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Focus on identity: The theory focuses on the fundamental properties of identity: reflexivity (every object is equal to itself), symmetry (if a=b, then b=a), and transitivity (if a=b and b=c, then a=c).

Here's a more detailed breakdown: First-order logic: This means the theory uses variables that range over individuals (objects) in a domain, and logical connectives (like "and", "or", "not") to combine statements.  Equality as the sole predicate: The only way to express relationships between individuals is through the equality symbol. There are no other symbols to indicate properties or relationships between objects.  No function symbols: This means there are no symbols that can be applied to individuals to create new individuals. For example, "f(x)" would not be allowed, where 'f' is a function symbol and 'x' is an individual.  Focus on identity: The theory focuses on the fundamental properties of identity: reflexivity (every object is equal to itself), symmetry (if a=b, then b=a), and transitivity (if a=b and b=c, then a=c).  Mathematical logic: This theory is studied within mathematical logic to understand the foundations of logical systems and the nature of equality itself. It...

The history of human experimentation is as old as the practice of medicine and in the modern era has always targeted disadvantaged, marginalised, institutionalised, stigmatised and vulnerable populations: prisoners, the condemned, orphans, the mentally ill, students, the poor, women, the disabled, children, peoples of colour, indigenous peoples and the enslaved.

Human subject research is evident wherever physicians, technicians, pharmaceutical companies (and others) are trialling new practices and implementing the latest diagnostic and therapeutic agents and procedures.

• What are some of the ways you are privileged by settler colonial extraction/violence?

I have an American citizenship (well, for now at least) and live in the imperial core while working in a “knowledge worker”-adjacent white collar role, previously for a multinational tech corporation with a long and noted history of extractive, exploitive, immoral business practices, and that’s before we get into what said company was doing during World War 2. In many ways while my status inside the context of the country’s class and racial relations may occupy a certain marginalized status, In many ways I still benefit from the basic political economy and hegemonic status of being alive in the empire in 2025. I’m typing this from a 2019 model MacBook Pro with an Intel silicon chip and have an iPhone, iPad, and desktop computer, so many of the conflict minerals described in The Silicon Valley of Dreams can be traced directly to my house and home.

• Do you think it's possible to design a...

The Therapy Industrial Complex

The people I know who talk about therapy the loudest are also the most profoundly emotionally unstable people I know. I also know people who have been going to therapy for years and struggle with the exact same (and solvable, non-neurological) issues in spite of persistently going there for years. I know also significantly more people who have never been to a therapist a day in their life and have healthy and normal interactions with others and relationships to themselves despite having also experienced fairly traumatic and bad things.

This is not to say that I think therapy in general is a bad thing, but in recent years (I believe, precisely since January 20th, 2016) the western world began commodifying ‘mental health’ in a way that feels remarkably fucked up, weird, and totally unconcerned with making people mentally healthier or more resilient. Betterhelp is a therapy-as-a-service business that alone generated 1.03 billion dollars in revenue in...

To what extent does pre-birth genetic selection and engineering (e.g., in vitro interventions) limit the future autonomy of the child, and does this form of biotechnological determination risk reducing the child’s humanity by scripting their existence before they can choose it themselves?

Alternate Framing Options:
Philosophical Framing:
“Does the genetic engineering of future children compromise their moral autonomy and subjectivity, thereby rendering them ‘less human’ in a philosophical or existential sense?”

Bioethical Framing:
“Can the deliberate engineering of embryos be ethically justified if it significantly predetermines the life path of the individual, and where is the line between care and coercion in reproductive biotechnology?”

Critical Framing (more radical tone):
“Is the genetic design of human beings a form of pre-birth violence that strips autonomy and amounts to the erasure of potential selves before they can emerge?”

Quantum mechanics fundamentally challenges our understanding of personal identity through the nature of elementary particles. All electrons are completely identical and indistinguishable from one another - not just similar, but profoundly interchangeable with no distinguishing features beyond their basic properties (mass, spin, and charge).

The implications of this quantum reality extend to our philosophical understanding of identity itself. At the most basic physical level of reality, individual identity as we typically conceive it doesn't exist—particles are not discrete individuals but interchangeable instances of a type, suggesting our conventional understanding of personal identity may rest on shakier foundations than we assume.

• via Quanta Mag

“Capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their interests as narrowly as possible. This was once achieved by extensive deprivation. Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing a false standard of what is and is not desirable.”

— John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972)