Rapid Fire

Basically a blog where I try to do philosophy outside.

5 days ago

Consistently Biased

Hey, sorry for the late post, had to give a talk this morning! I’ve written a bit about QALYs here before, or Quality-Adjusted Life...

Sep 13

Something I HATE about Averages

If you had to summarize a statistical distribution with one number…well, I guess you could do worse than taking an average. Even so,...

Sep 6

SNEAK PEEK: Board Game Ethics

(Stick around for a sneak peek at my latest manifesto!) It’s been a busy week onboarding at Hopkins and continuing to get settled in...

Aug 16

How Coffees Get Scored

Do you know how coffees get scored? Here’s a sample espresso cupping form: Let’s talk survey methodology . This form is part of a...

Jun 21

DEEP DIVE: Simplicity and Complexity

Hi I’m a four-year-old child learning 8 new words every day. So help me out: What’s a chef? Uhh…a chef is someone who cooks food. Oh...

Apr 12

How to Tell Better Narratives of Character (ft. Canceling)

Our discourse around canceling seems a bit too simplistic. But how can we do better? We’ve all done bad things we wish we could take...

Mar 1

I made a Video Essay

Two weeks ago, I had no idea how to use Adobe Premiere Pro. But now, I’m pretty good at Googling. Indiana University is holding a...

Jan 5

You will be Misread

When you go to the hospital, we rarely have the resources to treat everyone as promptly and thoroughly as we’d like. So we have to make...

Dec 29, 2023

Why is Racism bad?

I recently spoke to a trained economist who argued that racism was bad, but only because it was bad for the economy. What can we say...

Oct 13, 2023

Someone could get it Wrong

I had a really interesting conversation about art criticism this week. So here we go: What does it mean to be great at jazz? Look, I know...

Oct 6, 2023

Quantitative and Qualitative Values

I’ve been working hard to get clear on the differences between quantitative and qualitative values lately. Here’s an example: If I want...

Sep 15, 2023

Games let us practice suffering Bad Luck

First I’ll share my story. Then I’d love to hear yours. In Twilight Imperium, there’s a unique hex called the Gravity Rift. Ships that...

Sep 8, 2023

Game Values vs. Real-Life Values

My friend Kjell and I noticed there just aren’t enough podcasts, so we decided to help. Our first episode takes an early look at some of...

Ricky Mouser