Thinky Thinks with Matthew Foust

Lets get an overview of Sam Harris' argument that we can and should look increasingly to science to help us determine human values through the maximization of well-being for life on Earth. This is an overview of Sam's 2010 book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. Questions, comments, requests (including book and/or topic requests encouraged!), and hate mail should go to me at [email protected] or harass me on instagram at matthewcfoust there!

Is "thank goodness" just a euphemism, or does it really mean something? Daniel Dennett, after nearly dying, reflects on goodness, thanking it, and receiving prayer from friends of faith.

Continuing into Peter Singer's look at effective altruism

Peter Singer's earlier book, The Life You Can Save, kicked off a movement which is continuing to grow. The Most Good You Can Do deals with the results and is here to get the word out about just that, the most good we can do! Peter Singer no longer has to speak to us in ideas, because the movement is here, and it's called "effective altruism". Is doing some good enough when we could be doing more? Is improving a life okay, when we could save one instead? Or saving 3 lives instead of 50? These are the questions which are addressed by Singer's realm of philosophy. The answer is, of course, that which we already know; we should be doing the very most we can, and Singer helps reveal that we can do much more than we may think. Its not so hard to be an effective altruist!

Another interjection for a work of "the Hitch" never fails to entertain, almost always informs, and rarely disappoints. While in his own world he says "I am perfectly well aware that there are many graver problems facing civilization, and many grosser violations of human rights being perpetrated as we speak", this essay finds its way to much more relevance than it seems by outlining the simple fact that when we don't like something, we ought to change it. More than that, it points out that the small things, the trivial violations, are the easiest to correct, and we have little excuse not to speak up, act up, and fix it. All this and more in two pages about a glass of wine at dinner.

Lynn Melnick emphasizes the issue of the victim being called "lucky". Victim blaming, "it could have been worse", and it's "not that bad", all of which feed into the cycle of lies told to primarily to women, something like "what you've got is good and you should be happy with it".

This essay, a excellent blend of comic aside and stark relevance to modern politics, is by the late writer, polemicist, intellectual, and moral inspiration Christopher Hitchens, published in Slate in 2007.

Another story from a great many of those which people would rather not hear, but need to hear.

What can anyone ever do to deserve to be raped? Nothing, clear and simple. Christman's essay emphasizes this truth through a wrenching anecdotal tale. 

This is my reading of the introduction, by Roxane Gay, to her anthology of stories, as well as the first story, "Fragments", by Aubrey Hirsch. It's a monotonous and boring reading, and I apologize, and this is exacerbated by the fact that when I actually think about what I am reading I am prone to stop often and reflect, or laugh, or interject to myself, and this would make for a very annoying experience for you who I have read this for. So this is my poor attempt at compromise.