About Chris Dick

Chris rides on his digital sway-backed donkey tilting his lance, quixotically at all sorts of causes -- some hopeless, some perhaps -- not. I enjoy your feedback. Long live rational debate.
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Is Rock Dead?

By |2021-04-15T12:40:06-04:00February 20th, 2021|Categories: Culture|Tags: , , |

Is Rock Dead? Or is it just today's Jazz? There is a great deal of online comment on music sites about the “ death of rock/metal music.” (Google “Is rock dead”, you will see what I mean.) Of course, “dead” in this context means marginalized in a mainstream music consumption sense by the domination of hip/hop, pop, and EDM. Much of this commentary contains angst-ridden attacks on contemporary popular music, fulminations on the execrable taste of Gen Zedders, and younger Millennials, and, moaning about what my father would have called with his tongue firmly in his [...]

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Consensus in a Post-Truth World

By |2020-10-26T12:02:31-04:00October 26th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , , , |

Consensus in a Post-Truth World What Happens When We Don't Examine Our Opinions? Imagine you’re in the Louvre with your crew. The six of you have fought your way through the politely manic Japanese photographers, and you are all staring at the Mona Lisa. Do you all see the same thing? This question has perplexed philosophers for a very long time. I used to think it didn’t matter much. The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose prose style made many graduate students weep bitter tears, tells us that all we have of [...]

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Transhumanism and Inequality

By |2021-02-20T11:09:04-05:00October 7th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , |

Transhumanist Inequity What Happens When the Wealthy Upgrade Mind and Body? I recently wrote a piece about a not-that-distant future in which the majority of us either don’t need to or can’t work for wages -- a world in which we have leisure and will need to figure out what to do with it. I suggested that we start planning for this likely future now, by instituting universal basic income schemes. We will also need to invest massive sums in improving education and strengthening the voluntary and creative sectors. The goal here [...]

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An Employment Shift is Coming

By |2020-10-06T18:01:56-04:00October 6th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , , , |

The Coming Employment Shift What Happens When Work is Not Needed? I like to think I have a philosophical temperament. What does that mean? Well, among other things, it implies a capacity for detachment, for viewing the daily hustle and the short-term bustle from a distance, the birds-eye view. The Latin term for this is ‘sub specie aeternitatis,’ which means ‘from the aspect of eternity.’ Now I am not a philosopher. If I were, I would be spending most of my time wrestling with the Big Questions. You know, the questions we [...]

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Worse Problems than Trump

By |2020-08-20T19:01:51-04:00August 20th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , , , |

Worse Problems than Trump Why a Changing Society is Republicans' Real Danger The American election draws closer; the hype is heightening, the pundits are predicting, anxiety amongst those desperate to see La Donald get gone ratchets ever upwards --  ah yes, The American Silly Season is upon us. Of course, given the antics of the Pinocchio in the Oval Office, one might suggest that the Silly Season started in 2016 and never ended. I think a plurality of Americans now know that DT will never be a real boy, will remain a [...]

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The Future of No Work

By |2020-08-05T17:35:14-04:00August 5th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , , |

The Future of (No) Work - Part 2 Why a Universal Basic Income is Inevitable The video below, Humans Need Not Apply by CGP Grey is and should be, disturbing to those who absorb its well-presented facts and arguments. As I said in Part 1 - The Future of Work, we are certainly not prepared for the looming decimation of wage work it shows us, and we need to be. I am somewhat comforted by my historical frame of reference.  Wage work has only been intimately connected with our sense of self-worth [...]

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