Author Archive
Posted on March 12, 2010 - by Aaron Ross Powell
Why Religious Arguments Don’t Have a Place in Politics
Religion has no place in policy debates. Because of the special nature of faith-based beliefs and values, religious arguments cannot bring anything valuable to the table when discussing the best political solutions to societal issues. When it comes to debating policy, then, we should simply ignore claims that draw exclusively upon religious faith and demand [...]
Posted on February 25, 2010 - by Aaron Ross Powell
The Objectivist Guide to Parenting
Let’s suppose you’re a good Randian, an objectivist, live your life in the cause of reason–and you end up with kids? Atlas Shrugged provides no guidance, at least not until your children are old enough to change the world with their entrepreneurial spirit.
What you need, obviously, is an Objectivist Guide to Parenting, right? Trouble is, [...]
Posted on February 13, 2010 - by Aaron Ross Powell
Why There’s No Camera on the iPad (hint: because it would suck)
Nobody wants to take photographs on their iPad. In fact, the only reason to have a camera on the device—a front-facing camera, specifically—is for video chat. Apple knows this, and they know video chat on an iPad would be an awesome, the-future-has-arrived feature.
So why isn’t it included? The simple answer is because Apple doesn’t want [...]
Posted on February 10, 2010 - by Aaron Ross Powell
Surviving Snowpocalypse 2010 Hoth Style
Snowpocalypse continues in Washington, DC, and it seemed a perfect time to break out what is probably the best birthday gift ever from my wife. You can survive pretty much anything winter throws at you when you’ve got your own tauntaun.
Posted on February 1, 2010 - by Aaron Ross Powell
Why DRM eBooks Aren’t That Big of a Deal
If you listen to Cory Doctorow, ebooks wrapped in DRM are an evil plot by Lemurians and the Gnomes of Zurich to plant blasting caps about the ankles of western civilization. He may be right. But what I want to assert—and what seems so uncouth to say on the open culture Internet, especially coming from [...]
Posted on January 28, 2010 - by Aaron Ross Powell
5 (Bad) Reasons to Think the iPad Sucks
Yesterday Apple debuted its long awaited, much anticipated iPad. And the reaction around the web hasn’t been what Apple probably hoped. On the one hand, it’s easy to be disappointed when the reality of this astronomically hyped device doesn’t live up the second coming expectations, but it’s also worth nothing that many of the most [...]
Posted on January 21, 2010 - by Aaron Ross Powell
Citizens United and Those Dastardly Labor Unions
The United States Supreme Court rolled back decades of campaign finance restrictions today, handing down a decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that
upends the court’s precedent that corporations may not use their profits to support or oppose candidates, and it rejects a large portion of the so-called McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act that the [...]
Posted on January 5, 2010 - by Aaron Ross Powell
Communitarians Still Don’t Get It
I continue to believe that the communitarian critique of libertarianism (or liberalism, as it is often called in political philosophy) is fundamentally flawed. As a system for understanding the role of the state, it is based upon misconceptions that undercut its whole mission and lead to the conclusion that communitarianism is simply authoritarianism with a [...]
Posted on December 8, 2009 - by Aaron Ross Powell
A Marble Temple Shining on a Hill: Reality and Michael Walzer
While rereading Michael Walzer’s Spheres of Justice as part of my ongoing project to study the various serious, anti-libertarian arguments, I was reminded of the following essay I wrote years ago. Long gone from the Internet, I though it would be fun for it to return. It’s not perfect, and could be made stronger with [...]
Posted on December 1, 2009 - by Aaron Ross Powell
Free Short Story: “Let Sleeping Gods”
Because I’m curious about Smashwords as a publishing platform and am particularly intreguied by its automatic ditribution to the major ebook outlets, I’m testing the service by way of using it. A detective races to prevent catastrophe in this free short story. Part horror, part science fiction, “Let Sleeping Gods” is powerful and tough fiction [...]
