be able to restart Red Lobster all-you-can-eat shrimp. Read the article yourself via the reskeet

Kombucha girl reaction meme ‘invading Greenland to establish a buffer to stop Red China’ vs ‘invading Greenland to establish a shrimp buffet to save Red lobster’

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 18

P1 If you’re an educated, liberal intellectual, you will share all 4Chan memes, however stupid, about how it’s stupid to let women vote. P2 there are such memes - yet you don’t share them. C you aren’t really an educated, liberal intellectual.

“This has come up a few times and actually what’s most interesting about it is that it’s an example of a kind of argument that’s widely known and shared by the new online right that I think most people on the left are completely unaware of.

This idea in particular is the subject of various memes that pop-up in my mentions all the time.

This actually dovetails nicely with what I said in the original tweet that set all this off about how there are no intellectuals on the left with respect to this stuff. There are now entire categories of arguments that the new online right takes as conventional wisdom, shares around and discusses, that even fairly informed and educated liberals are totally unfamiliar with. They’ve never heard these arguments. They’ve never engaged with them.”

Kitten tweets: “Interesting that I haven't seen the strongest argument against women's suffrage come up yet

Voting is a proxy for violence, and can only serve that function when everyone enfranchised is a credible threat of violence to the other parties.”

“Women only have what rights they do because men agreed to them, they are incapable of taking their rights by force

Men could at any time decide that women don't have rights after all and there would be very little women could do to resist that new reality”

“(because people are retarded: I'm not advocating for the above outcome, I'm just stating it is a fact)”

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 18

Maybe they should make Chotiner wear a costume or something? www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

“What do you think Netanyahu will do now with an election coming up?

I think he is in shock. In shock. In all the years that I have known him, he has never been in shock like now. Not with Obama. No one has caused a shock like Trump. And it’s because you couldn’t predict it.

The unpredictable nature of Trump turning on you is what makes it so sad.

True. You are right. In a few months, we have an election, and one of the most important parts of his campaign was going to be his friendship with Trump. Now what is he going to say? It’s a problem.”

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 17

I fired this off in haste but it's gotten attention so I should sharpen and substantiate my criticism, for the record. Here's the study. You can see the problem with the basic survey question design. journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

"Instructions for the liberal [and conservative] versions of the moral relevance measures read as follows:

When A TYPICAL LIBERAL [CONSERVATIVE] decides whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to the liberal's [conservative's] thinking? Remember, instead of selecting your own answers, answer all questions as a typical liberal [conservative].

Instructions for the moral judgments measure read as follows:

Please read the following statements and indicate the extent to which A TYPICAL LIBERAL [CONSERVATIVE] would agree or disagree. Remember, instead of selecting your own answers, answer all questions as a typical liberal [conservative]."

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 16

It was me. I did it.

BATFUL of HOLLOW

"I wear bat on the outside, 'cause bat is how I feel on the inside."

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 15

I forgot #pigeonday. www.onbeyondzarathustra.com/so-04

You are cold, Father Squid, the young Owl expounded …

[sorry, can’t type the rest out. But it’s funny.]

The stupid pigeons have no notion
Of what may dwell deep in the ocean.

Nothing
sublime
Or to do with religion
Has any meaning
For a pigeon.

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 15

Can I see it? No. Simpsons meme template.

John Holbo@jholbo· Jun 14

Slow Sunday