Dear Patrons —
Many thanks for your messages over the last few months. Wanted to write and give an update on how things are going. As you know, due to aggressive construction work on a neighbouring building, including months of foundation-shaking drilling, my building started to suffer with deep cracks in the walls and windows, water damage and a potentially disastrous gas leak. After months of repeated patch jobs, a surveyor said I needed to address the underlying issues. As in therapy, so in houses. So over the past few weeks, been stripping the place back to bare brick and floorboards to rebuild from scratch.
Those of you who’ve tackled major renovations will know how it consumes all available energy — the physical prep, the macro and micro decisions on every aspect of every job, organising and reorganising workflow around setbacks, etc.. If things go to plan, the work should be done towards the end of August.
Going ahead with this unwanted rebuild has had its upsides. Done some major life laundry — released a good 50-60% of the old contents to charity and recycling. Has made me think, how much dead weight do we carry that could have a useful life somewhere else?
Had a number of messages about the recent Jordan Peterson vs 20 atheists video. I think one participant captured it well with the term ‘retreating into a semantic fog’. Repeated evasions and deflections, bizarre refusals to engage with straightforward hypotheticals — eg would he lie to shield targets of murderous regimes. I found it a painful — and in places ugly — display of rhetoric over substance. The posturing of conviction, but not the content. Some have wondered how aware he is of his slippery responses. Is it conscious subterfuge? Is it a genuine scramble to muster some answer, however confused, rather than appear stumped? Whatever the case, for me, he’s demonstrated a level of incoherence and bad faith in this area far too often now to be a voice of interest in atheist discourse.
As always, I hope this finds you safe and well. And a happy Independence Day to my chums in the US. Here’s to a better second half to 2025.
Peace,
Link