Dear reader, I have been remiss. I have not posted in my Random Thoughts series in almost seven months. I have been doing a lot of random thinking since then. And I have collected even more random funny images. So without further ado, enjoy this Super Sized and Super Random collection of my Random Thoughts!
802. One of the many things I have underestimated: how stubbornly tenacious Eurocentrism is within philosophy, even among people who are new to philosophy as a discipline.
803. I did not become what right-wingers call “woke” because of indoctrination; rather, through a long and continuing process of listening and self-reflection, I have been un-indoctrinating myself.
804. The idea that I could be indoctrinating college students is ridiculous for many reasons, but it’s also deeply offensive to the humanity of my students who are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves no matter what I say.
805. I’m never more assertive than when I’m making intense eye contact with a driver while I’m crossing the street on foot.
806. One of my favorite things about traveling, especially to other countries: as a tourist, I can give up the pretense that I understand how anything works.
807. This world has many problems. The solutions are difficult to know and even harder to implement. But I’m pretty sure cruelty is not going to solve any of humanity’s problems.
808. Most forms of conservatism thrive on fear—fear of change, fear of difference, fear of uncertainty. And like most fears, these are ultimately rooted in fear of death. The problem, of course, is that fear is also a deep motivation for most people, but also, maybe this means the answer to conservatism is diffuse these fears. And—hackneyed and cheesy though it may sound—the paths out of fear are empathy, love, and hope.
809. I unwisely took on the task of editing my department's website, which of course entails sitting through many hours of tedious training videos, the specific content of which I will immediately forget. Suddenly, I have a lot of empathy for my students.
810. A thought on the first day of Pride Month: Bigotry is a ridiculous affectation. Imagine looking at this vast, diverse universe that has existed for 13 billion years, and which will exist for many billions more, and then thinking, in this ephemeral blip of reality on one planet in one solar system in one of billions of galaxies, that not only that some more-or-less arbitrarily designated categories of a bipedal, clothes-wearing species are better than others, but that your category of this species just so happens, amid the inconceivably vast panoply of the cosmos, to be the best kind at the expense of all the others. The hubris! Utterly ridiculous. Happy Pride, everyone!
811. Perhaps a corollary: call me a bleeding-heart woke hippy-dippy snowflake if you like, but I just think we need more love in this universe, not less.
812. All of us are equally important in the small scale, equally unimportant in the cosmic scale.
813. Aging metalheads should go easier on Metallica—none of us are the same as we were in the 80’s, either.
814. It’s weird that anger became the only emotion men are allowed to express, and the only one women aren’t allowed to express.
815. One day in the mid-90’s I made the conscious decision to try to stop being afraid of people different than me. This was probably one of the more important decisions of my life, one that I’d like to think has made me less susceptible to the types of bullshit that seem to be animating our current political landscape.
816. I’m never excited about walnuts, but I can live with them. They can’t all be cashews. Mmm, cashews. Come to think of it, “hope for cashews, prepare for walnuts” is pretty good advice in general.
817. On immigration, Gaza, guns, and so many more issues, it’s entirely reasonable to call for an end to the status quo without having a clear idea what would replace it. Sometimes (and perhaps intentionally by some parties) worrying too much about the second step keeps us from taking the first step.
818. Shipping people to foreign prisons without due process, masked police kidnapping people off the street, and calling in the military without local permission to quell a protest local law enforcement was already responding to are all disturbing developments for sure, but it’s clear how we got here when you remember that for the last decade or more, the American right has been telling people our country is being literally invaded by a faceless brown horde of inherently violent criminals hell-bent on destroying America (“… some of whom, I assume, are good people”). This rhetoric was always dangerous.
819. Even if you agree with this administration’s stance on immigration, surely calling in the military to a protest in Los Angeles is a bit much. And even if you agree with that, you have to admit it sets a dangerous precedent. And even if you think that precedent will only ever be used against people you don’t like, what makes you so sure that the machinery of power being assembled today will never be used against you or people you care about?
820. The fight against fascism must occur on many fronts—social, political, legal, and so on. But since fascism thrives on fear, we must also fight it psychologically, philosophically, and spiritually. We need to encourage people to tackle their fears head-on, to see that immigrants, LGBTQ people, people of color, poor people, etc. are not some faceless Other to be kept at bay behind walls of fascist violence. We all struggle differently, and these differences are important, but at root we’re all human beings just trying to make our way along the tangled and uncertain paths of existence. Like it or not, we’re all in this together. Some people may be too far gone for such reflections to dissolve their fears. Such is the tragedy of humanity. But I have to hope that enough of my fellow humans can find the cognitive courage to work through their fears so that we can build a better world for all of us.
821. Medical professionals: Avoid sugar and alcohol.
Me: But those are my favorite things!
822. Sometimes, in politics and elsewhere, it’s enough to say, “no.”
823. A hypothesis: Very few US conservatives actually care about immigration as an issue. If they did, they would be in favor of doing something to solve the many real problems we have at the national and international level. They would work to fix the whole system. Instead, we get increasingly draconian enforcement designed to punish those who are perceived to be improperly deferential, those who do not know their place. We see “law and order” and “they should come here legally” as a salve for the shame of moral indecency. We see “immigration” or “border security” as the thinnest of veils covering the calloused visages of xenophobia and racism. “Immigration” becomes an outlet for the worst of America, directed toward what actually makes this country great—a perfect encapsulation of the many contradictions of America.
824. Live music is always an electrifying miracle of human experience. There’s nothing like it. But, and this is a point that will only be appreciated by my fellow metalhead siblings, the energy of a live heavy metal performance is unlike any other. I always appreciate live music, but metal… that’s the essence of life condensed into heavy riffs. That most people do not understand this only makes it more special for those of us that do.
825. Why would you spend even a fraction of your brief time on this Earth hating the other people you share it with? What a waste! What fevered madness!
826. Sometimes while driving on a busy street I stop to let a pedestrian cross. But usually the cars in the other lanes do not stop, and the pedestrian remains stranded in some kind of metaphor for the social and political zeitgeist.
827. The weakness of violence and external enforcement is that it never achieves its goal, not on any deep, long-term basis, anyway, because it requires constant vigilance and continual expansion into ever-worsening practices of dehumanization.
828. One thing I do not understand about my fellow Americans: Why are you always in such a hurry?
829. Few things are as amusing to me as giant, tough pickup trucks and SUVs that slow down to drive carefully and delicately over small bumps.
830. Zombie stories always become less interesting to me when they become about humans being terrible to each other. And they almost always do. Such a weird genre trope. Are flesh-eating monsters not drama enough?
831. It’s weird that people expect answers to questions like, “Why do men do this?” or “Why do women do that?”
832. I’m not the type of workaholic academic who does work while on vacation, but I’m also not the type of academic who has mastered the art of saying “no” to avoid overcommitting to too many things. I’m even worse at saying “no” to vacations. All this is a way to say to whomever needs to hear this: “Sorry I didn’t get that thing done on time.”
833. The Midwest and the South are more similar than either region cares to admit. One difference is that if you order iced tea in the Midwest, you have to specify if you want it sweetened. If you order iced tea in the South, you have to specify if you want it UNsweetened or they will bring you sugar in a glass with a splash of tea in it.
834. A big part of why being on vacation makes me tired is that I’m coerced into getting up early and not taking naps.
835. I try not to be a morose motherfucker, but sometimes it’s difficult when the world is full of grief.
836. A fundamental defect of the whole “law and order” ethos: You can’t enforce your way out of social problems.
837. I wish they could forecast how annoying rain will be. Light mist and torrential downpour are entirely different levels of annoyance, especially if you have to walk anywhere.
838. Superman (2025) was fun! James Gunn always remembers that superhero stuff is supposed to be a little silly and feature fantastical plot elements like an evil tech billionaire who secretly controls social media to foment anti-immigrant sentiment to hide his nefarious scheme of working with foreign governments to enhance his own power. So creative!
839. As a tall man, I’m puzzled by many straight women’s romantic preference for tall men. Do these women need help reaching high shelves? Do they enjoy listening to a man complain about back pain, hitting his head on things, and the constant discomfort of contorting himself to fit into cars, busses, airplanes, and other spaces designed for smaller bodies? Do they like sharing a bed with someone whose feet hang off the edge of the bed? Do they delight in a grown man who can’t wear normal long-sleeved shirts without looking like a teenager who just had a growth spurt? Are they attracted to a man who deliberately and assholishly uses his size to be imposing, or a man who feels intense guilt about the possibility of doing so inadvertently?
840. A sad thing about our current political moment is that humanity has many real problems, but we seem determined to avoid even acknowledging any of them, much less doing anything to actually solve them.
841. The recent popularity of non-ironic mustaches and mullets among young white men makes it harder than ever to distinguish hipsters from fascists.
842. Someday the history of the early 21st century in the United States of America may look something like this: For a few hundred years, rich white men controlled 99% of everything. In the early 21st century, they discovered they only controlled 95% of everything. Out of their resentment and greed, they then waged war on the rest of society to push that up to 100%.
843. Whenever I read Plato's Euthyphro for class, I reminisce about the first time I read it in 1996 while riding the bus in St. Paul. I chuckled and loved it then, and even more so now. If there was one moment that made me become a philosophy major, it was probably that one. This is why I tell my students to be careful while reading the Euthyphro! If they're not careful, it could lead to a lifetime of philosophy!
844. I’m hesitant to enter into discussions about guns in America, because these discussions go predictably nowhere with the same talking points forever and ever—second amendment, freedom, thoughts and prayers, mental illness, bring God back in our schools, overthrowing tyranny—amen. But I’m ready to admit that I’ve never understood the gun culture in this country, certainly not the extreme obsession it has become in recent years. If you want to have your little guns to shoot at a range or to go hunting safely, I admit I don’t get it, but sure, go ahead. If you want to have a firearm in your house despite many, many reasons this is a terrible idea, I guess it’s your house, so, okay. But why does anyone need a long gun at Walmart? Why is there a handgun in your glove compartment? Why conceal a gun at the movies? Why is every guy with a gun convinced he’s the good guy with a gun, head brimming with puerile fantasies of vigilantism and poorly targeted revolution? Why are instruments of death your entire personality? These are not features of a healthy society.
845. Red states/blue states and generations: Two discourses that have grown stale, mainly by calcifying, simplifying, and essentializing categories that are more complicated, contingent, and varied than our uses of these categories allow.
846. My latest conspiracy theory: No human being actually cared either about Sydney Sweeny’s jeans or the Cracker Barrel logo. Rather, each outrage was created and sustained by Culture War chatbots.
847. “I enjoy cozy mysteries about brutal murder and true crime podcasts about grizzly killings that actually happened to real people. I have a favorite serial killer.”
Normals: Oh, yes, very normal and respectable. Endearing, even.
“I enjoy fictional horror with imaginary violence, and sometimes there are zombies or vampires, which are not real and can’t hurt anyone.”
Normals: Such a fucking weirdo! I could never like that stuff. Too scary.
848. Gender is so fucking weird: Let’s create a complex conceptual web of categories and associations based loosely on perceived physiological features of infants and then entrap every single human in this web from the cradle to the grave. This web will control who your friends are, what interests you are allowed to have, how you move your body, who respects you in various circumstances, who feels entitled to your body, how likely you are to experience different types of violence, what emotions you are allowed to express or even feel, how/if you are educated and how educators relate to you, what kind of job you can have, how much respect/pay you get at work and elsewhere, who expects various types of care and work from you, what kinds of fabric you can use to cover your meat sac, how much you are required to care about the fabric you use to cover your meat sac, how you will be judged by your appearance, what type of shampoo and deodorant you use, your hairstyles, … and pretty much everything about your life, both internal and external. And this bizarre notion will be continually enforced by outright violence, social stigma, microaggressions, unspoken assumptions, etc. And the weirdest part of all this weirdness: we will treat this arcane and largely arbitrary conceptual scheme as if it is “natural” and “eternal” and “obvious.”
849. One thing I dislike about the last ten years or so of American politics: the meanness and callousness that has permeated our political discourse. Yes, it’s worse in the right-leaning zones of the political spectrum and the very real material effects of authoritarian fascism are much worse, but I still think there’s a subtle moral harm in the increasing tendency toward dehumanizing and othering one’s opponents. It’s not good for us. And it will make it more difficult to build community in whatever comes after this moment.
850. Tron: Ares is an okay movie and an excellent Nine Inch Nails music video.
851. How does recognizing that we’re all going to die and life is suffering and all things must pass not make everyone feel deep compassion for all sentient beings?
852. The Buddhist idea of conventional truth makes sense to me because many things people think of as real—gender, nation-states, money, race, etc.—also have huge effects on the world while having little if any ties to anything resembling objective reality.
853. On the way to the Oct. 2025 No Kings protest I listened to Pete Seeger and on the way home I listened to Rage Against the Machine. Part of what these protests are to me is refusing to let the MAGA people define this country. We are the home of Pete Seeger, Rage Against the Machine, and a long tradition of protest (now with fun costumes!). And that, to me, is what makes America great.
854. Philosophical thinking tends to appeal to people who can think about the frameworks in which people think. This is why many people become relativists when they first dabble in philosophical thinking: they mistake the difference in frameworks for a difference in reality. A more mature attitude—according to my framework, anyway—recognizes that reality exists beyond any one framework’s ability to grasp it, including one’s own.
855. “I can’t believe morning people do this on purpose!” – Me when I’m forced to get up before sunrise and then do things all day without a nap.
856. A sense of humor and an appreciation of beauty are essential for a good human life, and the lack of these abilities is the cause of a lot of human monstrosity.
857. I’m not really a Marxist, but I do think capitalism is immoral, because it encourages greed and harmful inequalities, both of which bruise our humanity.
858. Philosophy, art, and literature expand our sense of possibility. They are the work of those Ursula Le Guin called “the realists of a larger reality.”
859. That so many coffee/bagel/donut shops close in the early afternoon shows how deeply the tyranny of the morning people corrodes the bedrock of human affairs.
860. I want my taxes to go toward food, healthcare, and generally making a minimally decent society for everyone. I don’t want my taxes to go toward violence and cruelty at home and abroad.
861. My think piece about American politics is that it’s super complicated and nobody really understands it.
862. Few lines of thought make me sadder than “we can’t achieve utopian perfection, so let’s not even try to improve anything.”
863. Capitalist economic theory is taking a sort of short-sighted, greedy psychopathy that would embarrass most children, declaring this to be “rational” and “universal human nature,” and then making this the basis of a self-destructive, exploitive system that encases the world in a suicidal death cult that threatens the continued existence of humanity and other life on Earth. Sheer madness.
864. I respect right-wingers and libertarians who admit they just don’t want to help people much more than those who claim we can’t afford to help people.
865. I try not to be a hateful, violent person, but when discounted Halloween candy is replaced with Christmas candy less than a week into November, it’s hard not to burn down a Walgreens.
866. I’ve rarely heard someone describe their experience using generative AI that met all three of these criteria: 1. Necessary (they needed AI to do this), 2. Timesaving (using AI actually saved them time), and 3. Accurate (they got helpful/true results). If we’re going to destroy our economy (when the AI bubble bursts), disrupt labor (when the wealthy use AI as an excuse to fire workers), make ourselves dumber (when AI dulls our cognitive and creative skills), make blatant theft acceptable (when AI “trains” on the work of human creators), and kill the planet (given the vast quantities of power and water required), you’d think it would be for a technology that actually works.
867. My latest plan for world peace: give everyone an afternoon off to go see Predator: Badlands with some popcorn, candy, and a drink. If a Predator can make friends, so can we.
868. MAGA: Fake conservatism based on false nostalgia.
869. I simply do not understand how humorless people live in this universe. The universe didn’t manifest your little blip of consciousness for you to sit there and not laugh when a pie manifests in someone’s face.
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