Matthew Smith
@matthewnsmith.bsky.social
Philosophy prof normie
Our future thanks to AI
November 20, 2025 at 2:50 AM
Our future thanks to AI
First week of operational solar panels. Already paying for themselves. In mid November. In New England.
November 18, 2025 at 10:41 PM
First week of operational solar panels. Already paying for themselves. In mid November. In New England.
I am teaching Ethics and Public Policy this fall. Here is the syllabus. Comments welcome! (Seriously - please offer suggestions!)
Thanks to @jowolff.bsky.social for alerting me to citation infelicities!
Thanks to @jowolff.bsky.social for alerting me to citation infelicities!
September 2, 2025 at 4:42 AM
I am teaching Ethics and Public Policy this fall. Here is the syllabus. Comments welcome! (Seriously - please offer suggestions!)
Thanks to @jowolff.bsky.social for alerting me to citation infelicities!
Thanks to @jowolff.bsky.social for alerting me to citation infelicities!
Wu just made this guy tear up a little.
March 20, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Wu just made this guy tear up a little.
I wrote a bit about Jewish complicity with authoritarianism. Below is a paragraph from the piece.
Read the whole thing here: substack.com/@matthewnoah...
Read the whole thing here: substack.com/@matthewnoah...
March 14, 2025 at 9:49 PM
I wrote a bit about Jewish complicity with authoritarianism. Below is a paragraph from the piece.
Read the whole thing here: substack.com/@matthewnoah...
Read the whole thing here: substack.com/@matthewnoah...
I sort of forgot about Chisel and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and man oh man is it good to remember them.
March 11, 2025 at 6:06 PM
I sort of forgot about Chisel and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and man oh man is it good to remember them.
So, we are basically being governed by an entire party of these guys.
March 11, 2025 at 2:15 PM
So, we are basically being governed by an entire party of these guys.
Trump promises more arrests to come:
March 10, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Trump promises more arrests to come:
I was recently listening to a left wing podcast - Know Your Enemy podcast - and they used one of Trump's lines, "a big beautiful ocean", as a laugh line.
It's just a funny line for a president to utter even when it is used to defend quite awful ends.
It's just a funny line for a president to utter even when it is used to defend quite awful ends.
March 7, 2025 at 10:34 PM
I was recently listening to a left wing podcast - Know Your Enemy podcast - and they used one of Trump's lines, "a big beautiful ocean", as a laugh line.
It's just a funny line for a president to utter even when it is used to defend quite awful ends.
It's just a funny line for a president to utter even when it is used to defend quite awful ends.
This Radiohead collection of B-sides is a perfect atmospheric musical ode to the barren winter months closing out that era. The record captures both the great buzzing pointlessness of that totally exhausted cultural and political era.
March 3, 2025 at 6:49 PM
This Radiohead collection of B-sides is a perfect atmospheric musical ode to the barren winter months closing out that era. The record captures both the great buzzing pointlessness of that totally exhausted cultural and political era.
Also and also (yes Stankonia)
March 3, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Also and also (yes Stankonia)
postscript - I know that this is all White music. So, I have other records that fit the moment about which I am talking:
Black Star is, I think, one of those records. It captures the end of optimism, with a hint of 2000s Afropessimism creeping in.
Black Star is, I think, one of those records. It captures the end of optimism, with a hint of 2000s Afropessimism creeping in.
March 3, 2025 at 6:43 PM
postscript - I know that this is all White music. So, I have other records that fit the moment about which I am talking:
Black Star is, I think, one of those records. It captures the end of optimism, with a hint of 2000s Afropessimism creeping in.
Black Star is, I think, one of those records. It captures the end of optimism, with a hint of 2000s Afropessimism creeping in.
Finally the record that is most elegiac Radiohead's Kid A. No record of that era better represents both an ending and the inchoate beginnings of the new, terrible era we live in today. Again, this record sounds fresh. To listen to it is to simultaneously exist both now and then. So disorienting.
March 3, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Finally the record that is most elegiac Radiohead's Kid A. No record of that era better represents both an ending and the inchoate beginnings of the new, terrible era we live in today. Again, this record sounds fresh. To listen to it is to simultaneously exist both now and then. So disorienting.
The other album that fits this is Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antartica. Another record turning the long rock and roll era inside out, like someone rolling a piece of plastic around in their mouth.
It has skronky energy of 90s indie rock, but it also captures some of the era's shifting confusion.
It has skronky energy of 90s indie rock, but it also captures some of the era's shifting confusion.
March 3, 2025 at 6:38 PM
The other album that fits this is Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antartica. Another record turning the long rock and roll era inside out, like someone rolling a piece of plastic around in their mouth.
It has skronky energy of 90s indie rock, but it also captures some of the era's shifting confusion.
It has skronky energy of 90s indie rock, but it also captures some of the era's shifting confusion.
It's been 25 years since she released the record. It still sounds fresh. But it freshness is due in part to it's being one of the late 90s early 2000s records that were the apotheosis of the Rock and Roll half century. The other obvious record in this class is 2002's Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot...
March 3, 2025 at 6:38 PM
It's been 25 years since she released the record. It still sounds fresh. But it freshness is due in part to it's being one of the late 90s early 2000s records that were the apotheosis of the Rock and Roll half century. The other obvious record in this class is 2002's Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot...
The album, cover has her looking back at us from an NYC street. When it came out, I interpreted that as an image of her leaving us behind. But no. We are leaving that era behind. She is stationary and we are the ones driving away. There is symmetry: we are looking back at her looking back at us.
March 3, 2025 at 6:38 PM
The album, cover has her looking back at us from an NYC street. When it came out, I interpreted that as an image of her leaving us behind. But no. We are leaving that era behind. She is stationary and we are the ones driving away. There is symmetry: we are looking back at her looking back at us.
Really leaning in to PJ Harvey's 1990s output, with Stories from the City being what I judge to be her magnum opus.
It is an unintentional musical elegy for the confused cultural innocence of what I now think of as the half century long Rock and Roll period of American/Western European history.
It is an unintentional musical elegy for the confused cultural innocence of what I now think of as the half century long Rock and Roll period of American/Western European history.
March 3, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Really leaning in to PJ Harvey's 1990s output, with Stories from the City being what I judge to be her magnum opus.
It is an unintentional musical elegy for the confused cultural innocence of what I now think of as the half century long Rock and Roll period of American/Western European history.
It is an unintentional musical elegy for the confused cultural innocence of what I now think of as the half century long Rock and Roll period of American/Western European history.
Go job Tablet magazine for publishing a defense of ethnic cleansing!
March 2, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Go job Tablet magazine for publishing a defense of ethnic cleansing!
Good news (for the wealthiest)! You're getting a tax break!
Everyone is else is getting hosed.
Everyone is else is getting hosed.
February 26, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Good news (for the wealthiest)! You're getting a tax break!
Everyone is else is getting hosed.
Everyone is else is getting hosed.
Great job fellow Jews! Super excited about this new era in which university budgets get cut in our name to fund bombs dropped on children, also in our name.
Yeah yeah it’s not a one to one but the point is that the ADL etc sees college students as enemies and book burning fascists as friends.
Yeah yeah it’s not a one to one but the point is that the ADL etc sees college students as enemies and book burning fascists as friends.
February 26, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Great job fellow Jews! Super excited about this new era in which university budgets get cut in our name to fund bombs dropped on children, also in our name.
Yeah yeah it’s not a one to one but the point is that the ADL etc sees college students as enemies and book burning fascists as friends.
Yeah yeah it’s not a one to one but the point is that the ADL etc sees college students as enemies and book burning fascists as friends.
At least in the US and the UK, state capacity is quite poor. There is a serious housing crisis in the UK, with the cost of housing exploding especially in England, where much of the anti-system popular sentiment exists. And housing prices in the US are also rising rapidly.
February 18, 2025 at 3:21 AM
At least in the US and the UK, state capacity is quite poor. There is a serious housing crisis in the UK, with the cost of housing exploding especially in England, where much of the anti-system popular sentiment exists. And housing prices in the US are also rising rapidly.
A parsimonious explanation might begin with the widespread anti-system popular sentiment and ask where that comes from. The best example is that the liberal political order has simply failed to deliver. Wealth inequality remains stubbornly high across the board. (Charts: UK, Europe's GINI, US)
February 18, 2025 at 3:21 AM
A parsimonious explanation might begin with the widespread anti-system popular sentiment and ask where that comes from. The best example is that the liberal political order has simply failed to deliver. Wealth inequality remains stubbornly high across the board. (Charts: UK, Europe's GINI, US)
Given the rise of the right AfD in Germany and the collapse of the center-left ruling SPD in favor of the center-right CDU/CSU, we have a trend here of systems-oriented governing parties simply failing to sustain any popular support, regardless of the status of cancel culture.
February 18, 2025 at 3:21 AM
Given the rise of the right AfD in Germany and the collapse of the center-left ruling SPD in favor of the center-right CDU/CSU, we have a trend here of systems-oriented governing parties simply failing to sustain any popular support, regardless of the status of cancel culture.
For example, Rishi Sunak and the Tories were wildly unpopular and now, despite his election victory, Starmer is almost as unpopular. But neither the Tories nor Starmer's Labour embraced cancel culture or political correctness. Same for Macron. Is there a univocal explanation for this?
February 18, 2025 at 3:21 AM
For example, Rishi Sunak and the Tories were wildly unpopular and now, despite his election victory, Starmer is almost as unpopular. But neither the Tories nor Starmer's Labour embraced cancel culture or political correctness. Same for Macron. Is there a univocal explanation for this?