Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 29d

I think seeing is factive, but what you see is something fictional. I think it’s the common sense view honestly, just one that philosophers get worried about because of their prior ontological scruples

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · 29d

I agree with this: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Seeing the Fictional

When we see a movie or a play, do we see the fictional entities and events depicted? On the one hand, it seems incredibly natural to think we do. For instance, it seems obvious that one thing that di...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Reposted by Justin Khoo

Cows in the Field @cowspod.com · Aug 29

WARFARE (2025) w/ @jimpenola.bsky.social! Garland, heroic sacrifice, music(!), decontextualizing violence, the film's commitment to realism, and much more!

pocketcasts.com/podcasts/c9f...

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Aug 20

Here’s the same headline from a year ago: www.bostonglobe.com/2024/05/20/m...

‘Millionaires tax’ has already generated $1.8 billion this year for Massachusetts, blowing past projections - The Boston Globe

The estimated haul is already $800 million more than what Governor Maura Healey and state lawmakers planned to spend from its revenue in fiscal year 2024.

www.bostonglobe.com

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Aug 20

Second year in a row proving that taxing millionaires works www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/08/m...

Massachusetts collected $2 billion more in tax revenue than expected because of millionaires tax - The Boston Globe

Total revenue collections for fiscal year 2025 totaled approximately $43.7 billion, which is $2.9 billion, or 7.1 percent, more than the state pulled in the prior fiscal year.

www.bostonglobe.com

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Aug 14

meanwhile, at the boston globe... lol what is happening

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Aug 14

we live in a twilight world

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Aug 14

the revolution started with a sandwich

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Reposted by Justin Khoo

Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · Aug 10

39. This is a nice essay by @justinkhoo.com on where Tenet fits into Nolan's occupation with characters struggling against the constraints that bind us all, particularly time. It doesn't mention le Guin's wonderful essay about the purpose of sci-fi, but it locates Nolan's sci-fi in that tradition:

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Christopher Nolan's $200 Million-Dollar Sudoku Puzzles - Reactor

A common complaint about Christopher Nolan’s films (often heard in critical circles) is that they are unemotional puzzle boxes—despite dazzling the senses and bewildering the mind, there is no deeper ...

reactormag.com

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Reposted by Justin Khoo

Ben, A.D. 1972 @franzferdinand2.bsky.social · Aug 4

A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.

Steve Herman @w7voa.journa.host.ap.brid.gy · Aug 3

The US could see a 30-40% decline in new international student enrollment, resulting in nearly $7 billion in lost revenue and more than 60,000 fewer American jobs. https://www.nafsa.org/fall-2025-international-student-enrollment-outlook-and-economic-impact

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Aug 1

“in” fo sho

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 29

Same same for “the cat is on the mat”

Devin @dervine7.bsky.social · Jul 29

it’s funny that when people need an example of a declarative sentence they go for “it’s raining” when that’s a really weird declarative sentence

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 29

American politics today is a rollercoaster www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/u...

Marjorie Taylor Greene Is First Republican Lawmaker to Call Gaza Crisis a ‘Genocide’

www.nytimes.com

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 29

I love this!

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 28

Wait you saw 2001 with Noam Chomsky? What'd he think of it?

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Reposted by Justin Khoo

Juan Murillo Vargas @jimurillo98.bsky.social · Jul 28

Happy to announce that my paper "How Language-Like is the Language of Thought?" is forthcoming at Ergo!

Thread with a TL;DR below!
philpapers.org/rec/MURHLI-3

Juan Murillo Vargas, How Language-Like is the Language of Thought? - PhilPapers

The language of thought hypothesis (LoTH) claims that thoughts are underpinned by language-like vehicles. A central motivation is that there is a relevant similarity between language and thought expla...

philpapers.org

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 27

a gallery of reflections photos.justinkhoo.com/street/refle...

Reflections

photos.justinkhoo.com

Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 25

Voting lessons from Peter Weir

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 25

Prescient chomsky.info/an-eight-poi...

Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 25

Lesser evil voting, here defended by Noam Chomsky, needs to be taught in public schools (NYTimes investigation finds Trump’s surging support from nonwhite voters due to their dislike of Democrats)

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 25

Just checked my Lightroom catalog and these maybe 100 or so photographs come from a total of 24,000 I've taken over the past five or so years, which seems like a lot?

Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 24

Updated my photo site with lots of pictures of philosophers and from my travels photos.justinkhoo.com

Home

photos.justinkhoo.com

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jul 24

Updated my photo site with lots of pictures of philosophers and from my travels photos.justinkhoo.com

Home

photos.justinkhoo.com

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Reposted by Justin Khoo

Abe Mathew @abemathew.bsky.social · Jul 21

Had lots of fun talking to my favourite movie podcast (@cowspod.com) about a really great movie. Thanks Laura and @justinkhoo.com for the opportunity!

open.spotify.com/episode/3RrL...

144. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (w/ Abe Mathew)

Cows in the field · Episode

open.spotify.com

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Reposted by Justin Khoo

Kenneth Black @kennethblack.bsky.social · Jul 17

Pleased to announce that my paper, “Common Ground, Conditionals, and Ceteris Paribus Pragmatics,” is forthcoming in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy! 🧵

Kenneth Black, Common Ground, Conditionals, and _Ceteris Paribus_ Pragmatics - PhilArchive

In conversation, we make use of shared information in order to communicate. But what shared information? In theorising about conversation, it’s popular to allot a privileged position to a single body ...

philarchive.org

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Justin Khoo @justinkhoo.com · Jun 28

Just let AI see the movie, form an opinion for you, talk to your friends about it, that'll free you up to spend all your time doing... what? working in your meaningless job?

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · Jun 27

Really a sad way to go through life www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/b...

On how A.I. can transform media consumption:
Reading the A.I. summary — I think it can be useful. I think it has a powerfully inoculating effect. Like, I think long-form, lots-of-episodes TV is a waste of time. But it’s very tempting, right? You watch an episode and you’re like, “Oh, geez, I really want to know what happens here.”
And so I discovered a couple of years ago, obviously, that the solution is you immediately go to Wikipedia and read the entire summary of the season, and then you’re cured of the desire to watch any more episodes. So there is a therapeutic benefit to A.I. summaries.

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