I recently watched the movie Obsession and, like many people who did, I have thoughts. It’s a fantastic movie that you should definitely watch (especially before reading this). It touches on subjects of male loneliness, the nature of love and romance, abuse, rape culture, selfhood and identity, bodily autonomy, as well as bringing up issues of media literacy and sexism. Here I will only be able to cover some of these topics.
Continue reading
I have not looked too deeply into what people are saying about the ending of Amazon’s show The Boys (2019 – 2026), but from what I have seen, opinion seems to diverge into one of two camps: it was either fine, though predictable if somewhat unsatisfying, or it was Game of Thrones level of bad for a final season. I would probably fit more into the former, but there are reasons I think it is unsatisfying that I haven’t seen mentioned by the admittedly few places I’ve looked.
Spoilers for The Boys ahead.
Continue reading
So far in 2026, here in the United States, I’ve encountered a fair number of people calling for the impeachment, removal, and even arrest of various officials in the Trump administration. Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, and Greg Bovino because of the lies and mishandling leading to, and in the aftermath of, the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and just the overall illegal occupation of Minneapolis. Pam Bondi and Kash Patel due to aiding, abetting, and covering up the Epstein conspiracy. Trump himself for being the ringleader (or perhaps useful idiot) of this grotesque spectacle, all while enriching himself and threatening to “nationalize” the 2026 midterm elections. While impeachment and legal action are certainly in order, those actions, I contend, are the easy part. The hard part is to demonstrate to the ~40% of the U.S. population who either loves what the regime is doing, or who are fine enough with it not to care, that all of this really is as bad as what the detractors are saying. Such an undertaking – completely discrediting the fascist authoritarian project in the eyes of a significant majority of U.S. citizens – requires being able to change peoples minds. But how does that happen?
I think that I, like many people, am drawn to the drama of both AI Doomerism (artificial intelligence is going to be existentially disastrous for the human species, and therefore we need to slow or halt its development) and AI Boomerism (AI is going to be enormously beneficial for the world, and therefore we need to accelerate its development, i.e., we need an AI boom). In the former, we get cool sci-fi stories like The Terminator and The Matrix, with all the action and heroism that comes with it, where the latter gives us stories like Her and Star Trek, with all the philosophical wonder at what it means to be human and what consciousness is. Especially as someone who wants to be (or at least likes to pretend to be) an author, and someone who is interested in philosophy, these stories are engaging and it’s easy to get caught up in them. But in the real world, AI has more mundane, but no less impactful, real world consequences. And so, people like me who often live with their head in the clouds, easily swept up by the high-minded ideas of AI, need to be brought back down to earth.
Spoiler alert for season 1 of Pluribus. Also, I just finished watching the show and haven’t looked into anyone else’s hot takes, so apologies of this one has already been said. But to me, whether intentionally or not, Pluribus is a striking metaphor for Trump and the MAGA movement in the United States.
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares (September 16, 2025), 272 pages.
The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Briant Christian, W. W. Norton & Company (October 6, 2020), 496 pages
See Part 1 of the review here.
See Part 2 of the review here.
The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Briant Christian, W. W. Norton & Company (October 6, 2020), 496 pages
See Part 1 of the review here.
See Part 3 of the review here.
The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Briant Christian, W. W. Norton & Company (October 6, 2020), 496 pages
See Part 2 of the review here.
See Part 3 of the review here.
The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire’s Critical Marxism and the Theft of Education by James Lindsay, independently published, (December 6, 2022), 210 pages
I’m a few weeks late to the party, but the nice thing about streaming services is that one can watch shows at their own pace. I will give my thoughts on these two high-budget, high-anticipation shows on HBO (HotD) and Amazon (RoP) and make some comparisons.
Nordic Ideology: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book Two (Metamodern Guides), by Hanzi Freinacht; Metamoderna ApS (May 29, 2019), 495 pages
Nordic Ideology: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book Two (Metamodern Guides), by Hanzi Freinacht; Metamoderna ApS (May 29, 2019), 495 pages
Nordic Ideology: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book Two (Metamodern Guides), by Hanzi Freinacht; Metamoderna ApS (May 29, 2019), 495 pages
The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One (Metamodern Guides), by Hanzi Freinacht; Metamoderna ApS (March 10, 2017), 414 pages
Metamodernism: The Future of Theory by Jason Ananda Josephson Storm, University of Chicago Press; First edition (July 20, 2021), 374 pages
Race Marxism by James Lindsay, Independently published (March 2, 2022), 310 pages.
Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by David J. Chalmers, W. W. Norton & Company (January 25, 2022), 544 pages
Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker; Viking (September 28, 2021); 432 pages
Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America by John McWhorter, Portfolio (October 26, 2021), 224 Pages.
