Brett Karlan

@oldjerryfodor.bsky.social

2652 Followers 623 Following

Assistant professor of philosophy at Purdue University. Previously: Stanford, Pitt HPS, Princeton, Iowa, Jefferson High, Taft Middle, Coolidge Elementary, various daycares.

The "Say the line, Bart!" meme with Bart saying "They just come juck conk baki the alf"
OpenAI, incidentally, has said it is preparing to IPO later this year.
"We are now, like, in the singularity," Sam Altman said on Saturday's episode of the "Relentless" podcast
The "black arm white arm" meme where both me and my students agree on "not reading any books"
A galaxy-brain meme with the format "__ is lame, life really starts in ____", which moves through high school, college, grad school, postdoc, and getting a tenure-track job
The Mad Men "I don't think about you at all" meme, with Ginsberg saying "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" and Don replying "One must not think about Sisyphus at all"
A screenshot from a paper I am working on: "Now, you might find that result a bit odd. (Or, instead, you might find that result refreshingly down-to-earth; I don’t know you.) Whether that result is, in fact, odd is something that I will return to in section 6. But, for now, it is a useful demonstration of..."
Agnes Callard claiming that there's only one set of norms for everything we do now, a claim disproved by the fact that I would never tell her this idea is completely moronic to her face, but will do it here, in the alt text of a post on bluesky dot social
Keima Katsuragi, from the (genuinely S tier) harem anime The World God Only Knows
A clearly altered image of a headline, which now reads "Afternoon naps, long walks, and 5 hours of work a day. The lifestyles of great assistant professors reveal the value of fucking around"
I want to argue that all three of these sources (my grandparents, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the manga Yokohama Shopping Log) represent an ideal for living that cuts directly against the maximizing assumptions present in most theories of well-being.
1. Introduction Contemporary analytic philosophers, who often have to publish many intricate papers and teach many ungrateful students in order to reach a place of career stability, might not be the best people to look to for advice on what makes lives go better or worse.
A cartoon of a man with a shirt that says "Thought Leader." People are swarming him, saying things like "Permission to think, sir?", "I'm new to thinking, can you please give me some beginner thoughts?", and "I was wrong until you were right."
Jordan Peterson: "Gamers are rising up..."
A still of (a very real) Jordan Peterson video where he says, menacingly, "I'll splash you with icy and salty slush as I drive by in my Ford Bronco SUV." (It's one my favorite JP lines ever; a rich text (who calls it a "Ford Bronco" and then ADDS "SUV" (an alien, that's who)))
"Dear Brett, As a valued member of the research community, we'd like to thank you for your contribution to Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, published on behalf of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LLC."
I pretend I do not see it
The Going to Become the Joker meme: "I'm going to become the Director of the Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa"
A poster for the edgy comedy Kenan and Kel
Obviously fake texts to Jason Stanley asking him, very thirstly, at 4:08 am, if he is up and wants to rejoin bluesky tonight
Appiah saying they basically paid people to run Claude lit searches when putting together that report
Jenna from 30 Rock: "I'm going to be constructive here. You should kill yourself."
A fuckton of copies of Phil Review
The black/white arm meme. The arms read "My wife on our wedding day" and "My character in Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar when he goes fishing." The middle says "You caught a pale chub!"
A quote from McDermott's "Artificial intelligence meets natural stupidity" which points out that, if you call your model "UNDERSTANDER," people will think it understands, when actually that's what you have to prove
A Coors Light logo that reads "The world is everything that is the case"
An email from a senior colleague: "Since you three seem to be among the members of the department... that I would describe as 'funny' (in a good way) or at least as possessing an above average sense of humor..."
Jason Stanley: "I didn't eat meat for 21 years and have eaten meat for about a year now - though only chicken. But I feel tremendously guily each and every time and will drop it soon."
Some philosophyslop from that article going around. The relevant bit (to save you a lot of headache) is "During introspection, physical processes in my brain convince me of my consciousness." I have no clue what this sentence means. But from this sentence, the article concludes that the zombie argument, one of the most important arguments in the philosophy of mind in the last 60 years, is "self-defeating," and apparently it only takes one paragraph to notice this. Too bad, us philosophers!
Sideshow Bob grumbling about the Princeton rowing team (I went to Princeton (in case you didn't know))
An email titled "Ways to engage with McGraw Hill, beyond course materials"
A YouTube video titled "10 brutally honest lessons about doing a PhD" with the tagging "Nobody Cares"
An altered screenshot from that dumb NYT article that says: "I thought he was going to make being an embodied cognition theorist illegal. Andy Clark, Francisco Valera, Tony Chemero, I fuckin hate those guys. I thought, day 1, he would sign an executive order that would make saying "X just ain't in the head" punishable by death. Instead he's just deporting people or whatever. I was so stupid to vote for him."
A post on PhilJobs advertising a position as a "Senior Assistant Professor"
The "I'm going to become the Joker" meme but it's terribly edited to say "I'm not going to become the Wykeham Professor of Logic"
An email from me where the body is just me repeating "STE-PHEN KERSH-NAR 👏 👏 👏👏👏"
A scene from Persona 5 Royal where Joker is talking to a "Pompous Customer" in the cafe who says: "Visit the batting cages if you're ever free. Though, it's ill-suited to an intellectual like me..."
My island, named "Notepstein Island"
The black arm-white arm meme. The black arm is "continental philosophy." The white arm is "analytic philosophy" (of course it is!). In the center, they clasp hands around "Me and my friends do work that is good, cool, and should be rewarded. Those weirdos do work that is bad, lame, and should not be rewarded."
A wall of kitsch-y frames on a dark green backdrop with flowing curtains and an ornate light fixture
The famous photo of dudes playing golf while California wildfires rage
A very strange email from Wiley saying I was "right to publish with us" for some fucking reason
From a scam email: "I am Mrs. Daniella Onyeze the confidential Secretary to the former United Bank for Africa Mr. Philips Oduoza. I have an urgent information that is vital to you, if you promise that you will not betray me."
The drill tweet about not being able to fuck the Betsy Ross flag (aka the funniest tweet)