There have to be slightly less paternalistic ways of framing the commentary…

Bad enough Labour are attacking higher education in this country but now they have to wreck my plan B career too!?

The nyt article by Sullivan gave me immense pain. Like yes let’s pull out the ladder from trans people to avoid risking harm to gay and lesbian communities by hurting public perceptions of the broader movement. It’s not like the whole point was to protect non conforming people

Honestly don’t know how millennials dealt with the Iraq war… like this whole thing with Iran sucks but at least the memes are fire, dunno how they did endured betrayal by the government without such solid content for cope back then

So deeply confused why everyone goes crazy for Plato, reading the republic to understand what all the hype is and all he is saying is that you shouldn’t laugh too hard and we should ban flutes?

Goal of the summer is to get back in shape, and while it’s difficult, I recently started fitting into some old clothes again! It’s the small victories that are keeping me going

one of the remarkable things about the increase in raids at courthouses, schools etc by ICE is how shortsighted it is. We want people - all people! - to send their kids to school and pick them up safely, to attend and obey their court appointments, etc. Putting a chill on those activities is madness

oh no what does this mean for big balls

Speaking to NPR in his first media interview since his detention, lawful permanent U.S. resident Mohsen Mahdawi finds peace in meditation and hopes "America will fulfill its promise."

the right wingers hated this one

This was my classmate. He was a student in my ethics class, and we used to sit next to each other. Most dedicated person in the class to legitimate justice for all people. He legitimately cared. I am so horribly heartbroken

In light of recent events the happy hour has been replaced by an hour of sober reflection at the bar instead.

It’s incredible that I can’t get on the Chicago blue line without somebody smoking a cigarette inside the subway car. Like it’s every time

I love that this is how Penrose responds to anybody who criticized not his first exposition of his ideas but his second which already responded to critics. Man wanted to DIE on this hill

Been so frustrated by the way Trump has colonized so many parts of my life. Ruining immigration law, disgracing my university, curbstomping law firms that I once aspired to join into submission. Ive never felt more politically angry than this

Trump Declares War on Immigration Attorneys In one of his most dangerous orders so far, Trump instructed the DHS and the DOJ to use "professional ethics" as a mechanism for silencing lawyers who challenge him in court or represent immigrants. austinkocher.substack.com/p/trump-decl...

Making a donation to my grad school Alma mater

The laws of logic fall in two camps: (1) useless af (2) way too powerful, need to be severely nerfed (looking at you identity of indiscernibles)

The kid in the ER next to me is listening to the same tiktok with APT on repeat, ban this stuff already please.

Didn’t see Sanders’s take on H1Bs until just now— truly heartbreaking to see someone that generally moves in the right direction politically fall so clearly for BS propaganda with such a limited and misleading factual basis. It’s such a shame that people don’t understand what H1B does for America

Time for my regularly scheduled yearly post about how awesome hunter x hunter is. Each time I rewatch it (now like the 5th?) I feel like I get something new out of it emotionally that I never tapped into before. Just so full of life.

Strong temptation to go to French law school, ditch dreams of US career, and avoid Trump second presidency. Anyways looking like my immigration law jobs finna disappear w h1b in a month or so

I’m for sure one of those guys who thinks analytic philosophy can be on average more rigorous than some continental stuff, but listening to famous philosophers talk about this stuff is truly savage. Horwich in an interview just trash talkin like bro chill

Too much is beautiful with this. Assignment due Christmas, prof grants student request for extension on Christmas, responds at 4am, student is awake at 4am writing paper he assumes is due that day bc he never heard back from professor. I love this guy, fav prof at Columbia

Grinding on a term paper for a class I am woefully underqualified for bc I wanted to be cool and be in a class w a bunch of PhDs. While pulljng an all-nighter on Christmas Eve fully exhausted is kinda depressing, I do find it hilarious that I still feel like I’m cooking every now and then.

I feel so disappointed that I never tried to learn epistemology properly. I always thought it was stupid when people wouldn’t stop talking about gettier cases but now I’m actually reading about it and it seems so dope

I don’t think even Americans who follow politics closely realize how much AfD-adjacent terrorism there has been in Germany since 2000

Some days when I feel nostalgic I open an i539 form to remember the days of asylum immigration law before I turned into an employment-based immigration paralegal. And then I stop daydreaming and get back to my h1bs

I have to say, Fromm has to be one of the best post-Marxists to read. Like he may not be super theoretically dense, but he structures his arguments in a clear way that gets right to the heart of so many of the questions that make large-political-economic debates feasible

I forget that not writing creatively for a stretch wreaks absolute havoc on my ability to produce good work on a deadline. Like I am doing law school apps and it is so clear that I just needed to churn out thirty drafts of garbage before I finally rediscovered my chops. It just took forever

Got a long night ahead, and there’s a ton of Hegel in it, your boy is not super happy about it

I always feel this sentiment when faced with days like this but I’m also unsure what the counter factual is. Like Biden and Obama deported more people than Trump first admin yet he looks like the tough on immigration guy. Crime rate drops under Biden and Trump is still law and order candidate.

We as a species are condemned to have to walk up elevated surfaces or stairs so often, it is the greatest travesty of modernity

I stg endnotes have to have been created by literal demons, who in their right mind would think that was a good idea

Oh look. Footnotes. A long forgotten technique abandoned by presses who wish to make readers interrupt their study by flipping back and forth front to back so they might include anger and frustration as part of their emotional journey through the past

I hope your writing week is working out better than Wittgenstein’s.

“I have concepts of a plan” is my next grant application.

My hat is off to Taylor Swift for the genuinely ruthless timing of that

Quote of the day: I got involved with the taliban -Donald Trump 2024

Wall Street journal with the hard hitting analysis we all needed

Started reading Horkheimer and Frankfurt school more broadly, and ngl, I’m kinda disappointed. We went from hypermaterialistic Marxist-Leninist-Maoist philosophy to discussions of literal fairy tales and fantasy with limited basis in reality except abstract notions of “reason.” Hoping it gets better

I like trains

Going back and forth from weeks where I have 4 million ideas a minute about things I want to read/write about to weeks where I have not a thought in my mind

Who would have thought profit incentives under capitalism might hide threats to consumer safety

Listening to campus radio sounding like wartime broadcasting tf kinda dystopian shit is this

I love thé fact that I am on the verge of getting canceled by the conservative debate society. I am also unfortunately too conservative for the left wing at columbia, so it’s a little bit an Earl Sweatshirt moment, but we take the small victories

Scheduling an emergency office hours with a professor of gender studies to have a conversation with me+friend to prevent the friend from going down crazy conservative transphobic rabbit hole.