I was just in a workshop on mathematical understanding in Princeton last week; this point came up pertaining to mathematics, but it generalizes to other areas of inquiry.

On this, I love this paper on justified exclusions in mathematics, focusing on justly excluded cranks. Which doesn't mean that there can be no false negatives, but it's a matter of workload management for the community.
cris.vub.be/ws/portalfil...

Naturally, I got in touch with the student to encourage them to pursue a Research Master’s in philosophy ☺️

Of course you are right that the far right, and Wilders in particular, continues to have a firm grip on media & electorate in NL. But compared to the last elections, there's at least a bit more pushback. I also found this article on the profiles of voters interesting 👇
www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Do you have something specific in mind re Bontebal? Given the realistic possibilities, he does strike me as not as bad as the others... A truly left-oriented government at this point simply does not reflect the political ethos of the country, so it wouldn't be sustainable. So we need to compromise 🥴

I see one reasonably plausible, democracy-enforcing coalition in the horizon: CDA, GL/PvdA, D66, Volt and CU. It seems ideologically plausible, and not that far off from a majority (at 77 seats taking the upper limits of the latest peilingwijzer).
peilingwijzer.tomlouwerse.nl

PvdD ook heel goed, maar ik vrees te links voor CDA.

I completely agree! There should always be some computer already connected to the beaming system to be used. If the speaker wants to use their own computer, then fine, it's on them to make sure it works. But those of us who have 'plain' slides and just need a basic set-up should have that option.

Revolutionary chic 😄

Agreed! I always make a point of telling my students about how engagé Russell was all his life. While it’s true that many analytic philosophers see themselves as apolitical, that’s not the case of one of our founding figures ☺️

But as the book documents so well, many analytic luminaries are experts in being snarky themselves! (E.g. G. Ryle in the meeting in France, I think on 1958?) But yeah, maybe different times? Either way, I enjoyed reading the book, even if it didn't deliver everything that it promised.

@timcrane.bsky.social I think it's great how you highlight the many insights that the book contains. It pissed off many an analytic philosopher (maybe the snarky tone, as you noted), but it does include many excellent observations. But as you, I was not convinced by the 'ideology critique' part.

Very important topic!

What's the project about?

Some of my thoughts on this project 👇 (I don't myself use the term 'decolonise', but close enough 😀)
vu.nl/en/news/2025...

I look forward to the blog post!

Absolutely! Do you know the book 'Data Grab'? It draws a very clear connection between colonialism and AI hype.