Ten Features of the Moral Psychology of Evil: On the social and psychological forces that enable people to do terrible things. open.substack.com/pub/brendanm... #psychology #ethics

There is no war in Ba Sing Se.

Time travel is obviously not real, because my future self has not ever come to visit me.

No two people can be each other’s saviours. But I do think it is possible for two people who #love each other to suffer better together, so to speak, and in that way help make the suffering bearable and worthwhile, and to help each other find goodness and beauty in life despite it all.

There is no such thing as an “alpha male”. Probably most people reading my social media posts already agree with that point. But you might find the scientific history here interesting. youtu.be/kOuer8-sIzQ?...

Skimming over the text of my Fellwater books tonight. You can tell the exact place when I was #writing them when I read “On Writing” by @stephenking.bsky.social . That’s the place in my novels where all the adverbs disappear.

Sheena Easton's "Morning Train", if it were written in 2025: "My baby fights the traffic jam, He works from eight to eight and then, He fights the traffic jam again, To find we're both too tired..." #capitalism

"You fall, and I want to fall with you, whoever you are." — Carl Jung, The Red Book.

I am teaching philosophy and #writing #books into a world where fewer and fewer people know how to read. People still recognize letters and words. But people are also losing the habits, the patience, the strategies, the critical eyes, for reading. Amy Shira Teitel says: youtu.be/IG5zrQxPICk?...

I'm preparing a lecture on #TESCREAL / Techno-Utopianism, and I thought you might like to see one of the slides in my powerpoint.

A little stream-of-consciousness on otherness, gazes, dialectics, and #love. open.substack.com/pub/brendanm...

I foresee a day when the freedom of the western world will rest on some drug dealer who wants a million-dollar payout to reveal who #Bubba was...

“At its heart, #Reason is organized curiosity… It is not mere description and calculation; it is more important than that. It is imagination, it is adventure, it is ambition, it is wonder, it is joy, it is love, it is life.” brendanmyers.substack.com/p/remarks-ab...

“Intelligent design” my arse. The human organism was clearly designed by a dysfunctional committee.

Now landed (processed, handled, examined, checked, re-checked, forgotten, discovered, questioned, doubted, processed again, stamped, categorized, dehumanized, and then for good measure processed again) in The Airport That Hates You And Wants You To Suffer... ...Toronto. #YYZ

What if the central question of our time is how to resist the network of forces incentivising us to be callous, angry, dismissive, hubristic, misanthropic? And how to remain decent, wise, #loving beings? A question, not just of ethics, but also our whole way of knowing what this world is about?

Check out my new #sciencefiction #novel THE WAY OF WIND AND RAIN, on Kickstarter! It's the story of the search for a missing scientist and his formula for human immortality. A Greek tragedy of grief, temptation, and obsession. And my most personal book so far. www.kickstarter.com/projects/arc...

Why is it that when people talk about their near-death experiences or their past-life regressions, they never say that they were an advertising writer? Is it because all ad writers go to hell?

Coming later this month: THE WAY OF WIND AND RAIN, my latest #sciencefiction novel! It’s my most personal, expressive book so far. Also the darkest, the most tragic. You’ll love it. More info: www.brendanmyers.net/the-way-of-w... #writing #books

This Week in Modern #Philosophy with me...

If Tylenol causes autism, you won't believe what Viagra does...

Last week in my Modern #Philosophy class, I talked about David Hume, and how he threw a wrench into the gears of the great #Enlightenment project of universal reason. So, this week, we awaken from our dogmatic slumbers.

How I plan to introduce my students to David Hume this week. #teaching #philosophy

Here's me and my best friend G.C., with our #ElbowsUp.

"Fascism is here - it's just unevenly distributed." Have heard half a dozen variations of this now...maybe @greatdismal.bsky.social should say it so we can quote him?

Reflections on Van Gogh's Tree Roots. It's a heavy one: on a #philosophy of meaning and being, and maybe also #depression. open.substack.com/pub/brendanm...

I vote for this as the most magnificent #love poem of all time.

Walking, dwelling, thinking.

One who loves himself and only himself, and nothing else, does not understand #love at all.

“In man, creature and creator are united: in man there is matter, fragment, excess, clay, mud, madness, chaos; but in man there is also creator, sculptor, hammer hardness, spectator divinity, and seventh day ‐ do you understand this antithesis?” Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, § 225.

I now measure people's #political and personal #values by the amount of pleasure they gain from witnessing the suffering of others.

My sister Roisin Derbis is quite a wonderful artist. And now she has an Instagram page to share her work. Everybody go look! Insta: @roisinderbis.art #art

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin…”

#Superman (2025): Information Is A Weapon. And Superman can't win by punching it. Notes on my Substack, here: open.substack.com/pub/brendanm...

I know that the old black cloud tells only lies. But he also keeps coming back. F*** #depression.

One of the reasons I think the search for a 21st century mythos is worthwhile is because without one we are reverting to fascism www.patreon.com/posts/133346...

Happy #Canada Day, eh? So, who are we?

I wonder which is worse: the crisis, or the denial of the crisis? www.theguardian.com/environment/... #climatecrisis

Its so fun to see how the rise of AI art has caused people to take such great interest in the #phenomenology of #art and material culture. 😅 Wouldn't it be cool of there were thousands of books and essays on this topic published by philosophers every year since the 1700s?

American foreign policy is the policy of the playground bully: we're big and strong so you'd better do what we say. The thing is that people hate bullies and look forward to their downfall.

What is rock and roll? Three chords and the truth. What is theatre? Two boards to stand on, and a passion. What is writing? Sitting in front of your keyboard, and bleeding. What is your art?

A few nights ago, I had a dream about the first person I ever fell in love with, some 30 years ago. She treated me quite badly at the end, though in fairness to her I did not understand at the time what she needed from me. It’s astonishing how long-gone feelings like that can sometimes reappear.

"No more kings. No more jealous gods. Summerland belongs to all!" Little did I know, two years ago, when I wrote that slogan into my novel WHISPERLIGHTS, that a variation of it would be part of a real-world anti-fascist protest. #NoKingsDay.

"It is because man is attached to himself that he accepts error as truth, lies as reality, violence and ugliness as beauty and justice.” --Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization.

Gene Roddenberry knew that Star Trek was propaganda but what was Star Trek propaganda for? The Science Fiction channel explores in a feature video, link in the comments 🔗👇👇👇 Essay and video here damiengwalter.com/2025/06/12/s...

Delighted to announce that my fantasy adventure novel, WHISPERLIGHTS has been optioned for film! LA-based studio Dichotomy Directions will begin pre-production in the fall. I’m so excited!! More info: www.brendanmyers.net/whisperlights/ #books #movies

This is not a drill. My big brother, @fellwater.bsky.social, wrote a novel that has been optioned for a movie! Pre-production begins this fall. You can order the book for yourself, here: arcanacreations.com/Whisperlight...

The lilacs in my back yard are blooming.

#StarWars #Andor is the most magnificent television I have ever seen.

The struggles of the #future will not be class v class (some version of that will always obtain), but they will be the struggle of the real v the hyper-real, truth v ‘truthiness’, substance v appearance, and music v noise; the struggle to grasp the reality of things and of all our relations.