Spinoza’s Ethics — Part III: Of the Affects

[12000 words] "Affects" are basically emotions. But I think keeping the term slightly technical will be useful. The first half of this piece will remain slightly abstract: "what the heck is actually happening?!!" kind of thing. The second half will finally get more concrete. We'll run through the nature of human emotions, with a bunch …

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OUT OF OFFICE Announcement – December 2020

[200 words] I'm going to be spending December in a Zen Temple in the Gredos mountain range in Extremadura in Spain. By this point, I understand the basic notion I am not actually 'David Leon'. I am really just the Universe, pretending it's this monkey called 'David Leon' for a while. Essentially, it appears... for …

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Aristotle’s Self-Help Book — The Nichomachean Ethics SUMMARIZED

[500 words] It's all about doing your thing (ergon). And doing it well.Flourishing. "Eudaimonia". What your thing is depends on what you are. If you're an animal, it's eating enough food to survive, and growing. If you're a human, it's that, plus talking, thinking (...which, annoyingly, involves listening to other people) and... "creative work" is …

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Why Twitch Plays Pokémon is literally the Best Thing Ever

[This is an old post, originally published on Blastocyst on March 9, 2014.But it's pretty relevant today, when we're all on the internet together feeling pretty down about collective action and existence itself.] [9600 words] Mount Moon is our Mount Sinai, and the Helix Fossil, our One True Lord and Saviour. Oh, and one more …

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