@arossp@mastodon.social

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Dec 20, 2024

Unfortunately, I can't (yet) use Mastodon aliases to automatically redirect this account, but I bridged my Bluesky account, where I'm much more active, so if you're following me here, you'll probably want to follow that account: @aaronrosspowell.com

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 18, 2024

First time it’s been cold enough this fall to turn on the heat. Which means this morning the kitten discovered heating vents for the first time in his life. He’s parked himself in front of the one in my study, and I don’t expect he’ll move from that spot all day.

6

0

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 17, 2024

Replying to @arossp@mastodon.social

@DoesntExist Someone on Threads mentioned OSR-style dungeon crawls. Which do fit the bill.

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 17, 2024

@DoesntExist Microscope is GMless, which isn't quite what I have in mind, and it's more of a worldbuilding game with some storytelling elements, and the players might control many characters of the course of it. I was looking more for traditionally structured campaigns (Players each controlling a single PC + a GM), but where the only characters are the PCs.

1

2

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 17, 2024

This article looks at why moral philosophers don’t seem more moral than anyone else, and gives an answer that I think is correct—and which dovetails my own thinking about the need to go back to viewing ethics as a practice. https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/12/10/why-arent-ethicists-more-ethical/

4

0

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 17, 2024

I am sad that the audiobooks of John le Carré’s novels are being redone with Simon Vance, and those new editions are replacing the older with Michael Jayston. Vance is a very good narrator, but Jayston’s George Smiley will always, for me, be the the one true Smiley.

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 17, 2024

I was rereading the convention favorite “Jailbreak” scenario for the Unknown Armies TTRPG, and it got me wondering: Are there RPGs, or full campaigns, structured with no NPCs? Where, like “Jailbreak,” every character encountered in the game is controlled by a player, and none by the GM?

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 16, 2024

Gonna play a game few rounds of Legend of the Red Dragon in his honor. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/ward-christensen-bbs-inventor-and-architect-of-our-online-age-dies-at-age-78/

2

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 16, 2024

Louisiana’s law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms is unconstitutional and even the 6-3 conservative majority will balk at it. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/liz-murrill-louisiana-attorney-general-ten-commandments-law-supreme-court-1235134392/

7

2

4

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 16, 2024

The kitten gets to lick the dog food can after the dog’s been fed, and this means the kitten is now waking me up each earlier and earlier morning to yell at me that it’s time to feed the dog.

6

0

3

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 16, 2024

Nice try, but that image is clearly AI generated.

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 15, 2024

The claims about social media rotting young brains are largely indistinguishable from the claims about how TV would rot our brains when I was a kid, and the people my age breathlessly repeating the former generally don’t think their brains were rotted. This is a panic over novelty, not evidence.

4

2

3

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 15, 2024

Kim Philby was history’s greatest spy, and the harm he did was prolonged by a British elite who refused to listen to criticism outside their social class. There are lessons in that for America’s journalistic and political elite. https://www.reimaginingliberty.com/the-elite-protect-their-own/

4

0

7

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 15, 2024

There are more than a few similarities between the rhetoric of Trump and other MAGA candidates and that of the KKK a hundred years ago. https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2024/10/15/armstrong-trumps-anti-immigrant-campaign-echoes-the-past/

3

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 15, 2024

The thing with Trump spacing out and swaying to music for 30 minutes seems like a pretty big deal on the cognitive decline front, so we’ll see if it gets covered as such, instead of just another of his eccentricities.

5

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 15, 2024

Replying to @Geoffberner@zeroes.ca

@Geoffberner@zeroes.ca The whole Cambridge Five story is fantastic. But here I'm focused on how MI5 suspected Philby long before he was eventually caught, but MI6 was dismissive because MI6 drew from British upper crust, and MI5 was seen as more working class.

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 15, 2024

I spoke with media critic Parker Molloy about the reactionary centrist bias of much of mainstream journalism. https://www.reimaginingliberty.com/how-the-media-covers-for-the-right/

5

0

7

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 15, 2024

Regardless of what he says when asked, the Browns ownership is 100% forcing Kevin Stefanski to play Deshaun Watson. No coach would start Watson of his own free will. https://sports.yahoo.com/browns-kevin-stefanski-deshaun-watson-gives-us-the-best-chance-to-win-190022138.html

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 14, 2024

I’m fascinated by the different age distributions Spotify shows me for listeners of my ReImagining Liberty podcast. The first is for my discussion of the ethical questions of democratic participation, and the second is on distinguishing liberalism and progressivism.

2

0

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Oct 14, 2024

Writing a blog post for tomorrow about what Kim Philby can teach us about the New York Times refusing to take seriously criticism of its political coverage.

6

2

3

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 09, 2023

Replying to @BufordTJustice@mastodon.social

@BufordTJustice@mastodon.social The former. There's a difference between informed and uninformed disagreement, and having an accurate understanding of a set of ideas while still disagreeing with them versus having an inaccurate picture of them. E.g., I disagree with Marxism, but I have a pretty solid understanding of Marxist theory based on a lot of study of what Marxists have written and deep conversations with Marxists. Jordan Peterson also disagrees with Marxism, but appears to know almost nothing about it.

0

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 09, 2023

Replying to @VirginiaMurr@mastodon.social

@VirginiaMurr@mastodon.social Oh, Hicks's book is terrible. If you knew nothing about postmodernism and read it, you come out knowing less than nothing. It's systematically wrong in ways that are downright baffling.

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 09, 2023

Replying to @VirginiaMurr@mastodon.social

@VirginiaMurr@mastodon.social @Popehat@mastodon.social Thank you. And I don't want to downplay the fact that there are genuine problems within the libertarian movement, most of them having to do with a—not universal by any means, but still far too prevalent—willingness to cozy up to the right. I wrote this shortly after leaving the DC libertarian scene, and I still think it's a fair assessment of where things are at. https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/toward-a-healthier-libertarian-movement

3

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 09, 2023

Replying to @Beeks@mstdn.party

@Beeks@mstdn.party "Ever again" is a long time, but I agree that the rise of the MC and then its takeover of the Libertarian Party, even if the kinds of far right views the MC represents are a minority, has done tremendous damage to not just the term, but the broader movement.

2

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 09, 2023

Replying to @VirginiaMurr@mastodon.social

@VirginiaMurr@mastodon.social @Popehat@mastodon.social I worked at Cato for 13 years and had lots of colleagues who agreed with me. (I'm also pretty confident that the majority of them had never even read Ayn Rand.)

2

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 09, 2023

Replying to @VirginiaMurr@mastodon.social

@VirginiaMurr@mastodon.social @Popehat@mastodon.social I am not a Randian (I find her philosophy wrong, and where she's not outright entirely wrong, her arguments are generally bad cases for her conclusions), my moral view is (largely) grounded in my Buddhism (so I am by definition not an egoist), I am on record, for years, arguing that Trump represents a fascist turn, and basically all of my writing over the last few years at least has been about how important it is to center social liberalism in the libertarian project.

3

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 09, 2023

Replying to @elfprince13@mumak.app

@elfprince13@mumak.app @junecasagrande@mastodon.social @Popehat@mastodon.social Post-Dobbs, I'd actually, and sadly, place Cato in the category June posits of "the pro-choice majority of libertarians [who] aren't outspoken enough." I know for a fact that the majority of Cato scholars are pro-choice, but the institution has taken only a "libertarians can disagree on this issue" stance publicly, letting the minority dictate policy in a way that, I would argue, runs counter to the correct libertarian position on reproductive rights.

3

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 09, 2023

Replying to @arossp@mastodon.social

A lot of people in my mentions appear to have a cartoon understanding of libertarianism. So in the interests of adding nuance to that, even if it's tilting at windmills, for years I worked at the world's most prominent libertarian organization, where I founded and ran their project setting out the core ideas of libertarianism, and here is the statement of principle we put out. https://www.libertarianism.org/what-is-a-libertarian

10

5

2

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 09, 2023

Replying to @pixelpusher220@universeodon.com

@pixelpusher220@universeodon.com @junecasagrande@mastodon.social @Popehat@mastodon.social Robert Nozick argued in favor of reparations, and it's difficult to get more hardcore libertarian than Nozick.

4

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 08, 2023

Replying to @junecasagrande@mastodon.social

@junecasagrande@mastodon.social @Popehat@mastodon.social You haven't been looking very hard. The majority of self-described libertarians are pro-choice. There is a contingent that is anti-abortion, typically on grounds of believing that a fetus has a full set of rights which disallow its killing, but that view is in the minority, with most libertarians arguing either that a fetus is not the kind of thing with such rights, or a Judith Thomson-style "the mother's bodily autonomy trumps any fetus rights" position.

4

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 08, 2023

Replying to @junecasagrande@mastodon.social

@junecasagrande@mastodon.social @Popehat@mastodon.social No, it's not. That's a comfortable caricature that makes it easy to dismiss arguments against one's policy preferences without having to critically engage them, but we should always strive to resist such traps and instead cultivate an informed and robust understanding of the range of political thought.

6

4

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Mar 08, 2023

There is only one libertarian position on gender-affirming health care, and that's to let it be a private decision of doctors, patients, and parents if a minor is involved. Worries that some people might regret it are no more a case for criminalization than the fact that lots of people regret taking drugs is a case against drug decriminalization. And if your worry is that we need to protect kids from bad choices, you need *much* weightier evidence of harm than anti-trans people can point to.

374

18

197

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Feb 16, 2023

As the New York Times once again defends the underprivileged, marginalized, and oppressed J.K. Rowling, it’s important to remember that a pretty big chunk of hand-wringing about cancel culture is in fact just status anxiety, as people used to having their opinions unchallenged and their prejudices celebrated are now facing criticism, and they hate it.

356

5

221

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Dec 20, 2022

Replying to @evangreer@mastodon.online

@evangreer@mastodon.online Entirely? Are there no conceivable uses of facial recognition technology, now or in the near to mid-term, that are beneficial? E.g., isn't face unlock a form of facial recognition tech?

0

2

1

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @arossp@mastodon.social · Nov 18, 2022

Replying to @atomicpoet@mastodon.social

@atomicpoet@mastodon.social I was able to Tweet it just fine.

0

2

0

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️

Posts

Remote instance

Media