Here’s what I’ve been giving my attention to this week

  • AI “art” and uncanniness. Doctorow forcefully argues that large language models do not infringe copyright, and there are better ways for artists to fight back.
  • The Stuff of (a Well-Lived) Life by L.M. Sacasas. I never miss a post from Sacasas, a tech critic with deep knowledge of the history of tech criticism. In this post, he uses Apple’s “Crush” ad to illustrate Borgmann’s “device paradigm”.
  • The Most Misunderstood Philosopher In The World by Abigail Thorn (Philosophy Tube). Gender and queer theorist Judith Butler is widely misrepresented and misunderstood by people who have not read their work but have an axe to grind. This video essay on their work was entertaining and educational, though I’m still not sure I fully understand.

Reading

Started reading This Life by Yale philosopher Marten Hägglund, and I’m excited by it. Its project is to ground spiritual meaning in life in secular terms, in which the timebound nature of our lives is an essential component meaningful existence — unlike the religious ideal of finding meaning in something eternal, the antithesis of this book — and works through the political implications of this “secular faith” via new readings of Marx. More to come on this later.

Watching

Watched Mad Max: Fury Road for the first time because I thought Furiosa looked like it might be fun to see during half-term. Enjoyed.

Other stuff

  • Published a new crossword last weekend
  • Flooring arrived, just need some days to get it down now.
  • Weather has been pretty great two weekends in a row, so outdoor grilling season has begun.
  • Initial release of my micro.blog plugin for Neovim. Still a WIP but it works. Turns out just two days before I published the plugin, this guide to best practices was published, and my attempt certainly doesn’t follow a lot of this advice. Still, it’s given me some directions for how I can improve it.