In light of the pandemic it seems to me many western countries grapple w similar issues. I really still hope that we're able to work toward better futures. Here are some of the issues I see in countries I currently live in, have lived in, and am a citizen of 1/
1. How to safeguard people's will (expressed democratically) if country needs to take quick measures (e.g., public health emergency). Parliamentary democracies are slow and we don't have a referendum culture (except in Switzerland and few other places. How to do this? 2/
This paper by @lastpositivist and other authors indicates we don't need less democracy, but more, buy-in from people, transparency, fairness. 3/

nature.com/articles/s4159…
2. Strengthening public health infrastructure. Interestingly, this seemed to be a problem in the US, UK, Belgium in spite of the fact that the health funding system is so different (NHS and US system seem miles apart, yet both struggled to respond to the pandemic) 4/
3. Actively countering disinformation and polarization of stuff that should not be polarized. The fact that anti-vaxxers came up should not have been a surprise to anyone. Better scientific literacy starts from the ground up and is *so important*. We need to do better 5/
4. Relatedly, restore trust (in politics, in science, in communities). Social trust is vital for the well-functioning of communities. I worry a lot of western social democracies don't mind polarization because it gets out the vote (voting against opponent). 6/
...but it comes at a huge cost. So we need to see how trust can be restored, how different communities can buy into it. I still hope we can do some positive things following this very negative experience! /end

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More from @Helenreflects

Feb 15
The covid fatalists (aka "covid centrists") would have us believe that we don't do deep and lasting societal and structural changes in the light of infectious disease. But nothing could be further from the truth. A small and incomplete thread 1/
Quarantining the sick is probably the oldest infrastructural, deep societal and comprehensive way ancient people dealt with contagious diseases such as leprosy. Venice built an island off its coast, for sailors from plague-infested ships 2/
npr.org/sections/goats…
The introduction of sewage systems that separate waste and drinking water is a huge infrastructural undertaking we still benefit from today, to combat cholera (which came in several epidemic waves) 3/
Read 13 tweets
Feb 15
In Blazing-world (Cavendish, 1666) we first have the Empress listen to all her experts (bear-men, parrot-men, worm-men etc). After that, she begins to institute changes and this is very interesting because she does social engineering. This is my drawing of her two chapels 2/ Image
"[she] builded two Chappels one above another; the one she lined throughout with Diamonds; but the other she resolved to line with the Star-stone...that Chappel where the Fire-stone was, appear all in flame, she had by the means of Artificial pipes, water conveighed into it" 2/
The Empress establishes a religion modeled on her own (she comes from a "parallel universe" and her world is not ours!). She also made "up a Congregation of Women, whereof she intended to be the head her self, and to instruct them in the several points of her Religion" 3/
Read 11 tweets
Feb 14
Someone recently here said on the TL that the Brits still want Brexit. I think this is basically correct. Though the poll of "do you think it was a great idea to leave the EU" varies from month to month, the sentiment is still that they don't want to be in the EU 1/
This is basically a lot of people who don't care plus a small group of committed Eurosceptics who will keep on going until kingdom come. The net result: there's no appetite to reverse the referendum any time soon and folk like Starmer would risk political suicide if doing so 2/
Now I know what it's like to live in a country without the EU protections for environment, consumers, privacy, equity etc etc. And believe me, these protections are precious. Companies are v powerful and will snoop on you etc without compunction without laws in place 3/
Read 6 tweets
Feb 12
Looking forward to teaching our grad students on how to teach Less Commonly Taught (LCT) philosophies. This is part of their professional development--they also get instruction (from other professors) on how to include e.g., marginalized philosophers in your syllabus, grading etc
Things I'll be addressing
* How to teach LCT philosophies even if you are tired, have little time to do a lot of reading for your teaching, and find no good overview works (by directing them to some useful readers and guides)--teaching burnout is a real problem!
* How to teach LCT philosophies with institutional constraints. E.g., the SLU core requires that you teach in Intro Socratic dialogues, Aristotle, and figures from the Catholic tradition. But even there you can innovate (e.g., teach Juana Inés de la Cruz for Catholic tradition)
Read 5 tweets
Feb 9
On writing good academic prose.
I just read this article on how to improve your academic writing, and it's full of good advice. I want to summarize some of that advice in a thread, adding some thoughts and ideas 1/
earlymoderntexts.com/assets/jfb/ben…
A lot of academic writing is really awful. The authors think that's because "Graduate students typically aspire to write the sort of prose they read in the leading journals in their disciplines" Emulation definitely plays a role, but it's not the whole story 2/
It isn't a disciplinary norm (in philosophy at least) to write well. It's nice when it happens, but rarely do papers get rejected for poor prose, unless it visibly looks like written by a person who speaks English as a second language (alas). So, if it sounds native speaker 3/
Read 16 tweets
Feb 7
It is not a popular opinion but my sense of unvaxxed covid victims in the US is they are victims of a bad epistemic landscape, and we should work to improve the epistemic landscape rather than victim-blame or dance on people's graves.
The people who tend to be unvaxxed are of demographics that are not often seen as victims--they tend to be white, religious, conservative. However, there is a lot of evidence that people from that demographic tend to have lower scientific literacy & lower trust in science 2/
The fact that anti-vaxx and conservatives have joined hands is a recent phenomenon. However, the politicization of science is not. It is a steady process going on since the 1970s with increases w climate change debates in Bush years -- see here journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11… 3/
Read 6 tweets

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