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Luke Roelofs

@lukeroelofs.bsky.social
621 followers 199 following 228 posts

Philosopher working at the University of Texas at Arlington Exploring the metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of consciousness 🧠🐙🐜 🌈🇵🇸🇺🇦 Pronouns they/them or he/him💛💜🖤

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Reposted by Luke Roelofs
Unsplintering.bsky.social @unsplintering.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
"The Kurdish project to build a new kind of democracy amid the Syrian civil war is ending. A journalist who has followed the revolution for years asks: What did it all mean?" www.truthdig.com/articles/hom...
truthdig.com
Homage to Rojava
The Kurdish project to build a new kind of democracy amid the Syrian civil war is ending. A journalist who has followed the revolution for years asks: What did it all mean?
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
I posted a bit about why I don’t use generative AI: the reasons are many but in fairness to its defenders, they are mostly things which, *in isolation*, I wouldn’t (and in other cases clearly don’t) take as good reasons to not use something (1/5) majesticequality.wordpress.com/2026/07/19/w...
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Also struck by how Graham’s expectation going in was that “they” both “run things” and also “know how things really work.” Failing to find such a “they” doesn’t mean there’s nobody with actual knowledge and understanding and expertise, just that nobody is listening to them…
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Kevin Reuning @reuning.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Proud to know that my dues helped fund this lawsuit.
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Amy Kind @amylkind.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
This week @lukeroelofs.bsky.social blogs about their forthcoming book, *Empathic Reason* over at The Junkyard. The book argues for a view they call "empathic rationalism" and makes the case for a tight connection between empathy and altruism and also for the epistemic indispensability of empathy.
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
I wrote a bit at @the-junkyard.bsky.social on empathic reason and why, as Percy Shelley once said, "The great instrument of moral good is the imagination"
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Happy May Day!
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
So I wrote a book, 'Empathic Reason'. Whereas my previous work is largely in philosophy of mind, this is me shifting towards ethics. Specifically, it’s an attempt to use philosophy of mind to address one of the most basic problems in ethics: why care at all? (1/4) global.oup.com/academic/pro...
global.oup.com
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
“If you were in charge of Star Trek what would you do?” Reform movements within the Borg Collective. Every character is an impossible-to-visualise persistent thoughtform propagating through billions of bodies at once.
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Nvidie @dervine7.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
accounts of democratic legitimacy really do not apply well to hegemonic powers
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Nicolas Kuske @nicolaskuske.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Popular Mechanics on my work about the possibility of a divine universe if consciousness and agency are fundamental 🌞 Thank you for the inspiration @drdreicito.bsky.social @philipgoff.bsky.social And the feedback @lukeroelofs.bsky.social www.popularmechanics.com/science/a656...?
popularmechanics.com
God Is the Universe Itself—Meaning Every Pebble and Atom Is Divine, Controversial Theory Claims
New research suggests the universe is conscious, and that it possesses a sense of purpose.
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
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Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · 27/02/2026
There are nearly 2,000 events on the No Kings Day map in all 50 states (and 10 countries). March 28 will be the largest protest in American history. Find your local event or plan a protest in your area: www.nokings.org?SQF_SOURCE=i...
(between images of a map showing the nearly 2,000 No Kings Day events planned for March 28) NO THRONES. NO CROWNS.
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Just submitted online testimony to the board of regents opposing this. Gonna paste the text of it below:
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Come be my colleague! UT-Arlington is hiring for academics who work on sustanability and the environment. Submit CV, cover letter, research statement, teaching statement, and 3 references by February 15th! uta.peopleadmin.com/postings/33223
uta.peopleadmin.com
Synergies for Sustainability Solutions Cluster Hire Initiative - Multiple Open Rank Faculty Positions
The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) is excited to announce a cluster hiring initiative in support of Synergies for Sustainability Solutions, advancing research in Environmental Economics, Socia...
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Jon Collins @jcollins.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
I think one thing people outside Minnesota don't understand is that after Good and Pretti were killed by feds while observing, the most normal people you could imagine have made peace with the fact that they could be next, and they are still out there because they say it's the right thing to do.
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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Happy St Brigid’s Day! St Brigid helped spread Christianity in Ireland, becoming the abbess of a powerful convent. When a nun came to her, pregnant and scared, St Brigid laid hands on her belly, prayed, and induced a miraculous abortion.
St Brigid of Kildare
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Been noting down my thoughts on Pluribus, and the more general question of how to be an ethical hivemind, and this post is part 1/3. majesticequality.wordpress.com/2026/01/26/t...
majesticequality.wordpress.com
Thoughts on Pluribus (1/3): Hivemind Ethics
So I recently finished watching Pluribus, the popular new show about global hiveminds and the people who love them. And I have lots of thoughts, both because the idea of a hivemind is something I’m…
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Ed Markey @edmarkey.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Not one more cent for DHS and ICE. We have the power to end this.
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Tim O’Brien @timobrien.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Witnesses say a man was shot by a federal agent in south Minneapolis this morning. The Minnesota Star Tribune is on the scene: www.startribune.com/ice-raids-mi...
startribune.com
Live: Man shot by federal agent in south Minneapolis this morning, witnesses say
More than a hundred protesters and observers have gathered near E. 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue.
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IndivisibleTX24❌👑 @indivisibletx-24.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Thanks for all who contributed to this billboard. Who can help extend the time it is up in Tarrant County? ICE OUT For GOOD!
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Sean T. Collins @seantcollins.com · 24/01/2026
A general strike against fascist terror makes this one of the most politically important days in the lives of everyone reading this.
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Texas Conference of the AAUP @texasaaup.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
🤠 Hey, Texas faculty! As you prep for the spring semester check out our blog for tips + advice. 👇 1) Don’t self-censor, know your rights! 2) Report censorship of your teaching, research, or expression. 3) Organize your department. We are stronger together! aaup-texas.org/blog/f/2025-...
aaup-texas.org
2025: A Year of Resistance, Solidarity and Resolve
CONTACT:  Brian L. Evans, PhD, President, Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), affiliated with the Texas American Federation of Teachers (AFT), aaup.texas@gmai...
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 03/01/2026
Anti-war march in NYC, organized overnight. Happening right now, 8th Ave. People care.
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Posting some free-flowing thoughts prompted by the death of my Sebastian earlier this month. First, thinking about his mind and the sense in which he might have loved me: majesticequality.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/t...
majesticequality.wordpress.com
Thoughts Occasioned by the Passing of my Cat, Sebastian (1/3)
Sebastian, my wonderful cat, passed away in my arms earlier this month at the age of 12. I’m not very good at expressing my feelings, but I’m heartbroken. He was an incredibly sweet and funny and h…
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
Incredible what you find when you start looking for data on the "white men can't get jobs anymore" phenomenon www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/12/17/w...
peoplespolicyproject.org
What Does the Census Data Say About “The Lost Generation”
Savage appears wrong, but the reality is potentially bleaker.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
The people who profited most from the cancel culture/free speech panic were less interested in actual freedom of speech than establishing their own control over public discourse. You don't even have to take my word for it. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Every society that has ever existed has had views that are mainstream and views that are fringe. The free-speech frauds who captured the discourse over the past decade understood this, but their true objection was that they did not unilaterally have the power to define which was which. For example, in a 2018 Times column, Weiss complained that “leftists” were engaged in a “concerted attempt to significantly redraw the bounds of acceptable thought and speech.” This was meant to sound sinister, menacing. In fact, this is politics. Every faction is always trying to “redraw the bounds of acceptable thought and speech.” In a free society, the government allows people to have those arguments. Such disputes are not a threat to free speech; they are free speech.When I say that CBS News’s Bari Weiss understood this, you needn’t take my word for it. In November, shortly after being given the reins to one of the oldest broadcast-news organizations in the country, Weiss used identical language to describe her own project: “I think it’s about redrawing the lines of what falls in the 40-yard lines of acceptable debate and acceptable American politics and culture,” Weiss said at the Jewish Leadership Conference. “And I don’t mean that in, like, a censorious, gatekeeping way.”

What’s the difference between her “redrawing the lines” of acceptable speech and other people doing it? What makes one “censorious” and “gatekeeping” and the other not? Well, because she gets to decide. That’s what so much of the free-speech panic was ever about: making sure the right people were in charge of what you see, hear, and read. Notably, this has very little to do with reporting the news, which is supposed to be what CBS News does. But if the point of installing Weiss was to ensure that she would gatekeep on behalf of right-wing interests, that is precisely what she appears to be doing.
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
apart from the sheer inconceivable horror of the El Fasher massacre and its attendant horrors itself, the thing I'm feeling depressed about is that it probably won't matter. these were people already on the utmost margins of the global system, who the world has already decided it doesn't care about
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Kim Weeden @weedenkim.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Social scientists spent the last 50 years arguing that racism is still prevalent in US even if it's covert (racism w/ a veneer), unconscious (racism w/out intent), or systemic (racism w/out racists). Along comes MAGA, which embraces gutter racism while claiming that teaching about racism is racist.
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Ana Marie Cox @anamariecox.com · 26/11/2025
People will die, and are currently dying, because RFK was granted one of the most powerful megaphones in the country. Two people who could have thrown barriers in front of his climb decided not to; there's a sex scandal here but it is not the biggest scandal.
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Luke Roelofs @lukeroelofs.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
I’ve had some papers published recently so I’m gonna post brief summaries and links here. They’re all dealing with the metaphysics of consciousness, though in one case with an overlap into, uh, philosophical entomology?
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Texas censorship news.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Sometimes I defend high-minded principles of peace and goodwill that I think consonant with leftist values, but my opponents are always able to cite all the worker led socialist paradises that ruthless willingness to deploy violence have wrought so I'm forced to bow before their superior pragmatism.
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AAUP @aaup.org · 07/11/2025
Our November 7 day of action to defend higher education has taken the country by storm! ✊ “There is only one way forward in saving higher education and democracy writ large and that is students, faculty, staff united...We have to become a new political force.” — Todd Wolfson, AAUP President
theguardian.com
Students and faculty at over 100 US universities protest against Trump’s attacks
Student, national and local groups across US organized day of action to condemn Trump’s assault on academic freedom
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AAUP–Penn @aaup-penn.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Hear @proftwolf.bsky.social: “OUR compact is: higher education as a public good—that means free college for all; that means an end to student debt; that means work with dignity for everyone on our campuses; it means freedom to teach and freedom to learn without Big Brother on our back!”
Hands Off Higher Ed demonstration outside Apollo
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 05/11/2025
Trump: "Hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us."
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
At this point, anyone—a university, a law firm, a corporation, a Democrat—bending the knee to Trump is doing it because they want to, not because of any political reality.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 31/10/2025
“Individuals on the ground sent a message that reached us Monday morning that 1,200 were dead,” Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, said. “By that evening, they said 10,000. By Tuesday, we couldn’t reach them anymore. We assume our ground contacts are dead.”
yaledailynews.com
Yale lab reports mass killings in Sudan, calls for student activism
The Humanitarian Research Lab was told this week that over 10,000 people in Sudan were killed within three days.
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Anderson Fonseca, Ph.D. @andersonnfonseca.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
On November 17 and 18, there will be an online launch of the book “Are ant colonies conscious? Collective minds and philosophical implications,” with the participation of the authors. We invite all interested parties to attend the event. Registration via QR CODE.
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the-junkyard.bsky.social @the-junkyard.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
This week at The Junkyard: A post by Luke Roelofs junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2025/10...
junkyardofthemind.com
Leaving It to the Imagination — The Junkyard
A post by Luke Roelofs There’s a common idea that sometimes the best aesthetic choice is to “leave something to the imagination”, where that primarily means not presenting it explicitly. Sometimes...
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Cornell AAUP @cornellaaup.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Join us tomorrow at No Kings II! AAUP members will be out in force. indivisibletompkins.org/event/no-kin...
indivisibletompkins.org
NO KINGS II
In America, we don’t put up with would-be kings. Our peaceful movement is only getting bigger and stronger. “NO KINGS” is more than just a slogan—it’s the foundation our nation was built upon. Born…
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AAUP @aaup.org · 03/10/2025
Check out AAUP’s statement denouncing the Trump admin’s compact and undemocratic loyalty oaths here👇
aaup.org
Universities Must Reject Trump Admin "Loyalty Oath" Compacts
The AAUP and AFT warn that the Trump administration’s offer to give preferential treatment to colleges and universities in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda is entirely corrupt.
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Texas Conference of the AAUP @texasaaup.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
“I’m emotionally shellshocked right now,” said one professor in the Texas Tech system. “What does it say about academic freedom? It says we don’t have it.” The professor spoke by phone from the inside of a car to avoid being overheard by colleagues. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...
nytimes.com
Texas Tech Moves to Limit Academic Discussion to 2 Genders
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Texas Conference of the AAUP @texasaaup.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
This is big government run amok; will Texas students have to endure government officials censoring professors in the classroom? That isn’t Texas and it isn’t America. 4/5
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Gregg D Caruso @greggdcaruso.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads theconversation.com/studying-phi...
theconversation.com
Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads
Philosophers are fond of saying that their field boosts critical thinking. Two of them decided to put that claim to the test.
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Toby Buckle @polphilpod.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
"Because reactionary centrists do not really have values, they struggle to understand the motivations of those who do." www.thebulwark.com/p/when-moder...
thebulwark.com
When Moderation Becomes Appeasement
If your chief goal is to find a middle ground with the far right on social issues, you’ll end up condoning its values—just ask Keir Starmer.
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Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
If you started paying attention to the US in 1960, this sure feels like the darkest timeline. But unfortunately, purges against Black & brown people are normal US behavior. You know what's NOT normal US behavior? This is the first time there's been a mass movement to STOP a purge in real time.
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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 30/06/2025
hands-down the best thing i've read about the sex wars (and why they still really matter for today's politics) jude-doyle.ghost.io/this-is-how-...
jude-doyle.ghost.io
This Is How You Lose the Sex Wars
Trying to pick a pathway through forty years of the ugliest conflict in feminism.
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Anita Leirfall @anitaleirfall.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
RIP Helen De Cruz (1978-2025) 💔 Helen De Cruz @helendecruz.net), professor of philosophy at Saint Louis University, has died. dailynous.com/2025/06/20/h...
dailynous.com
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