Robert Wallace
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philosobobby.bsky.social
Robert Wallace
@philosobobby.bsky.social

Philosophy Prof. @ Cal Poly, Free Will + Moral Responsibility but interested in everything.

https://www.roberthwallace.com/

Views my own etc. (he/him)

History 30%
Philosophy 18%

2025 update from our cat Georgia

I’m asking questions to learn more. It’s something I work on every day.

But Few want to discuss ways to solve problems on here. They want to virtue signal
Mark you literally ran a TV show encouraging people to think big and solve problems, and here you are whining “it’s too hard! How could we do it?!”

Reposted by Robert W. Wallace

one lesser awful thing about the Epstein files is that genuine crimes against a huge number of children are being morphed into fuel for the influencer industrial complex who don't care about truth or accuracy and just want grist for the content mills
It's the least important element to this, but I find it fascinating on an aesthetic level too.

Americans are watching a bootleg broadcast that someone in Canada recorded off their TV. And people are copying it to various platforms (however imperfect visually) to get it out as widely as possible.

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Simply

Having

A wonderful

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Now would be a great time for a 10 episode, 20 hour prestige series about the ten years between 1916 and 1926, covering the establishment of the 8-hr work day & 5-day work week, in the US. Each episode would be one year & the middle episode should be entirely devoted to the Battle of Blair Mountain.
Amid soaring starvation in the Kakuma Refugee Camp, one young mother of two said she had considered taking her own life to save her children, “because I heard the U.N. takes care of the kids when the parents are gone.”
After Trump Officials Cut Food Aid to Kenya, Children Starved to Death
“Brutal and traumatizing”: Interviews and a trove of internal documents show government officials and aid workers desperately tried to warn Trump advisers about impending disaster and death.
www.propublica.org

Reposted by Robert W. Wallace

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I got this comment in response to a post on X and it just made me think that a lot of these reactionaries just have no idea about even the basics of American history, and have been fed a false and rosy nostalgic view of things in the honestly recent past.

/also the comment about China is dumb.
'Tis the season for some festive science songs.

If you've ever wanted to hear someone sing about a dimunitive tyranosaur then now is your chance
These are the people who are willing to go on the record.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/u...

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That Compact essay is very easily picked a part with actual data/evidence, but what has become clear is there is very little will to do so as its dubious claims confirm a deeply held grievance amongst an apparently large % of our white colleagues that they are the victims of rampant discrimination.
ICYMI, I wrote about Yglesias making common cause with the right-wing moral panic over critical race theory. His supposed defense of liberalism is deeply illiberal. @liberalcurrents.com
A Tent Big Enough for Bigots but Too Small for Critical Race Theory
Like so many of critical race theory's detractors, Matthew Yglesias fails to engage with the actual scholarship.
www.liberalcurrents.com
“The research collectively suggests that America is becoming more anti-Semitic because its young people are becoming more anti-Semitic."
‘The More I’m Around Young People, the More Panicked I Am’
Anti-Jewish prejudice isn’t a partisan divide—it’s a generational one.
www.theatlantic.com

Scary. I teach a 400-level contemporary analytic metaphysics class, like “do tables *really* exist or is it just particles arranged table-wise?” stuff. I have a unit on social metaphysics with a focus on race and gender. What I KNOW is important recent work would be seen as woke indoctrination.
NEW: Public universities in red states, from Texas to Florida, are increasingly required to make their syllabi public. The University of North Carolina may be next. Does "syllabi transparency" help combat distrust in higher ed, or feed ill-informed suspicions of it? www.chronicle.com/article/when...
When Everyone Can See Your Syllabus
More states are requiring public colleges to make class syllabi available to the masses. Proponents say these measures boost higher ed’s credibility, while faculty fear being targeted.
www.chronicle.com
NEW: Public universities in red states, from Texas to Florida, are increasingly required to make their syllabi public. The University of North Carolina may be next. Does "syllabi transparency" help combat distrust in higher ed, or feed ill-informed suspicions of it? www.chronicle.com/article/when...
When Everyone Can See Your Syllabus
More states are requiring public colleges to make class syllabi available to the masses. Proponents say these measures boost higher ed’s credibility, while faculty fear being targeted.
www.chronicle.com
Everyone is understandably sharing the Miller quote, but I found this response from photographer Christopher Anderson to be notable, too.
Photographer Christopher Anderson on the Vanity Fair photoshoot

The USAID cuts should have been the end of this administration, maybe the end of a lot of things, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life grappling with the fact that it wasn’t.
NEW: Without USAID funding to help buy food for refugees, the World Food Program rushed to prioritize families based on need, determining that only half the population would get food.

Refugees learned which half they were in from a number stamped on the back of their ration card.
After Trump Officials Cut Food Aid to Kenya, Children Starved to Death
“Brutal and traumatizing”: Interviews and a trove of internal documents show government officials and aid workers desperately tried to warn Trump advisers about impending disaster and death.
www.propublica.org

Reposted by Robert W. Wallace

he sure loves his lil outfits
Bovino back in a familiar hunting ground – the Uber lot at O’Hare.

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Ah I think it's a bit worse than I said! My take was that the bit re the failure of the meritocracy when it turns on these people didn't seem well supported by argument. Having read this I now think it's even more substantially just false, incorrect.

www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/12/17/w...
What Does the Census Data Say About “The Lost Generation”
Savage appears wrong, but the reality is potentially bleaker.
www.peoplespolicyproject.org
Guys, victimhood culture is alpha now

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I think this is useful to read the whole way through to see just how Internet-poisoned right wing billionaires are. This guy is insane nyeditorialboard.substack.com/p/john-catsi...
John Catsimatidis on Donald Trump, Immigration, and New York Republicans
The New York Editorial Board's interview with businessman John Catsimatidis.
nyeditorialboard.substack.com
NEW: Without USAID funding to help buy food for refugees, the World Food Program rushed to prioritize families based on need, determining that only half the population would get food.

Refugees learned which half they were in from a number stamped on the back of their ration card.
After Trump Officials Cut Food Aid to Kenya, Children Starved to Death
“Brutal and traumatizing”: Interviews and a trove of internal documents show government officials and aid workers desperately tried to warn Trump advisers about impending disaster and death.
www.propublica.org
An absolute bedrock institution for understanding how the planet works, just civilization-scaled vandalism by the most incurious morons on Earth
Unbelievable. This would be a terrible blow to American science, writ large. It would decimate not only climate research, but also the kind of weather, wildfire, and disaster research that has underpinned half a century of progress in prediction, early warning, and increased resilience.
Exclusive: The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, according to a senior White House official, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado
The Trump administration is breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
bit.ly
Just say women. This is taking forever.

I tell my undergrads who want to pursue PhDs that academia is just like most things in life. You can’t ensure the outcome, you can only put yourself in the best position you can to get lucky. But academia is NOT like most things in life too. Comparatively few best-positioned people get lucky.