On Medium: Commercialized Nerddom at Fan Conventions

Here's a personal report on the commercialized nerddom at Fan Expo Canada.

On Medium: Ryan Holiday is a Sophist, not a Stoic

Read on about how the crucial difference between ancient and modern enlightenment explains the ruse of Ryan Holiday's promotion of self-help Stoicism.

On Medium: Where is Trump’s Impact on the Self-Help Industry?

Read on about whether we should all be striving to be supervillains now.

On Medium: Homeowners Conquer Nature by Mowing the Lawn

Here's an article about the face-saving rationales we use for infantile chores, like mowing the lawn.

On Medium: Consumers Are Too Childish to Rule Over Nature

Here's an article about the re-enchantment of our digital environments and the inversion of Gnostic longing.

On Medium: A Sobering Look at the Self-Help Mindset

Read on about the sophistry that counts for wisdom in the shallow, neoliberal, self-help marketplace.

On Medium: Where Are All the Buddhist Critics of Consumer Culture?

Read on about how Buddhism is supposed to be so much more insightful and relevant than Christian warnings, yet you don't hear many Buddhist criticisms of consumerism.

On Medium: We’ve Outgrown Spiritual Pursuits

Read on about how the self-help industry fools us into thinking we’re still serious about personal growth.

On Medium: The Mind of the Listicle Reader

Here's an article about why listicles are popular, and some of us nevertheless resent them.

On Medium: The Melancholia Industry for the Rest of Us

Read on about how self-help consumerism is for some and visionary art is for others.

On Medium: The Disgrace of the Happy Adult

Here's an article that critiques the self-improvement and happiness industries, and asks what’s better than joy and contentment in an unjust, absurd world.

On Medium: Consumerism is as Irrational as Fundamentalist Religion

Here's an article about the need for an existential perspective on all cultures, one that can compare, for instance, the rationality of atheistic and religious cultures.

On Medium: Why America Bet Everything on AI, and China Excels at Manufacturing

Here's an article about the culture clash between fraudulent individualism and pragmatic humanism, a clash that explains the difference between American and Chinese economic priorities.

On Medium: Why Humanists Should Denounce Cancel Culture

Read on about the dubious metaphor behind progressive and conservative dismissals of people, and why humanists should reject cancel culture.

On Medium: Instagram at the Frontier of Our Hypocrisy in the Wild

Read on about Instagrammers' confusion about role in nature, and whether we should help troubled wild animals or leave them to their fates.

On Medium: Godless Societies are as Irrational as Religious Ones

Read on about transhuman glory, the existential purpose of all cultures, and why even secular cultures aren't grounded in reason.

On Medium: Tool-Users and the Mastery of Writing

Read on about why you shouldn’t publish if you can’t write well without computers, AI, and the internet, because publishing should be for masters, not students.

On Medium: The Acute Meaning Crisis for Spoiled Consumers

Read on about how liberal progress produces a class of infantile adults that lacks a collective mother figure, resulting in an acute late-modern meaning crisis.

On Medium: AI Slop and the Artist’s Struggle

Here's an article about the corporate prioritizing of output over process, and the implications of consumers' devaluing of the artistic process.

On Medium: The Corporate Source of Social Media Sophistry

Read on about how busy consumers must choose between infantilizing infotainment and honourable philosophical and artistic content.