BY SEAN WALSH I voted for Brexit because it seemed to me that the Russian bots who were trying to persuade us to leave the EU had better arguments than the UK officials who were cajoling us to stay. I judge these things on merit. I have seen nothing that has changed my mind. And one of those things I haven’t seen is Brexit, probably … Continue reading Was I Brainwashed by Russian Bots over Brexit?
BY SEAN WALSH The discussion about machine intelligence is ramping up in the US as it starts to dawn on people that AI might be planning to destroy the planet. As with all things US, the argument is settling on political lines. Yes, really. President Trump has had it with people treating Artificial Intelligence with less deference than it deserves. He has solved the problem … Continue reading A Trillion Abaci
BY SEAN WALSH The government’s response to the invasion of frustrated young men from sexually regressive and misogynistic cultures—men who are acculturated to casual violence and the cheapening of human life—is to insist that the incoming violence must be distributed “fairly” across the whole country. That is not quite true. The instinctive response is not policy-related at all, but rather to gather some words—fair, share, … Continue reading Leftism’s Abstract Principle Problem
BY SEAN WALSH The London nightclub Fabric (which temporarily closed in 2016 after just a handful of drug-related deaths) has agreed a four-year contract with St Paul’s Cathedral (consecrated to the worship of God in 604 AD). Why? This is how the club’s owner sees things: Over the next four years, we’ll present a broad range of artists from across the contemporary music landscape, with … Continue reading Raving in the Nave
BY SEAN WALSH Traditions exist for the preservation of the truths, practices, and things which comfort us, so that we can pass these gifts on to people not yet alive. Modernism exists to disrupt all this via energetic historical revisionism and a continuous recreation of Year Zero. To the modernist, the inheritance rights of future generations are no more than useful fictions intended to serve … Continue reading Norcross Knows Cricket’s Soul
BY SEAN WALSH Just to be clear, it is not the people who brought the truth to the Arday situation who are responsible for his death. That is an absurd, back-to-front claim. It is like blaming the specialist who spots the cancer for not saving the patient, even though he is the only one who tried. But precisely because it is an absurd and back-to-front … Continue reading The Cruel Mercy of Truth
BY SEAN WALSH I think we need to get a sense of proportion and concede that, utterly shocking as it is, the Jason Arday affair is not the worst thing to have ever come out of Cambridge University. Can we agree that Kim Philby’s circle of traitors, which came close to handing the country over to Stalin, was worse, even if marginally? Although these days … Continue reading Truth, Not Credentials
BY SEAN WALSH It strikes me as strange that people can believe in God but at the same time say that they are sceptical about or indifferent to the existence of angels and demons – purely spiritual beings (composed exclusively of intellect and will), the former being His messengers, the latter in permanent rebellion against Him. Why have God without the supernatural trimmings, the bits … Continue reading Believing God, Doubting Angels
BY SEAN WALSH In an episode of the 1990s comedy series Seinfeld, Jerry’s dentist decides to convert to Judaism “for the jokes”. When Jerry is asked if this offends him “as a Jewish person” he replies “No! It offends me as a comedian”. Comedy is not something that should be taken lightly. The political class would do well to remember that. It is a good … Continue reading Count Binface: A Gimmick So Funny It Requires a Labour Donor
BY SEAN WALSH “Sound out 30 Manchester adjacent constituencies! There must be at least one with a humiliation fetish!” The “leadership contest” in the Labour Party is like the “war in Iran” in that neither is actually a real thing. Unless you can have a war without any warring or a competition for a job which doesn’t exist. It’s all very “postmodern”, as if things … Continue reading Postmodern Politics
BY SEAN WALSH This “leadership” talk is yet another devil’s illusion. We were expecting a Jason Statham or a John Wick blockbuster. Instead of that we’re being served up one of those interminable Scandinavian things. Not noir either, like The Killing, but worthier fare. With themes. Of interest only to the critics. Actually that’s unfair to the interminable Scandinavian things. Whatever is happening in the Labour party is … Continue reading Still There
BY SEAN WALSH “I am satisfied the relevant processes were followed. The men are ascending and descending at the same time.”— Keir Starmer The English language is pretty useful when it comes to describing things, but it can only do so much. Some things are beyond its scope: the malignant, ordinary-yet-strange quality of the Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, Keir Starmer, for … Continue reading Starmer’s Process State Is an Escher Universe
BY SEAN WALSH The Devil’s science? The philosophers who believe there are no beliefs. Paul Feyerabend did not think consciousness is a thing. “Is our basic conception of human cognition and agency yet another myth, moderately useful in the past perhaps, yet false at edge or core?” – Paul M. Churchland Paul Feyerabend Eliminative materialists are the philosophers who claim that consciousness does not exist. This seems … Continue reading Eliminative Materialism
BY SEAN WALSH The scene. From time to time the dialectic gets feisty and on rare occasions almost physical. A meeting of the Cambridge 1946 Moral Science Club, according to some of those present, was one such occasion. Note that recollections differ, as they say1. What might have happened is this: the very intense Ludwig Wittgenstein threatened the visiting speaker, Karl Popper, with a fire poker, in the course … Continue reading Wittgenstein, Popper and the Poker
BY SEAN WALSH I couldn’t be what’s known as a political libertarian because the version of freedom assumed doesn’t seem to me to be worth getting excited about. To borrow the language of the Dominican Thomistic theologian Father Servais Pinckaers, I’ll take freedom for excellence over freedom of indifference. I understand that libertarianism isn’t particularly sensitive to that distinction, or many others now I think of it, which is why … Continue reading Holy Faces
BY SEAN WALSH Before doing the relevant analytical deeper dive let me make two remarks, by way of qualification. First, the condition known as “Tourette’s Syndrome” should not be trivialised, and it’s not my intention to do so here; second, what I suppose we must call “BAFTAgate” (or maybe “f@@@@@g BAFTAgate”, given the subject matter) is the funniest thing to happen at an awards ceremony … Continue reading Anscombe and that BAFTA Incident
BY SEAN WALSH There are decent utilitarian grounds for junking utilitarian thinking. Photo: Jeremy Bentham, founder of the utilitarian crime family, in a box, where he belongs. What the philosophers call utilitarianism is actually a family of moral theories with all the feuds, competitiveness and fickle alliances that families tend to have. There may be nuances involved, but there is an intellectual genealogy which takes you from … Continue reading The Utilitarian Deception
BY SEAN WALSH Starmer’s demise is like the final minute of the spin cycle: never ending. I suppose part of the fun in making political predictions is the post-hoc analysis of “why I was right when I said this would happen and it didn’t”. And knowing you can be serially wrong without any professional consequence. There’s quite a bit of this about at the moment, much of … Continue reading Sunk Cost Fallacy Territory
BY SEAN WALSH Why are “puberty blockers” morally obscene? Aquinas would have the answer. We need to remind ourselves that the potential is as real as the actual. I’m not going to waste much time defending the self-evident truth that it is obscene to perform medical experiments on children. I mean no disrespect to the eugenicists who think otherwise, but these people are in need … Continue reading On Aquinas and Puberty Blockers
BY SEAN WALSH The broadcaster Mike Graham has been sacked (according to some reports) by Talk TV for offences real or imagined (past caring). This was always on the cards given the 24/7 diligence of the grievance junkies now in charge of the public and social media spaces. It was only last week that Mr Graham was involved in an entertaining “dust up” with the … Continue reading Toxic ‘Niceness’ Shouldn’t Stop Us Calling Out The Lies
