A Philosopher's Blog

While asteroid mining is still science fiction, companies are already preparing to mine the sky. While space mining sounds awesome, lawyers are murdering the awesomeness with legalize. Long ago, President

In the previous essay on threat assessment, I looked at the influence of availability heuristics and fallacies related to errors in reasoning about statistics and probability. This essay continues the

When engaged in rational threat assessment, there are two main factors that need to be considered. The first is the probability of the threat. The second is the severity of

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. -Terence   Way back in the fall of 2015, a free yoga class at the University of Ottawa was suspended due to

In Art of the Deal Donald Trump calls one of his rhetorical tools “truthful hyperbole.” He defends and praises it as “an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very

While the American right favors tax cuts, the left sometimes proposes tax increases. One argument advanced by the right against increasing taxes is the demotivation argument. The gist of the

One popular narrative on the American right is that the West is engaged in a “clash of civilizations” with Islam. Some phrase it in terms of Islam being at war

While the classic anti-migrant playbook focuses on falsely accusing migrants of spreading disease, doing crimes, stealing jobs, and using resources, there is also the more recent addition of accusing migrants