Dusty Perkins
@dust.bloo.ski
Some atoms in a trenchcoat (trenchcoat is also atoms)
"Democracy dies in darkness" wasn't a warning. It was a mission statement.
October 14, 2025 at 5:03 PM
"Democracy dies in darkness" wasn't a warning. It was a mission statement.
Puts me in mind of this line from Gabor Maté's book on ADHD: "Couples choose each other with an unerring instinct for finding the very person who will exactly match their own level of unconscious anxieties and mirror their own dysfunctions."
October 10, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Puts me in mind of this line from Gabor Maté's book on ADHD: "Couples choose each other with an unerring instinct for finding the very person who will exactly match their own level of unconscious anxieties and mirror their own dysfunctions."
Saw this in the theater on first date with person who I am married to. A friend's sister who was working at some agency in LA had given us a copy of the screenplay, so I went in knowing that it would be awful and this made it a compelling choice.
October 10, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Saw this in the theater on first date with person who I am married to. A friend's sister who was working at some agency in LA had given us a copy of the screenplay, so I went in knowing that it would be awful and this made it a compelling choice.
The majority reasoning in Skrmetti was so rotten that, unfortunately, I don't expect them to have any difficulty making up whatever they need to square this circle. Will just make even more clear that there is no legal principle at work here -- just the principle of power you articulated.
October 8, 2025 at 4:23 PM
The majority reasoning in Skrmetti was so rotten that, unfortunately, I don't expect them to have any difficulty making up whatever they need to square this circle. Will just make even more clear that there is no legal principle at work here -- just the principle of power you articulated.
The first time I heard Lindsey Graham speak I had that reaction. He sounded just like Little Gideon from Gravity Falls in a way that seems clearly intentional, especially given the shared initials.
September 17, 2025 at 4:46 PM
The first time I heard Lindsey Graham speak I had that reaction. He sounded just like Little Gideon from Gravity Falls in a way that seems clearly intentional, especially given the shared initials.
My apologies to smug people in positions of power where they can posture to be dispassionately evaluating *the law* or *scientific evidence* to reach conclusions that constrain other people's possibility for being in the world (rights) and will lead to material harm for people who are not them.
June 30, 2025 at 10:21 PM
My apologies to smug people in positions of power where they can posture to be dispassionately evaluating *the law* or *scientific evidence* to reach conclusions that constrain other people's possibility for being in the world (rights) and will lead to material harm for people who are not them.
If I Google "Alex Byrne philosophy professor" are there really going to be any results? Is this bullying for powerless people to mock someone when they use their power to deprive an unfavored minority of personal liberty?
June 30, 2025 at 10:19 PM
If I Google "Alex Byrne philosophy professor" are there really going to be any results? Is this bullying for powerless people to mock someone when they use their power to deprive an unfavored minority of personal liberty?
Hey, remember a paragraph ago where the author held us responsible for a failure to go out and read their entire report rather than finding its conclusions justified by more than a grab bag of logical fallacies in this editorial?
June 30, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Hey, remember a paragraph ago where the author held us responsible for a failure to go out and read their entire report rather than finding its conclusions justified by more than a grab bag of logical fallacies in this editorial?
The chief activity of a philosopher being the discovery of one of these common beliefs to champion and hold apart from interrogation, no bias is detected here. Moving on.
June 30, 2025 at 10:08 PM
The chief activity of a philosopher being the discovery of one of these common beliefs to champion and hold apart from interrogation, no bias is detected here. Moving on.
There is nothing a philosopher likes more than avoiding careful language in favor of plain truths, and I have been told that the field is historically awash in universally accepted platitudes.
June 30, 2025 at 10:08 PM
There is nothing a philosopher likes more than avoiding careful language in favor of plain truths, and I have been told that the field is historically awash in universally accepted platitudes.
Ah yes, the Orwellian effect of unpacking the assumptions built into language in a way that acknowledges the experience of others, rather than presumptuously privileging our own subjectivity.
June 30, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Ah yes, the Orwellian effect of unpacking the assumptions built into language in a way that acknowledges the experience of others, rather than presumptuously privileging our own subjectivity.
If this is absurd, it is the absurdity that Byrne and fellow editorializers offering cover for legislators who want to deprive people of the ability to make their own healthcare decisions are comfortable with.
June 30, 2025 at 10:06 PM
If this is absurd, it is the absurdity that Byrne and fellow editorializers offering cover for legislators who want to deprive people of the ability to make their own healthcare decisions are comfortable with.
I am at the age where my doctor has recommended that I schedule a colonoscopy. Do I need to get a referral to set up a zoom with an out-of-network philosopher and some anti-colonoscopy weirdos?
June 30, 2025 at 10:06 PM
I am at the age where my doctor has recommended that I schedule a colonoscopy. Do I need to get a referral to set up a zoom with an out-of-network philosopher and some anti-colonoscopy weirdos?
Esp in light of how much noise those who are uncomfortable with the existence of transgender people have been making. But I guess I do have a bias towards making decisions about my own healthcare that center my needs and well-being without adequately weighting the opinion of some random academic.
June 30, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Esp in light of how much noise those who are uncomfortable with the existence of transgender people have been making. But I guess I do have a bias towards making decisions about my own healthcare that center my needs and well-being without adequately weighting the opinion of some random academic.
If I were choosing evaluators, I might think that people with decades of clinical experience supporting people with particular healthcare needs would be among the people best suited to make general recommendations on how to care for people with similar presentation?
June 30, 2025 at 10:03 PM
If I were choosing evaluators, I might think that people with decades of clinical experience supporting people with particular healthcare needs would be among the people best suited to make general recommendations on how to care for people with similar presentation?
Byrne is not doing work here that instills any confidence in this idea that intellectual fluency and skill in one domain is readily portable.
June 30, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Byrne is not doing work here that instills any confidence in this idea that intellectual fluency and skill in one domain is readily portable.
Surely, if authorship is so important in contextualizing and evaluating credibility, this author wouldn't have chosen to publish anonymously and then accuse someone investigating authorship and then critiquing them as incapable "rational debate".
June 30, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Surely, if authorship is so important in contextualizing and evaluating credibility, this author wouldn't have chosen to publish anonymously and then accuse someone investigating authorship and then critiquing them as incapable "rational debate".
...and what we are really talking about is which bias the author finds acceptable? Is there a name for the assumption that ignorance makes once's conclusions more valid? I don't think I've been asked to review the number of philosophical papers that would support such a claim.
June 30, 2025 at 10:00 PM
...and what we are really talking about is which bias the author finds acceptable? Is there a name for the assumption that ignorance makes once's conclusions more valid? I don't think I've been asked to review the number of philosophical papers that would support such a claim.
If we are to accept the implication that excluded evaluators with greater subject domain experience would have been compromised by bias that derives from their knowledge and expertise, may we acknowledge then that any evaluator brings a bias...
June 30, 2025 at 10:00 PM
If we are to accept the implication that excluded evaluators with greater subject domain experience would have been compromised by bias that derives from their knowledge and expertise, may we acknowledge then that any evaluator brings a bias...
"the hostile reaction to our work shows why we needed to do it in the first place." Really? I know it would be in my own best interest to close the tab at this point, but I guess I'm to going continue to read the article just to gas myself up about how right this judgement was.
June 30, 2025 at 9:57 PM
"the hostile reaction to our work shows why we needed to do it in the first place." Really? I know it would be in my own best interest to close the tab at this point, but I guess I'm to going continue to read the article just to gas myself up about how right this judgement was.
Why do people on the left love this self-recriminating meta narrative? McBride was full of this in that Klein interview. It's the immature world view of the child trying to figure out exactly which of their flaws made them unworthy of their parents' love.
June 30, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Why do people on the left love this self-recriminating meta narrative? McBride was full of this in that Klein interview. It's the immature world view of the child trying to figure out exactly which of their flaws made them unworthy of their parents' love.
Reposted by Dusty Perkins
Hmm, I'm hearing reports elsewhere that if one's beliefs about sex and gender may derive from deeply held "religious beliefs that parents wish to instill in their children", it actually means that the government must carve out privileges for acting on those beliefs.
June 27, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Hmm, I'm hearing reports elsewhere that if one's beliefs about sex and gender may derive from deeply held "religious beliefs that parents wish to instill in their children", it actually means that the government must carve out privileges for acting on those beliefs.
But I expect that it fails this supreme court because what the majority are interested in recognizing as religious is not truly individual and collective beliefs about metaphysical and spiritual truths and living in accordance with those, but a particular group and social order they wish to elevate.
June 27, 2025 at 6:42 PM
But I expect that it fails this supreme court because what the majority are interested in recognizing as religious is not truly individual and collective beliefs about metaphysical and spiritual truths and living in accordance with those, but a particular group and social order they wish to elevate.
I am going to get around to reading this eventually: www.law.georgetown.edu/georgetown-l...
The Free Exercise Clause in Transition: Examining Religious Challenges to State Bans on Gender-Affirming Care
www.law.georgetown.edu
June 27, 2025 at 6:35 PM
I am going to get around to reading this eventually: www.law.georgetown.edu/georgetown-l...