“Let’s Make the Future” presents: Deafness and Genetic Engineering

Possession is nine-tenths of the law, they say. Unsurprising, then, are the polemics of jurisdiction over genetic material. A question like that posed by the Journal of Medical Ethics -- "If [genetic preimplantation] could be employed to produce deaf children, would it be acceptable for deaf parents to do so?" -- is well-suited for philosophy,... Continue Reading →

Iran so far away.

In inviting you to "learn Farsi, the Persian language of Iran!", the online learning platform mangolanguages commits a party foul as common and condoned as having one too many. One might even argue that calling Persian "Farsi" makes the party more fun. After all, that's what everyone else is doing: easypersian, learnpersianonline,  the Collins English... Continue Reading →

Marx et la poupée (Marx and the Doll)

A novel wins an award, and I wonder: what makes one person's story stand out among the thousands of others being published that year? Sometimes a story is no more than very well done, but performs better than it otherwise would because it resonates with the fetishes and fears of its time. That serendipity (or... Continue Reading →

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