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Material life upgrades

I am a lover of gadgets & trinkets of various kinds, and this page lists some of the most notable material goods that I currently or have previously owned. I wouldn’t call myself that much of a ‘collector’ as I end up selling most (>90%) of my possessions to facilitate my nomadic & low-income lifestyle. […]

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Digital life upgrades

This page lists various digital life upgrades that I personally use and recommend. At the moment it only includes software, but I plan to add to it in the future. Hardware Wishlist: Ploopy Adept, ZSA Voyager, Ergohaven K:02, Armband keyboard mechanism Ergonomics Wishlist: Treadmill (for a standing desk), Stokke Varier Gravity Balans Software Services

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Establishing the Moral Significance of Wild Animal Welfare and Considering Practical Methods of Intervention (MA thesis)

As the title suggests, this post contains an online copy of my MA thesis which I submitted in mid-2018 (see here for a citable PDF). My views on this issue have updated significantly since pursuing my PhD on welfare biology. As soon as I have submitted my doctoral thesis I will link it here! “Are

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Can we infer mental time travel in nonhuman animals?

This essay was written in early 2018 and is primarily an investigation into animal cognition. Specifically, it looks at how we typically infer cognitive capacities in animals and the limits of such inferences. Enjoy! 1. Introduction In 1997, Thomas Suddendorf and Michael Corballis began discussion on the capabilities of nonhuman animals (hereafter, ‘animals’) to experience

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Can animals suffer? Defending the animal suffering hypothesis on functionalist grounds.

This essay was written in late-2017 during my MA degree. Please note that I STRONGLY OBJECT to functionalism as an ontological account of mental states – see my PhD thesis for more info in this (pending; see ‘Against Functionalism’ in the meantime). 1. Introduction Empirically testing for mental states such as pain states in animals

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Is there an evolutionary explanation for humans’ fascination with stories about nonexistent people and events?

This essay was written in early-2017 during the final semester of my undergraduate degree. I also created an educational ‘explain like I’m five’ video on this topic, which you can find here. Introduction The presence of storytelling in our culture is undeniable. Its persistence throughout all known human civilisation leads us to think that it is

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Do contemporary biotechnologies suggest a return (or continuation) of eugenics?

This one was written in late-2016. Please don’t shoot me for expressing a potentially controversial argument! My view (then and now) is that genetic modification therapies are minimally permissible to the extent that they improve an individual’s well-being, notwithstanding other morally relevant factors. 1. Introduction With such a negative connotation, the term ‘eugenics’ is often

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Is the doomsday argument convincing? If not, why not?

This essay was written in mid-2016! The Doomsday argument is a probabilistic argument that attempts to predict the impending doom of human civilisation, surprisingly, based on non-inductive premises; namely, the seemingly random birth rank of individuals during our time period. Though mathematical in nature, the argument has frightening philosophical implications and thus, ought to be

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Are the political views and actions of the Unabomber justified?

Another fun essay, this time from early-2016. During the period of 1978 and 1995, Theodore Kaczynski (informally known as the Unabomber) launched a series of terror attacks targeting dozens of personnel involved in the technology industry (Kapusta, 2008). Upon the publication of his personal manifesto ‘Industrial Society and its Future’, Kaczynski’s attacks were discovered to

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