John Rawls at 100

 Path to $4.1 Trillion Puts Australia Pensions Among World Giants Bloomberg

1. “Aristotle, whose name is taken so much in vain by our logicians, would turn in his grave if he knew that so many Logicians know no more about Logic to-day than he did 2,000 years ago” — Wittgenstein reviews a logic text
2. The metaphysics of blockchain — and its implications for “enterprise” uses hof the technology, from Martin Glazier (Hamburg)
3. “To bridge the gap between a medieval, outdated mode of teaching and curriculum, and to meet the reality — the terrible and miserable reality — which is outside the classroom” — a previously unpublished 1968 lecture by Herbert Marcuse on the student protests of the time
4. “Things that didn’t really help: Being ‘reasonable’” — a philosopher writes about his anxiety and what did and did not help him manage it
5. New series of video interviews on the philosophy and cognitive science of imagination — from the Northern Imagination Forum and The Junkyard blog
6. Theism and “the possibility that there are ways of making sense of things that are very different from any scientific way of making sense of things” — Adrian Moore (Oxford) on what atheists could learn from logical positivists
7. John Rawls at 100 — a discussion between Joshua Cohen (Berkeley, Apple) and Glenn Loury (Brown)

1. M. C. Hammer named inaugural winner of the American Philosophical Association’s “Celebrity Philosopher of the Year” Award — The award includes a $100 prize
2. “Some examined lives also not worth living” — a new finding in experimental philosophy
3. New ranking of philosophy graduate programs by total number of Twitter followers their faculty have — It is now the most influential ranking of philosophy graduate programs, according to Twitter.
4. A manuscript of a previously unknown dialogue by Plato was discovered among a collection of artifacts in Greece — Set just after The Phaedo, the dialogue features Euthyphro complaining of the time Socrates “canceled” him
5. “Why I Am Leaving Philosophy” — a young philosopher explains her decision: “basically, I just wanted to be able to make a decent living and choose where to live — you know, normal stuff like that”
6. Trolley manufacturer announces lawsuit — Oxford Review, the Foot estate, and others are among those accused of defamation
7. Editors of established philosophy journals report a recent increase in average quality of submissions — trend correlated with first call for papers from The Journal of Controversial Ideas.

We sampled tap water across the US and found arsenic, lead and toxic chemicals

“A nine-month investigation by the Guardian and Consumer Reports found alarming levels of forever chemicals, arsenic and lead in samples taken across the US by Ryan Feltonand Lisa Gill of Consumer Reports and Lewis Kendall for the Guardian – “In Connecticut, a condo had lead in its drinking water at levels more than double what the federal government deems acceptable. At a church in North Carolina, the water was contaminated with extremely high levels of potentially toxic PFAS chemicals (a group of compounds found in hundreds of household products). The water flowing into a Texas home had both – and concerning amounts of arsenic too. All three were among locations that had water tested as part of a nine-month investigation by Consumer Reports (CR) and the Guardian into the US’s drinking water. Since the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, access to safe water for all Americans has been a US government goal. Yet millions of people continue to face serious water quality problems because of contamination, deteriorating infrastructure, and inadequate treatment at water plants. CR and the Guardian selected 120 people from around the US, out of a pool of more than 6,000 volunteers, to test for arsenic, lead, PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), and other contaminants. The samples came from water systems that together service more than 19 million people. A total of 118 of the 120 samples had concerning levels of PFAS or arsenic above CR’s recommended maximum, or detectable amounts of lead. Testing of the samples showed:

• More than 35% of the samples had PFAS, potentially toxic “forever chemicals”, at levels above CR’s recommended maximum.
• About 8% of samples had arsenic, at levels above CR’s recommended maximum.
• In total, 118 out of 120 samples had detectable levels of lead.

The study has some limitations: the quality of the water at one location on a single day doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the water supplied by an entire system or at other times. But the ambitious undertaking, with community water systems chosen by CR’s statisticians from a representative mix of systems across the country, provides a unique view into some of the most significant challenges in America’s ongoing drinking water crisis…” – How to test your drinking water –