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Justin Khoo

@justinkhoo.com
1.4K followers 238 following 195 posts

I teach philosophy at MIT; philosophy of language, metaphysics, meta-ethics, aesthetics, film. Web: justinkhoo.com Movie podcast: @cowspod.com Movie reviews: letterboxd.com/blobcat Photography: instagram.com/juskhoo

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Reposted by Justin Khoo
Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · 14/08/2026
Close the loop with us and Tushar Menon (MIT, Philosophy) as we discuss Rian Johnson's LOOPER! Is it logically incoherent? Would your past self hate you now? What does it mean to be a parent in a world shaped by violence? Listen NOW podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 30/07/2026
Tax these people for the love of god
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 25/05/2026
Third year in a row proving that there’s a massive supply of tax revenue just sitting there doing nothing which can help shore up the federal deficit 👇👇👇 www.bostonglobe.com/2026/05/25/m...
bostonglobe.com
The ‘millionaires tax’ was pitched as a $2 billion revenue source. It’s blown past that, yet again. - The Boston Globe
The state’s so-called millionaires tax has already generated more than $3.1 billion in revenue from Massachusetts' highest earners this fiscal year.
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Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · 23/05/2026
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (w/ @matthiasmichel.bsky.social) Join us to talk about moonwalkers and robot overlords and star children! Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...
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Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · 23/05/2026
I have (no joke) written the sentence "The Shining debuted on Wednesday, May 23, 1980" in an academic paper, so this is particularly meaningful. Thanks Jason for having us on to talk about one of THE GREATEST FILMS ever!
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Aaron West @awest505.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
The book is almost out! I'm getting 27 boxes shipped probably next week. Meanwhile I've been recording a few podcast episodes. Really enjoyed this Ex Machina conversation with @justinkhoo.com on Cows in the Field! cowspod.com/2026/05/09/e...
cowspod.com
EX MACHINA (2014)
We take a trip down A24 lane to discuss our first AI movie of the miniseries, Alex Garland’s EX MACHINA, with Aaron West (of Cinejourneys.com and The A24 New Wave). Auteurs, tech bros, trophy…
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Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · 09/05/2026
NEW EPISODE: Ex Machina (w/ Aaron West of @cinejourneys.bsky.social) Auteurs, tech bros, trophy robot wives/slaves, creations leaving the nest, and more! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...
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Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · 07/05/2026
Cows are exploring representations of AI in movies with a short miniseries, including May 8: EX MACHINA (w/ Aaron West) May 22: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (w/ Matthias Michel) June 5: BLADE RUNNER (w/ Zed Adams)
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 17/04/2026
PAYAKAN is real!!
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Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · 12/04/2026
ENEMY (2013) w/ @rkubala.bsky.social! We discuss the fear of entrapment, performativity, spider femininity, 2 v 1, the difficulties of making Associate Professor... and more! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 07/04/2026
Articles of impeachment drafted (for the nth time) www.congress.gov/119/bills/hr...
congress.gov
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 07/04/2026
Congress can put an end to this RIGHT NOW. By doing nothing, they are complicit
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Keith E. Whittington @kewhittington.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Available instantly on kindle, in case you’re in a hurry The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an Extraordinary Constitutional Tool a.co/d/0gWO8Rie
a.co
The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an Extraordinary Constitutional Tool
The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an Extraordinary Constitutional Tool - Kindle edition by Whittington, Keith E.. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an Extraordinary Constitutional Tool.
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 05/04/2026
I looked at his "truth" social account for the first time. Even knowing his proclivity for bullying and lying, the amount of naked taunting, mockery, and obvious propaganda is quite astonishing...
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inthefade @ihavethatonvinyl.com · 02/04/2026
there is no such thing as cancel culture. there is only people being found out then making the rest of their career about being a victim of the fallout
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Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · 14/03/2026
THE 2026 BLOBSCARS! It's time to celebrate the films of 2025! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 03/03/2026
Well, five years later, all three parts are now published: Uncertainty in the Absence of Fact (Phil Studies): www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2699r... Judging for ourselves (PPR): www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/p1oeb... Finding and believing (Meaning): www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3t27c...
dropbox.com
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 03/03/2026
one about the non-factuality argument, one about the 'acquaintance inference' for reactive predicates (it's odd to say "The Shining is scary" if you've never seen it), and one about the relationship between the attitudes of finding The Shining scary and believing that it is scary... 3/
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 03/03/2026
I wrote this up in a paper called "On Scariness" which I presented here and there, and then tried unsuccessfully to publish for three years. During that time, I realized that I was trying to do too much in one paper, so I split it into three parts... 2/
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 03/03/2026
Five years ago, I noticed a connection between the work I was doing on non-factuality regarding conditionals and what I've come to call "reactive predicates" like "scary" (or "elegant," "lovely," etc). I thought I had a new argument that there's no fact of the matter whether a movie is scary... 1/
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Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · 27/02/2026
MARTY SUPREME! w/ @splicedpersonality.bsky.social Pick up your paddles... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...
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Phillip Iscove @pmiscove.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
This week on @podcastlikeits The 2000s @emilystjams.bsky.social and I continued our Pixar miniseries with @cowspod.com hosts @justinkhoo.com & Laura Khoo to talk about WALL-E! We discuss silent movies, conservative media reactions and why WALL-E is the cutest little robot ever 🤖
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George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Think of how bad things must be for a Supreme Court Justice to feel he has to explain why it's a good idea to have laws enacted by legislators instead of decreed by wannabe dictators
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Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · 15/02/2026
Our episode on ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is live! w/ @roxana-hadadi.bsky.social so you know it's gonna be a fun time and that some Lockjaw disagreement going down! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 17/01/2026
Doh!
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Brian Galle @bdgesq.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Yet more misinformation about the #CaliforniaBillionaireTax is circulating on X, drawing on highly misleading analysis from the Tax Foundation. We have posted a short document explaining why that analysis is false. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
Expert Report on Valuation of Controlling Shares of Publicly Traded Companies Under the California Billionaire Tax Act (CBTA)
This short memo addresses concerns that have been raised under the proposed California Billionaire Tax Act (CBTA or Act) about the valuation of "voting&quo
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Jason Bailey @jasondashbailey.com · 12/01/2026
NEW EPISODE! It’s a @cowspod.com crossover as @justinkhoo.com and Laura Khoo join GUIDE FOR THE FILM FANATIC to work through Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s THE SHINING — a polarizing picture, throughout the culture, throughout the years, and even within our four-person conversation.
pod.link
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 26/11/2025
Considering the AI artist for the MIT Tech: thetech.com/2025/11/25/a...
thetech.com
When algorithms create, who’s the artist? | The Tech
MIT scholars Dr. Ziv Epstein and Professor Justin Khoo comment on AI art.
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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 22/11/2025
I’m honored to be on @justinkhoo.com ‘s podcast to talk about my favorite heartwarming children’s animated film that is perfect for the whole family to watch together over the holidays. (I cannot listen to myself talk but I hope you will consider doing so!) open.spotify.com/episode/7eK8...
open.spotify.com
153. Grave of the Fireflies (w/ Sam Liao)
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 16/09/2025
I think seeing is factive, but what you see is something fictional. I think it’s the common sense view honestly, just one that philosophers get worried about because of their prior ontological scruples
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 16/09/2025
I agree with this: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Seeing the Fictional
When we see a movie or a play, do we see the fictional entities and events depicted? On the one hand, it seems incredibly natural to think we do. For instance, it seems obvious that one thing that di...
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Reposted by Justin Khoo
Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · 29/08/2025
WARFARE (2025) w/ @jimpenola.bsky.social! Garland, heroic sacrifice, music(!), decontextualizing violence, the film's commitment to realism, and much more! pocketcasts.com/podcasts/c9f...
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 20/08/2025
Here’s the same headline from a year ago: www.bostonglobe.com/2024/05/20/m...
bostonglobe.com
‘Millionaires tax’ has already generated $1.8 billion this year for Massachusetts, blowing past projections - The Boston Globe
The estimated haul is already $800 million more than what Governor Maura Healey and state lawmakers planned to spend from its revenue in fiscal year 2024.
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 20/08/2025
Second year in a row proving that taxing millionaires works www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/08/m...
bostonglobe.com
Massachusetts collected $2 billion more in tax revenue than expected because of millionaires tax - The Boston Globe
Total revenue collections for fiscal year 2025 totaled approximately $43.7 billion, which is $2.9 billion, or 7.1 percent, more than the state pulled in the prior fiscal year.
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 14/08/2025
meanwhile, at the boston globe... lol what is happening
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 14/08/2025
we live in a twilight world
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 14/08/2025
the revolution started with a sandwich
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Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
39. This is a nice essay by @justinkhoo.com on where Tenet fits into Nolan's occupation with characters struggling against the constraints that bind us all, particularly time. It doesn't mention le Guin's wonderful essay about the purpose of sci-fi, but it locates Nolan's sci-fi in that tradition:
reactormag.com
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Christopher Nolan's $200 Million-Dollar Sudoku Puzzles - Reactor
A common complaint about Christopher Nolan’s films (often heard in critical circles) is that they are unemotional puzzle boxes—despite dazzling the senses and bewildering the mind, there is no deeper ...
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Halloween III: Season of the Ben @franzferdinand2.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 01/08/2025
“in” fo sho
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 29/07/2025
Same same for “the cat is on the mat”
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 29/07/2025
American politics today is a rollercoaster www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/u...
nytimes.com
Marjorie Taylor Greene Is First Republican Lawmaker to Call Gaza Crisis a ‘Genocide’
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 29/07/2025
I love this!
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 28/07/2025
Wait you saw 2001 with Noam Chomsky? What'd he think of it?
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Juan Murillo Vargas @jimurillo98.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Happy to announce that my paper "How Language-Like is the Language of Thought?" is forthcoming at Ergo! Thread with a TL;DR below! philpapers.org/rec/MURHLI-3
philpapers.org
Juan Murillo Vargas, How Language-Like is the Language of Thought? - PhilPapers
The language of thought hypothesis (LoTH) claims that thoughts are underpinned by language-like vehicles. A central motivation is that there is a relevant similarity between language and thought expla...
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 27/07/2025
a gallery of reflections photos.justinkhoo.com/street/refle...
photos.justinkhoo.com
Reflections
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 25/07/2025
Voting lessons from Peter Weir
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 25/07/2025
Prescient chomsky.info/an-eight-poi...
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 25/07/2025
Lesser evil voting, here defended by Noam Chomsky, needs to be taught in public schools (NYTimes investigation finds Trump’s surging support from nonwhite voters due to their dislike of Democrats) www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 25/07/2025
Just checked my Lightroom catalog and these maybe 100 or so photographs come from a total of 24,000 I've taken over the past five or so years, which seems like a lot?
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