Scott Edgar
@scottedgar.bsky.social
History of modern philosophy, neo-Kantianism, sustainable transport, vegan tacos.
Reposted by Scott Edgar
Find me the policymaker, entrepreneur or pundit who distinguishes the goals of higher education from wealth-creation, or learning from employable skills, or understanding from access to data, or creativity from content. Find me the university leader who listens more to teachers than to these three.
November 29, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Find me the policymaker, entrepreneur or pundit who distinguishes the goals of higher education from wealth-creation, or learning from employable skills, or understanding from access to data, or creativity from content. Find me the university leader who listens more to teachers than to these three.
Christmas level: barely under control.
November 29, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Christmas level: barely under control.
This whole thread hits very close to home.
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
November 29, 2025 at 7:31 AM
This whole thread hits very close to home.
Canada! Destroying it's universities more slowly than the US and the UK! (So far!)
FWIW I suspect Canada isn't in the "destroying its academic system harder" category, but the "not big enough to compete" category. I don't think that changes your analysis!
November 28, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Canada! Destroying it's universities more slowly than the US and the UK! (So far!)
Either France has recently really picked up its heist game, or I just haven't been paying attention.
Either way, no one is competing with France for heists right now.
Either way, no one is competing with France for heists right now.
Thieves take €90,000 of snails meant for Michelin-starred restaurants
“It’s very surprising because they stole 450 kilos of snail meat.”
“It’s very surprising because they stole 450 kilos of snail meat.”
Thieves take €90,000 of snails meant for Michelin-starred restaurants
French police are on the trail of ‘experienced’ criminals who stole a whole year’s worth of produce from Jean-Mathieu Dauvergne’s L’Escargot des Grands Crus
stzl.ink
November 28, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Either France has recently really picked up its heist game, or I just haven't been paying attention.
Either way, no one is competing with France for heists right now.
Either way, no one is competing with France for heists right now.
Apropos of everything, I'm just going to say explicitly:
Canada should increase immigration. If our housing stock and social services can't absorb new immigrants fast enough, then we should raise taxes on Canadians to pay for more social housing, healthcare, and education.
Canada should increase immigration. If our housing stock and social services can't absorb new immigrants fast enough, then we should raise taxes on Canadians to pay for more social housing, healthcare, and education.
November 28, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Apropos of everything, I'm just going to say explicitly:
Canada should increase immigration. If our housing stock and social services can't absorb new immigrants fast enough, then we should raise taxes on Canadians to pay for more social housing, healthcare, and education.
Canada should increase immigration. If our housing stock and social services can't absorb new immigrants fast enough, then we should raise taxes on Canadians to pay for more social housing, healthcare, and education.
If you know, you know.
November 27, 2025 at 5:25 PM
If you know, you know.
My art history professor was almost embarrassed about how unsubtle the post-colonial analysis of this painting had to be.
Like, as academics, we want our analyses to be *smart*. But all you can do is look at this painting and be like, "Well, that's super racist."
Like, as academics, we want our analyses to be *smart*. But all you can do is look at this painting and be like, "Well, that's super racist."
Keep your lies straight, DHS. It's not about public safety? It's not about illegality? It's not about the fact that they're noncitizens? What's it really about? Oh we can guess...
November 27, 2025 at 5:23 PM
My art history professor was almost embarrassed about how unsubtle the post-colonial analysis of this painting had to be.
Like, as academics, we want our analyses to be *smart*. But all you can do is look at this painting and be like, "Well, that's super racist."
Like, as academics, we want our analyses to be *smart*. But all you can do is look at this painting and be like, "Well, that's super racist."
The Isaac Chotiner interview I'd most want to read? Andy Cohen, on the ethics of reality tv and making money by turning people's mental illness and pain into mass entertainment.
November 27, 2025 at 1:56 PM
The Isaac Chotiner interview I'd most want to read? Andy Cohen, on the ethics of reality tv and making money by turning people's mental illness and pain into mass entertainment.
Reposted by Scott Edgar
Volume I of the Journal for New Narratives in the History of Philosophy now published!
journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/nn...
#philsky
journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/nn...
#philsky
Journal for New Narratives in the History of Philosophy
journal.lib.uoguelph.ca
November 27, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Volume I of the Journal for New Narratives in the History of Philosophy now published!
journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/nn...
#philsky
journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/nn...
#philsky
Reposted by Scott Edgar
I will pay for a show that is Planet of the Apes with dolphins. Paul Gross is in the Charlton Heston role, and all the dolphins have Newfoundland accents for some reason.
November 26, 2025 at 7:40 PM
I will pay for a show that is Planet of the Apes with dolphins. Paul Gross is in the Charlton Heston role, and all the dolphins have Newfoundland accents for some reason.
"The first complete translation of Albert Camus’s personal notebooks written between 1933 and 1959, published for the first time in one comprehensive volume."
HUGE NEWS.
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
HUGE NEWS.
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
The Complete Notebooks
The first complete translation of Albert Camus’s personal notebooks written between 1933 and 1959, published for the first time in one comprehensive volume. Throughout his career, French writer and ...
press.uchicago.edu
November 26, 2025 at 11:02 AM
"The first complete translation of Albert Camus’s personal notebooks written between 1933 and 1959, published for the first time in one comprehensive volume."
HUGE NEWS.
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
HUGE NEWS.
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
Reposted by Scott Edgar
Yesterday, the world was quite close to an apocalypse.
November 26, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Yesterday, the world was quite close to an apocalypse.
If you bake, you know what's going on here. A two-crust fruit pie with shortcrust pastry is much, much, MUCH harder to make well than a cheesecake.
A good cheesecake is easy to come by. A pie that's actually good? Surprisingly hard to find.
A good cheesecake is easy to come by. A pie that's actually good? Surprisingly hard to find.
I get a lot of hate for this view and in turn I'd only ask if you've ever had a pie as good as a typical cheesecake. The answer is no, you have not. Cheesecake invalidates the whole pie category. Hell, regular cake barely survives the cheesecake onslaught on the strength of carrot cake alone.
The dirty secret of pies is that they have the lowest ceiling potential of all sweets. Your best pie is merely fine. Your median pie is bad.
November 25, 2025 at 9:20 PM
If you bake, you know what's going on here. A two-crust fruit pie with shortcrust pastry is much, much, MUCH harder to make well than a cheesecake.
A good cheesecake is easy to come by. A pie that's actually good? Surprisingly hard to find.
A good cheesecake is easy to come by. A pie that's actually good? Surprisingly hard to find.
It's tv and not a movie, but I wonder more often than I should about how Philip and Elizabeth Jennings handled the fall of the USSR.
If you were a despotic president, what movie would you force Hollywood to make? I want to see Quentin's Star Trek movie or maybe Kill Bill Vol 3.
November 25, 2025 at 9:02 PM
It's tv and not a movie, but I wonder more often than I should about how Philip and Elizabeth Jennings handled the fall of the USSR.
Reposted by Scott Edgar
A highly educated society is a better society. Everyone with the desire & ability should be able to go to university. Individuals & society benefit, whatever the subject, so education costs should be subsidised. Public research is a common good. That, apparently, is a controversial take.
November 25, 2025 at 11:34 AM
A highly educated society is a better society. Everyone with the desire & ability should be able to go to university. Individuals & society benefit, whatever the subject, so education costs should be subsidised. Public research is a common good. That, apparently, is a controversial take.
I love to think about the time I was in a group of advocates in a meeting with my city's mayor, trying to convince him to support a rapid transit plan.
That was meeting was the first time the mayor learned of self-driving cars, and that was all he wanted to talk about for the rest of the meeting.
That was meeting was the first time the mayor learned of self-driving cars, and that was all he wanted to talk about for the rest of the meeting.
Waymo privatized another public street:
Chanel approaching 4th, San Francisco
Possibly queued for a Billie Eilish show at Chase Center ~half mile away.
The light rail train on 4th seen passing in front of this roboherd has more passenger capacity than all of them combined.
OP: .tiktok.renaspam18
Chanel approaching 4th, San Francisco
Possibly queued for a Billie Eilish show at Chase Center ~half mile away.
The light rail train on 4th seen passing in front of this roboherd has more passenger capacity than all of them combined.
OP: .tiktok.renaspam18
November 25, 2025 at 8:49 AM
I love to think about the time I was in a group of advocates in a meeting with my city's mayor, trying to convince him to support a rapid transit plan.
That was meeting was the first time the mayor learned of self-driving cars, and that was all he wanted to talk about for the rest of the meeting.
That was meeting was the first time the mayor learned of self-driving cars, and that was all he wanted to talk about for the rest of the meeting.
I wonder if we'll hear about it when these guys realize you can feed an LLM-produced essay back into the same LLM and tell it to critique the essay.
November 24, 2025 at 3:17 PM
I wonder if we'll hear about it when these guys realize you can feed an LLM-produced essay back into the same LLM and tell it to critique the essay.
Listening to these back to back, to welcome the damp, premature dusk.
Three of my ten favourite songs of 2025 are overly-long, moody, slow burns. A fourth is a shorter, moody, slow burn.
Probably means everything's fine?
Probably means everything's fine?
November 24, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Listening to these back to back, to welcome the damp, premature dusk.
This is also my prediction. An increasingly clear demarcation between education for the ruling elite and education for the working masses.
My hot take is that over the next 10 years, we're going to see more emphasis on and investment in the humanities at Ivy League and other fancy schools just as state schools and small privates continue to decimate and even eliminate the humanities.
"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe
November 23, 2025 at 7:05 PM
This is also my prediction. An increasingly clear demarcation between education for the ruling elite and education for the working masses.
I've spent my whole life hearing Americans say "Only in America!" about things that are utterly normal in my country and any number of others.
"The United States isn’t a nation like other nations, and it never has been. There is no American ethnicity to back up the state, and there was no such distinctive ethnicity even in 1776, when the U.S. was created."--Gordon Wood www.wsj.com/opinion/why-...
Opinion | Why America Is a ‘Creedal Nation’
The distinguished historian says the U.S. isn’t like other nations and never has been. There is no American ethnicity to back up the state.
www.wsj.com
November 23, 2025 at 3:44 PM
I've spent my whole life hearing Americans say "Only in America!" about things that are utterly normal in my country and any number of others.
Christmas level: extreme.
November 23, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Christmas level: extreme.
Amazing choice on the part of European painters to spend centuries making children look as creepy as possible.
November 22, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Amazing choice on the part of European painters to spend centuries making children look as creepy as possible.
Whenever a decision-maker starts talking about "nice to haves" versus "have to haves," they're telling you what they're about to take away from you.
(I am probably late figuring this out. Forgive me.)
(I am probably late figuring this out. Forgive me.)
Andy Fillmore says ‘nothing is off the table’ when it comes to making cuts in Halifax budget
By @suzannerent.bsky.social
By @suzannerent.bsky.social
Andy Fillmore says 'nothing is off the table' when it comes to making cuts in Halifax budget - Halifax Examiner
Council votes in favour of mayor's motion to consider options for financial restraint.
www.halifaxexaminer.ca
November 21, 2025 at 6:41 AM
Whenever a decision-maker starts talking about "nice to haves" versus "have to haves," they're telling you what they're about to take away from you.
(I am probably late figuring this out. Forgive me.)
(I am probably late figuring this out. Forgive me.)
Reposted by Scott Edgar
It’s World Philosophy Day.
Go hug some wisdom.
Go hug some wisdom.
November 20, 2025 at 4:46 PM
It’s World Philosophy Day.
Go hug some wisdom.
Go hug some wisdom.