iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Spending the past month or so in Southern California has helped me realize that Stephen Miller must truly be a psychopath (he grew up here) because the best thing about this place BY FAR is the Mexican food.

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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Rorty has to be the funniest American philosopher of all time, right?

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Reposted by Ben Gross

‘Your priors too Bayesian’ has the juice

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I am a proud owner of the issue of Philosophy and Public Affairs with Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” paper in it.

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Two awesome used bookstore finds:

Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Wondering why conservatives keep blaming John Rawls for not understanding how birth works? Looking for an intuitive explanation of the original position? Check out my most recent substack post! open.substack.com/pub/grapheme...

open.substack.com

Erasing A Blank Slate

There's no liberal mass delusion, only a conservative lack of imagination.

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

Guess we’ve learned the answer!

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

The thing about taxes is that they need to be way higher

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

They have a versions of Reese’s peanut butter cups which is a chocolate bar and good golly miss molly it is good

Big Joel @bigjoel.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Reposted by Ben Gross

I’m finally reading a theory of justice, and frankly I don’t understand at this point why we’re not all rawlsian. Seems he cracked the nut no

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Kant argues that if we’re not to loathe the human race, we must believe it’s our natural end to morally progress; and further, that like progress towards “aerostatic balloons,” repeated failure to reach our end doesn’t justify abandoning hope—only demonstrated impossibility does.

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Rawls argues that your place in the natural distribution of talents is *morally arbitrary,* so justice should be assessed from the *point of view* of the original position, where you imagine not to know who you’ll be. It’s not about the literal possibility of being someone else!

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Kant asks: “What is enlightenment?” But he never asks, “how is enlightenment?” :(

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Alexander Hamilton was the first “read theory” bro

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From feminist economist Nancy Folbre: “Individuals who devote relatively little time, energy, or labor to child rearing are essentially free riding on parental labor. In the fiscal sense, at least, children are public goods.”

Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Whenever I read Kant I find myself muttering “hm!” and “hm?” and occasionally “hrrrm…” a lot. Much more than any other philosopher. What accounts for that?

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There is nothing more satisfying to a fascist than to use the mechanisms of efficient, impersonal bureaucratic state machinery (which they, of course, will claim to loathe—until the rule over it) inward on society, to enact swift, efficient, impersonal violence on their targets.

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

I prefer the reformist, coalitional, and outcome-oriented thinking of political pragmatists like Noam Chomsky (third image) to the radical, anti-compromise, and purity-politics point of view represented in the New Liberals’ approach to the NYC mayoral election. :)

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Driving people out of business is good when it’s a capitalist enterprise (hooray growth!) Driving people out of business is RACIST when it’s a state-owned enterprise (don’t look into what I was saying about identity-based appeals a few months ago!)

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Obama was proof of this before him!

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

I think if we passed a right to roam law, the sale of federal lands would be much less problematic from a conservation perspective. Just saying!

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

The ladies love an analytic Marxist

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Also, this great book cover. They’re not making them like this anymore

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Ben Gross @bengrossbg.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Awesome author’s photo I found in the used bookstore yesterday

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Oh to have been a left-liberal academic egalitarian in the mid 1990s discussing the future of socialism at academic conferences… why couldn’t it have been me?!?!

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The action-consequence relationship has always eluded Cuomo and his advisors…

We’re sacrificing our long term future. We’re probably sacrificing our short term future. And we’re doing it so that parents feel better about their kids and so problems borne of inequality show up in the data less?

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