Ben Sima

  • The wound consists precisely in claiming to… –

    The wound consists precisely in claiming to discover and to master meaning, in claiming to suture or to saturate, to fill this emptiness, to close the mouth. Imagine that someone claimed to have said everything that needed to be said on the subject of this poem or that line of Celan, that someone claimed to […]

  • The Castle by Kafka

    Everything is detached in this book, alienated. Even the third person narration gives a sense of alienation. K. is a strange person in a strange land, he cannot quite fit into any scene of the story. And yet the events are all told as from K.’s perspective, which gives a warped view of the world. […]

  • Scott Alexander on Postmodernism

    Slate Star Codex discusses postmodernism. I think Scott actually does a good job explaining some of these concepts. The metaphor at the end is a bit iffy, but overall a nice example of the Principle of Charity. At the end of the day, the best way to learn postmoderism is to read the postmodernists: Foucault, […]

  • Plays and movies

    It took me a while to get into The Castle by Kafka. It can definitely be a boring book, but it doesn’t have to be. What finally got me into the book was this: I stopped imagining the scenery of the story as if it were a movie or a television show: an entire world […]

  • The Principle of Charity

    First off, there is really only one thing to keep in mind when reading a philosophical text, and it’s the thing that seems to be the most lacking in new readers: The Principle of Charity. It asks that you read a text in the strongest, most persuasive way possible, regardless of whether you agree with […]

  • SQL Database Design with Yesod and Persistent

    If you’ve ever designed a database from scratch, or worked with a database migrations, then you know how important it is to get the data schema right the first time. If you get them wrong, then when you (inevitably) have to fix it, you must do a major overhaul of your code just to fit […]

  • Michael Pollan Debunks Food Myths

    Novelty in biology is guilty until proven innocent. Michael Pollan

  • Michael Pollan Debunks Food Myths

    Michael Pollan Debunks Food Myths

  • Interview with McKenzie Wark of *A Hacker Manifesto*

    Courting Vectoralists: An Interview with McKenzie Wark on the 10 Year Anniversary of “A Hacker Manifesto” – Los Angeles Review of Books

  • Collective decision making defaults toward stasis

    It’s easier to scare than to inform and we fear losses more than we desire gains so collective decision-making defaults toward stasis. Alex Tabarrok, Collective Action Kills Innovation, Marginal Revolution