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Levi Checketts

@lchecketts.bsky.social
120 followers 97 following 533 posts

Ethicist at Hong Kong Baptist University, focusing on intersection of poverty, new technologies, and Catholic social ethics. Author of Poor Technologies: Artificial Intelligence and the Experience of Poverty. Co-Editor in Chief of Techné.

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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Thinking about how my grant reviewer said I need to cite more of Brian Green and Noreen Herzfeld, and I really wanted to say, “Buddy, these are my friends. That’s just nepotism.” But then I realized I’m basically only famous in theological ethics of technology in my own head, so that was humbling.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
What in the “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” is this?
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Well see, academia is itself a kind of pyramid scheme, except instead of Tupperware, you get critical thinking skills.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I liked him better when he was doing Lonely Island stuff. This experimental stuff is too weird for my taste.
static.klipy.com
I'M On A Boat
ALT: I'M On A Boat
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
And don’t even bother asking about some of them and their connections to a sex-trafficking pedophile!
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Without reading the article, my reading of the cover shot is not “sees the future” but rather “is staring the wrong way.” The way the camera focuses on him doesn’t show us his gaze, and the lighter shore compared to the darker ocean draws the viewer’s eye landward against Altman.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Reminds me of how some Silicon Valley genius every few months proposes some new revolution in transportation that’s basically a bus.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Philosophy’s whole job is underperforming. Our field starts with a guy going, “You think you’re brave, but did you ever stop to think maybe you don’t know what brave means?” And everyone going, “Whoa!” So yeah, even if there are dozens or hundreds of papers on this topic, it’s decidedly undecided.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Honestly a bit miffed I didn’t get to be on the list😤
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
One of the most embarrassing things about having grown up Mormon was people always mistook us for Jehovah’s Witnesses, but while JWs had Prince, all we had was Donnie Osmond.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I don’t know about you, but with my last royalty check, I bought myself a VERY nice sports car (Lego set).
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I’m not even sure what it’s supposed to say. Like what’s an “MP lad”? Or a triple lock? And who under 70 says “for the birds”?
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I’m always baffled reading British posts. Didn’t they invent English? Why are they so bad at it?
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I guess I’m definitely younger than Nolen. Got some deep cuts here. Analogue and Resonance are maybe a bit obscure, but they were definitely formative.
List of “My 9 Games that shaped who I am.” In order from the top, they are: Benoit Sokal’s Siberia, Chrono Trigger, Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Wadjeteye’s Resonance, Warcraft II, Dungeon Siege, Fable, Analogue: A Hate Story, and Super Smash Bros. Melee
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I swear I’m not angry, just animated. Got some good feedback on my ongoing research on how sex workers in Hong Kong use CCTV systems to screen clients at Philosophy of Human-Technology Relations.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Surely it was because they wanted to ask your opinion on my recent article! www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf...
pdcnet.org
The Impossibility of Non-Repressive Technical Codes: Re-framing Andrew Feenberg’s Critical Theory of Technology with Jacques Lacan - Volume 30, Issue 1, 2026
Following Herbert Marcuse’s suggestions to get out of one dimensionality, Andrew Feenberg outlines suggestions for the possibility of democratic technologies: technologies that are not fixed to the do...
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
In my new article, I contend AI’s toll on the atmosphere, water supplies and manufacturing costs make it a moral hazard for sustainability. China should develop highly focused applications of AI rather than AI for AI’s sake
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The American government has indicated they have no interest in being world leaders when it comes to environmental responsibility. Meanwhile, we experience massive typhoons, rising tides and floods in this part of the world. What should the CPC do re: AI’s environmental toll? rdcu.be/Vdew1rmxBJfa
rdcu.be
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Good enough reason. I thought maybe recent films were too technofatalist or generally unimaginative. Maybe same difference.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Curious if there’s a reason the most recent film on the list is over 20 years old?
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
With Trump’s renaming Lake Ontario, children can memorize the names of the Great Lakes as Superior, Huron, America, Michigan and Erie, or SHAME, which is fitting, all things considered.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
But the language of “struggling with same-sex attraction” implies it is not as unnatural as the Tradition holds. One could reclaim this offensive language to simply ask—and what is wrong, in the end, with this attraction? 10/10
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Many theologians better than I have explained why the theology that forbids gay couples to have sex because sex is for reproduction cannot explain why impotent straight couples are fine. In Catholicism, the ultimate justification has been merely, “It’s unnatural.” 9/10
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Of course, they don’t do this. They weasel out of it, and this is why you either already believe homosexuality is a sin and then look for language to justify your view, or you don’t, and these arguments don’t convince you. So we should ask, with Augustine, what is the disordered love? 8/10
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
One needs, at this point, an explicit theology that explains why “same-sex attraction” is a sin. The problem is most religious conservatives do not claim this. They claim homosexual intercourse is a sin. This means they have to build their theology of sex separate from their theology of love 7/10
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
I may venture to guess a degree (conscious or not) of discordance with “compulsory heterosexuality” among religious conservatives led to this accidental disavowal. 3. Most crucially, the language itself doesn’t necessitate a hamartiological evaluation. People “struggle” with many things 6/10
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
But this language ironically undermines heteropatriarchy because “same-sex attraction” turns a binary straight-queer dialectic into a continuum. In this language, everyone is potentially a person who experiences this feeling, since it is not ontological. There is no true gay nor straight man 5/10
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
“Struggling with” is language that actually hints at the complicated nature of our conscious sexual interests and our unconscious desires. 2. “Same-sex attraction” is language intended to tear down the queer identity (“you’re not gay; you experience attraction to men”) 4/10
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
She notes we often find ourselves pulled toward and enjoying (sexual) experiences we don’t provide affirmative consent to. She isn’t talking about rape, but rather experiences where the participant may not have fully known or agreed to the experience and yet it proved deeply meaningful. 3/10
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Sex-positive language about positive consent already acknowledges that we can and should make conscious decisions about sex and relationships. Avgi Saketopoulou’s excellent book Sexuality beyond Consent argues for a (probably dangerous) notion of “limit consent” based in her analytic practice 2/10
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Hot take: the homophobic language of “struggling with same-sex attraction” is actually ripe for critical reflection. 1. The language itself implies that attraction fits in this complicated space between what we fully choose and what we have no control over. 1/10
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
As I talked with her outside the building, I could feel the stares on me as well. Was I negotiating with her? That’s what the mood was. We quickly went inside. Much literature on sex workers identifies this shameful gaze, but it was disarming to witness it so directly. 4/4
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
As I understand, that’s part of the rationale for the NGO’s location. But as I approached my RA, I noticed how male passersby regarded her. A sort of predatory stare. She later told me some man had circled her a few times, even when she asked him to leave. 3/4
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
My RA is a 30 year-old fairly attractive woman. While I wouldn’t call her apparel provocative, it wasn’t conservative either. I would say it was roughly appropriate for a young woman in Hong Kong summer. The area around the NGO’s office has street walkers. 2/4
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
So here’s an interesting experience I had about the male gaze. I’m currently doing a research project on sex work and cctv in Hong Kong. I went to meet a staff member of a local NGO that works with sex workers for an interview. My research assistant met me on the street in front of the building. 1/4
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Fun fact: Morton was once part of Morton Thiokol, the company blamed (falsely) for the Challenger explosion.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I, for one, am glad we were able to get an emo Spider-Man for this generation. #Spider-ManBrandNewDay
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
And don’t even get me started on Taiwan. Taipei? North Taiwan Tainan? South Taiwan Taichung? Central Taiwan Tiny little villages Taixi and Taitung? If you guessed West Taiwan and East Taiwan, you deserve a government post.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
It’s actually amazing how many Chinese name places are just directions. Beijing? Northern capital. Nanjing? Southern capital. Guangong? Wide east. Guangxi? Wide west. Hebei? North of the river Henan? South of the river Shanghai? On the ocean Shandong? Eastern mountain Shanxi? Western mountain
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
One of my favorite things about going on leave is inevitably various offices at my university will email me about things that are due EoD which I had thought were handled before I left, only to find out they weren’t because whoever in that office handled them was on leave before.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Academic publishing can be *really* slow. Case in point: I was asked about editing this book 3 1/2 years ago! After about 2 full years for recruiting contributors, setting deadlines and editing, it took another full year for the publisher to finalize it! Read it! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
link.springer.com
What Went Wrong with the West: Carl Mitcham’s Critique of Western Philosophy of Technology
This volume represents critical development in philosophy of technology as Chinese scholars articulate a constructive Chinese philosophy of technology.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Like Heidegger’s “Gestellung,” my initial repulsion from mid-century philosophers of technology only strengthens as I see modern technologists actively prove them right. There’s a need for reviving Heidegger, Ellul, Anders, Guardini, Berdyaev and more.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Best analogy I can think of is Zima Blue, a short story and an episode of Love, Death and Robots. The story proves the limits of artificial artistry. But the reductionist conclusion upends the premise, and it remains fiction, fantasy from our lived reality. lovedeathrobots.fandom.com/wiki/Zima_Blue
lovedeathrobots.fandom.com
Zima Blue
Zima Blue (🟦🟦🟦) is the fourteenth episode of the first volume of LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS. 3 Symbols: Square Square Square The renowned artist Zima recounts his mysterious past and rise to fame before unve...
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Like, how do you even say you appreciate the artistry of an entity that entirely lacks artistry except to mean you are embarrassed at the shortcomings of human beings’ artistry? There’s irony and worry in such a conclusion.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
To wit, Anders’s argument is that technology makes us ashamed of what we are as limited, frail, incomplete human beings. If a person can admit that their favorite actor is not an actor at all, this is a high-fidelity case of what Anders suspected for rockets and assembly lines.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
I’ve been reading the translation of Günther Anders’s “The Obsolescence of Man” off and on recently. As a philosopher, I was struck by how often he ascribes these mental states to others without engaging in their arguments (I.e., straw men). However, I’m starting to think he hit the nail on the head
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
“We asked 20 ethicists what they think about our products, corporate vision and the current sociopolitical impact of our industry. None of them said what we wanted to hear, but the last one did preface her comments by saying we so far aren’t breaking the law!”
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
It’s a good thing no ethicist has ever written anything about AI. Otherwise, AI companies might be obliged to read what has been written instead of hiring yes men.
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I want a clarification: what the hell does that even mean?
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Levi Checketts @lchecketts.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
At the #AustralianMuseum, you can make your own dinosaur. This one somehow looks uncannily like another famous predator.
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