(November 23, 2023 at 2:54 am)Belacqua Wrote:(November 22, 2023 at 10:22 am)Varium Wrote: Who I'm mostly referring to here are those Twitter or Facebook users with "Philosopher" in their bio, usually their only way of expressing ideas is not to write a book or even just make a speech, but to post on these websites. I can't name any off the top-of-my-head, but they're usually White, millennial, Atheistic or Agnostic, and left-leaning. This is not to say there are NO good modern philosophers, however the title is muddled by Twitter users.
Oh, I see what you mean. I was thinking of published, professional philosophers. There are some pretty good ones of those.
But if you're including us amateurs, and Reddit and Twitter and places like that -- then, absolutely. Some of what goes on is shocking.
Probably you're heard of Sturgeon's Law: "90% of everything is crap." But he was writing before the Internet. By now I think we've got the number up to about 99.
An earlier version appears in Kipling’s ‘The Light That Failed’, and isn’t quite so cynical:
‘Four-fifth’s of everybody’s work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake.’
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
