Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, 94, Is Dead; Struggled to Transform France New York Times. From Covid
Mort de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing : le destin facétieux du « président moderne » Le Monde
The Social Life of Forests New York Times
Shorts that imitate Kim Kardashian’s bum are “a perfect ubuesque finale for 2020” says commenterde zeen
New mystery metal monolith appears on a California mountaintop Guardian
Photography campaign shows the grim aftermath of logging in Canada’s fragile forests Guardian
Couch Surfing the Waves of American PovertyCurrent Affairs
Real Estate: Big City Buyers Boost Rural Property Market Prices, Horrify Locals Bloomberg
Top AI ethics researcher says Google fired her; company denies it Reuters and Google Employees Say Scientist’s Ouster Was ‘Unprecedented Research Censorship’ NPR
Making Sense of Sky-High Stock Prices Project Syndicate
Warren Buffett’s favorite market indicator nears record high, signaling stocks are overvalued and a crash may be coming Business Insider
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy Harpers. Micael T: “A classic to reread every now and then.”
Student Loan Horror Stories Matt Taibbi
Reports of globalisation’s death are greatly exaggerated Gillian Tett, Financial Times
No Escape From Our Techno-Feudal World Pepe Escobar, Asia Times
“To say what’s wrong with the popular, deferential applications of standpoint epistemology, we need to understand what makes it popular” — and then see what a “constructive approach to putting standpoint epistemology into practice” would be like, argues Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (Georgetown) in an important article
What can Plato teach us about mask mandates? — David Lay Williams (DePaul) explains (Washington Post)
Can one do philosophy through memes? — Simon Evnine (Miami) is taking up this question
A team of philosophers, engineers, and scientists at UC Santa Cruz are creating playing cards about ethics and technology — suggest a question and get a free deck of cards when it’s done (via Barry Lam)
Is it bad to be objectified? It may depend on the object: “It would be terrible to be treated like a paper towel… But it would not be so bad to be treated like an artwork” — Becca Rothfeld (Harvard) on persons and artworks
Great ideas for adding a social dimension to online conferences — from C. Thi Nguyen (Utah)
There’s a new enormous mural of Antonio Gramsci in Florence by street artist Jorit — and it is causing some controversy