1. I got back onto Twitter about 1.5 years ago after Facebook algorithm made it impossible for me to interact with anyone. (No matter what I do, every time I refresh, FB gives me an entirely different timeline.) I’ve always been a bit nervous about using Twitter professionally. The way how comments are not strictly…
Great book | Thick
I have read this book Thick, and other essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom for quite a while now. I’ve always wanted to blog about it, but haven’t been able to. Partly is that the book is a collection of essays so it’s difficult to summarize as a whole. Partly is also that the book is really,…
Dealing with stuff in the profession
I haven’t been posting lately because, you know, the world fell apart. I also finished a draft of my dissertation, which is pretty good given that the world fell apart. I’ll try to get back to it by writing something short today. I was recently mansplained analytic philosophy at a departmental Zoom social, which is…
Great book | lies and identities
I’m slowly getting back to reading and writing. I’ve recently finished the book The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity by the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah (btw, turns out there are many books titled “Lies that Bind”). I listened to this book on Audible. It’s narrated by the author. He has a great narration style, and the…
Intentions don’t matter part II
A short thought. But since I haven’t been writing much lately (I, like most people I know, have been politically depressed in the past month or so), I thought I’d start small. Years ago I read Anscombe’s Intention in a reading group. I have no background in anything remotely related to philosophy of action, so my…
Intentions don’t matter
I haven’t been blogging much lately because of political depression. I’d like to try to write something I’ve been thinking for quite some time today. I was talking with a friend, who wanted to talk about why some people are “inconsistently good/bad”. There’s a social media post that we both read. The post goes like…
Community building and staying grounded during the pandemic lockdown
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, many are scrambling to adjust to the new life under quarantine. For me, UC Irvine announced on March 9 that we’d move all the operations online. During the ensuing three weeks of staying at home, I’ve watched the number of cases in the US surge past that in…
In defense of gossip
When I was little, the culture within China around me was such that the most natural question following “what do you (or your parents) do?” is “how much do you (they) earn?” Sometimes the second question is phrased as “oh so that’s like $5k a month, right?” which leads to the same effect. Nobody thought…
Some suggestions for inclusive practices
I haven’t been writing for a while. A lot has been happening and maybe I’ll write about them later. But right now, I’m trying to get back to writing. I was talking with some people lately about my climate survey. I talked about what surprising things we might learn from something like this (e.g., men…
In the face of disasters
January 22nd was the day when lies and apathy could no longer hold down the truth. Overnight, news broke out that the number of confirmed and suspected Coronavirus cases had been vastly underreported, that it had spread far and beyond due to inaction and censorship, and that the medical system could no longer hold its…