April 2020
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Wenar from King’s College, London to Stanford
The political philosopher Leif Wenar, currently at King's College, London, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Stanford University, where he will start this fall. (Thanks to Bob Talisse for the pointer.)
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At least 30 million Americans out of work in the last six weeks
The last time I looked, the active labor force had about 160 million people in it–so we're approaching 20% (probably exceeded it, since unemployment claims trail job losses). If a lot of them don't get put back to work, we will have a social and political catastrophe on our hands by mid-summer.
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Typepad (the blog service provider) was down this morning…
…which is why you would have gotten an error message earlier. It seems to be fixed!
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Recovered patients who allegedly got reinfected?
They weren't, they were false positives, as suspected originally. (Thanks to Eric Winsberg for the pointer.)
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Thoreau’s revenge on literature professors during the pandemic
This is funny; an excerpt: A few months ago, you were talking smack about my year in a cabin. Now you’re trapped in your condo in Yonkers or the backside of Amherst or wherever, and you’d trade it in a heartbeat for 150 square feet and a whole forest full of owls and frogs and…
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“Statement of Academic Solidarity”
This petition has been making the rounds, and has been signed by a number of philosophers and other scholars whom I respect (it's also been signed by some hypocrites, mindless ideologues, and clowns, but that's OK! [amusingly, Avital Ronell, Ms. Solidarity with graduate students, signed]). I encourage readers to take a look. Here's the core…
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New clinical trial reports good results for anti-viral remdesivir
The news to date has been mixed, but this major study is hopeful: A government-run study of Gilead’s remdesivir, perhaps the most closely watched experimental drug to treat the novel coronavirus, showed that the medicine is effective against Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus…. During an appearance alongside President Trump in the Oval Office,…
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Why are any colleges considering postponing their start date until January 2021?
This idea has cropped up in various places, but I can't understand the rationale: barring some medical miracle, we will be back in lockdown by January 2021 as another wave of COVID comes crashing across the population. Even the CDC has noted that the combination of COVID and flu next winter will make for a…
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“What is a realist theory of law?”
This article of mine is now out in the Journal of Institutional Studies, edited by faculty at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, for those who might be interested. (Most articles in Portuguese, but mine appears in English. A Spanish translation will also appear this year in Revista Iuris Dictio in Ecuador.)
I’m a software engineer who works at “AI adjacent” startups, and I think this article is a bit dramatic, but…