YouTube video essays – update
Six months ago, I started making video essays for YouTube on philosophy and literature. I thought now would be a good time to look back and reflect on the progress I have made so far, and to look at the…
Joshua Krook
Joshua Krook is an author and thinker interested in law, social psychology, video game design and the pitfalls of specialization. He is currently pursuing a PhD on the creation of a liberal arts law school, dedicated to the teaching of law as a humanities subject, with skepticism, critical thinking and the 'Real' Socratic method at the core of teaching.
Josh regularly speaks at university events and forums on issues of politics and culture, empathy, law, vocational education, and the reformulation of today’s employment system.
Outside of writing, Josh owns his own video game development company, Atreyu Games, which aims to tell interactive stories as a form of video game literature.
Follow him on twitter: @JoshKrook
The Writing of William Deresiewicz – The Death of the Artist
We imagine artists as pure beings, in some ways above the forces of the market or the capitalistic imperatives of our society. Those who seek to make money from art are sell outs. By contrast, true artists, the theory goes,…
If Then by Jill Lepore
Long before Amazon, Twitter and Facebook, a company called Simulmatics Corporation sought to predict and control human behaviour through the analysis of big data. If Then tells the story of that company, from its humble beginnings in a tiny office…
The Art of Ararat ‘Mali’ Tanarach
If we are lucky in our lives, we come across artists who are always paying attention, whose vibrant paintings bring to life the world in a way we have never seen before. They see the everyday; the objects, food and…
You end up becoming yourself
The first time I knew something was wrong was at the end of law school. It was the final examination before graduation and I walked by two people in conversation outside of the examination hall. The one said to the…
The Social Dilemma: Review
If you watch one film about technology this year, make it this one. The Social Dilemma (Netflix) features almost every tech insider turned outsider. There’s Tristan Harris, Google’s former chief design ethicist who famously dissented over the company’s attention/addiction business…
The Writing of Mieko Kawakami
Earlier this year, I read Breasts and Eggs, a feminist novel by the author Mieko Kawakami. It took me a couple of tries to get into it, but on the second time I was drawn in by the descriptions of…
The Philosophy of Existential Engagement
I’ve spent most of my adult life chasing a kind of certainty : the belief that people are susceptible to beauty, emotion and compassion. I want to believe that even the most callous, cruel and indifferent people in the world…
The Philosophy of Mark Fisher
It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. This is the opening statement of Mark Fisher’s book, Capitalist Realism. It’s a phrase often attributed to the philosophers Slavoj Zizek and Fredric Jameson. Zizek points…
The Science Fiction of Arthur C. Clarke
A friend recently gave me Arthur C. Clarke’s novel The City and the Stars. On the first page, he wrote the dedication: May your path also transcend the cycles that stifle progress. The novel is about how we can trap…