kennypearce.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to better optimize our social arrangement. Marriage is a utility maximizing covenant, which should be entered into whenever the calculations endorse it. Spouses should continue to increase their utility until its value is surpassed by another option.

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"[Anglican divines] have writ many excellent things...but all of them it seems are insipid to the palate of this Searcher; save their delicious touches of Passive Obedience. This looks odly and seems to come from Spleen, Melancholy, or some Hyponchondriacal Affliction." Thomas Bainbrigg (1690) #c17

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Sometimes people try to weaponize pedantry at me on here and it’s like, I’m sure that works for you a lot of the time, but dog I went to philosophy grad school, I’ve been doing the goku high gravity training for pedantry for like a decade

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

People laughed a few days ago when @jamellebouie.net said we might not have flu shots next year, but:

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"the variety of nature, is a stumbling block to most men, at which they break their heads of understanding...and how should it be otherwise, since nature's actions are infinite, and man's understanding finite?" Cavendish, Observations (1666), ch. 1.25 #philosophy #c17

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I shared this note with the owner of the Washington Post this morning.

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I've recently read in multiple #c17 sources that in the 1st century there was a heretical sect of Christian anarchists, possibly led by Simon Magus. This sounds...not true? Anyone know anything?

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"the wickedness of Men hath been so great upon earth, as to call down Heaven it self to justifie their impieties, and when they have found themselves unable to bear the burden of them, they would fain make Religion do it." Bishop Stillingfleet, Sermon on Jude 11 (1668/9) #c17

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"there can be no higher aggravation of a wicked action, than for Men to seem to be Religious in the doing of it. If the Devil himself were to preach sedition, he would never appear otherwise than as an Angel of Light; his pretence would be unity." Bishop Stillingfleet, sermon on Jude 11, 1668/9

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Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances amid federal research funding cuts www.thedp.com/article/2025...

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"God did not, on account of His foreknowledge of the evil that would result from man’s creation, leave man uncreated; for it was better to bring back sinners to original grace by the way of repentance and physical suffering than not to create man at all." Gregory of Nyssa

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It was better when philosophers used words ending in ‘-ferous’ all the time. ‘Salutiferous’ and ‘odoriferous’ are both very good words. #philosophy #c17

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"neither can natural causes nor effects be overpowered by man so, as if man was...above nature...for man is but a small part, and his powers are but particular actions of nature, and therefore he cannot have a supreme and absolute power." Cavendish, Observations (1666), ch. 1.2 #philosophy #c17

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According to Robert Hooke, the correct method of #philosophy involves observing through a microscope while a louse sucks blood from your hand. We've all been doing it wrong. #c17

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Discovered today that if I give a prompt of the form "Consider X's argument that p," ChatGPT understands the p should be the conclusion, but Microsoft Copilot thinks p should be the first premise.

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The Times spoke to people being trapped inside a Panama hotel after deportation from the US and the individual stories of horror are almost too much to bear www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/w...

submitted 10 days ago • 237 comments

What are some good effects for a deity just getting into its first causes

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

If you wanted to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, you would empower the inspectors general. If you wanted more waste, fraud, and abuse, you would fire them.

submitted 11 days ago • 2289 comments

Fun Fact: Lucretius’ “On The Nature of Things” is “Metal.” 🤘🏻

submitted 11 days ago • 5 comments

You cannot determine whether you saved or cost money based solely on one side of the ledger. Example: I saved my household $2K by not paying the mortgage.

submitted 12 days ago • 1537 comments

Word of the Day is ‘quockerwodger’ (19th century): a puppet individual whose strings are pulled entirely by someone else.

submitted 14 days ago • 223 comments

My latest paper, "Metaphysical Rationalism Requires Grounding Indeterminism," is now available, open access, at JAPA! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Things people could be programming computers to fo for me: My budget/taxes Recipes/shopping lists Other personal assistant functions Things they are programming computers to do for me: Make up facts Do math wrong Plagiarize books/papers Ruin social media

submitted 15 days ago • 6 comments

"how could we move our arms? To move them, it is necessary...to send [signals] through certain nerves...men who do not know that they have...nerves...move their arms...Therefore men will to move their arms, and only God is able and knows how to move them." Malebranche #philosophy #c17

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The lawsuit alleges the migrants have been "disappeared into a black box" and are unable to communicate with attorneys.

submitted 15 days ago • 551 comments

There are connections to be drawn between the two 1948 British imperial partitions, as well as with the postwar European forced population transfers, but boy howdy is “that was all fine, let’s do more of it” not one of the lessons to draw.

submitted 15 days ago • 17 comments

Hey kids, you like severance? Let me tell you about 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕖𝕩𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕝𝕠𝕔𝕜𝕖’𝕤 𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕒𝕪 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕔𝕖𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕙𝕦𝕞𝕒𝕟 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘

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"deporting people who...have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages [their] dignity...and places them in a state of...vulnerability and defenselessness." www.vatican.va/content/fran...

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

Apparently I was totally wrong and this is not behind a paywall

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not only are guinea pigs not pigs, they're not even native to Guinea. I believe in funding research because there should be a historian out there who's dedicated many years to establishing why we call them that. I don't care about knowledge utility. I want useless esoterica to proliferate wildly

submitted 19 days ago • 2 comments

I must say, this is one of the better quiz questions I've ever written.

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"man has a great spleen against self-moving corporeal nature, although himself is part of her, and the reason is his ambition; for he would fain be supreme, and above all other creatures...he would be a God, if arguments could make him such" Cavendish, Observations, ch. 2.7 #philosophy #c17

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"An Essay concerning Human Understanding...appeared indeed in the Beauties of Style, and Wit, and Language; but all this was...calculated...for leading youthful and half learned Minds into...Ignorance and Infidelity." Peter Browne, Divine Analogy (1733), 127–128 #philosophy #c18

submitted 21 days ago • 1 comment

Does it count when his friends the Proud Boys vandalize churches?

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"The ancients had puny ideas on the works of God, and St. Augustine, for want of knowing modern discoveries, was at a loss when there was question of explaining the prevalence of evil." (Leibniz, Theodicy §19) Augustine's problem? He didn't know about all the happy #aliens. #philosophy #c18

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ON DOGE, The Articulate State, and Witnessing Truth open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

Page proofs! #philosophy

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