Tara McMullin

Sometimes, one needs to be emotionally invested in a hypothetical situation to fully appreciate its consequences. In such cases, fiction seems a better tool to explore the consequences of particular philosophical views than philosophical thought experiments.

That's why we have intermediaries, and why disintermediation always leads to some degree of re-intermediation. There's a lot of explicit and implicit knowledge and specialized skill required to connect buyers and sellers, creators and audiences, and other sides of two-sided markets. Some producers can do some of this stuff for themselves, and a... See more

If you’ve used all of your creative powers to come up with a cure for cancer and you want to follow a playbook for the FDA approval process, by all means, do that.

But it seems as if too often, people are going through the FDA approval process in hopes that it will lead them to the cure, metaphorically speaking.

What’s more, art is no longer semblance. It fuses with reality.

And an American college is only true to itself when it opens its doors to all—rich, middling, and poor—who have the capacity to embrace the precious chance to think and reflect before life engulfs them. If we are serious about democracy, that means everyone.

So why try to predict the future at all if it’s so difficult, so nearly impossible? Because making predictions is one way to give warning when we see ourselves drifting in dangerous directions. Because prediction is a useful way of pointing out safer, wiser courses. Because, most of all, our tomorrow is the child of our today.

Now we have seen that the semi-theological dogma that all labour, under any circumstances, is a blessing to the labourer, is hypocritical and false; that, on the other hand, labour is good when due hope of rest and pleasure accompanies it.