Posts in Political
On the Is/Ought Problem
On the Is/Ought Problem

A simplified version of this appears in Neal Stephenson’s book Anathem as an adage that the inhabitants of that fictitious world know as “Diax’s Rake”, which goes “Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true.” In business, a similar idea is put forward more generally, “past results are not indicative of future performance.” In our world, the postulate that you can’t get an is from an ought or vice versa is known by a different name: “Hume’s Guillotine.”

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Commentary, Political, Written by: CameronCameron SummersIs/Ought Problem, Evolutionary Biology, David Hume, Neal Stephenson, Anathem, Killer Mike, Torment Nexus, Dawn of Everything, David Graeber, David Wengrow, Paul Ehrlich, Marcus Feldman, Genese and Cultures: What Creates our Behavior Phenome?, Richard Hamilton, The Darwinian Cage: Evolutionary Psychology as Moral Science, Robert Lickliter, Developmental Dynamics: Toward a Biologically Plausible Evolutionary PsychologyComment
Twenty Faux-Teen: the Phantom Decade and Post-Enthusiasm Politics
Twenty Faux-Teen: the Phantom Decade and Post-Enthusiasm Politics

I’m coming to the conclusion that the 2010s did not actually exist. The time passed, certainly. People were born and died. But, from a cultural perspective, I think it’s a dead end that doesn’t lead anywhere in particular.

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Commentary, Written by: Cameron, PoliticalCameron SummersJean Baudrillard, Grafton Tanner, Phantom Time, Political Economy, Post-Enthusiasm Politics, Prestige Media, PoliticsComment
“Just Vote”: Electoral Fundamentalism as Failure Mode
“Just Vote”: Electoral Fundamentalism as Failure Mode

This led to a great deal of discussion, in that uniquely useless way you find on social media, about political strategy. As usual, the discussion shrank from attacking the right to punching left – specifically, the anti-electoral left. The thought was that the right wing got here through voting, so surely the problem was that there were people on the left who thought that voting was a bad idea. This, of course, betrays almost as bad a grasp of history as the court did when they argued that abortion had no roots in the traditions of the United States.

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Analysis, Political, Written by: CameronCameron SummersPolitics, organizational behaviorComment