My new book is 'Media and the Power of Knowledge'. It is partly based on lectures I've given over the last 15 years. It updates McLuhan for the age of @X:

This one goes out to ReformUK:

The last vestige of #Imperialism is Global Higher Education: The researchers on top, wherever they are, benefit. The people not on top suffer by virtue of their lower status. Perhaps academic league tables should reflect institutional network connections. @timeshighered

Did you know GSPs are natural swimmers? They’re born to dive into life’s adventures 🌊🐾.

Wit is the economist's idea of philosophy: maximum bang for the buck.

The main challenge to making AI fully human is figuring out how to get humans to say clearly what it is like to be themselves, so that AI can process that. People are already prepared to deal with fellow Homo Sapiens who look and speak quite differently from them.

There is a class of person -- different for each person -- who causes you to gasp for breath when they begin a sentence with, "I've been thinking...." You immediately imagine how to orchestrate a climbdown from that thought.

The purpose of studying the Great Books isn't information collection. It's formation. Turning the soul toward truth and understanding what it means to be human.

Philosophy easily serves ideology because it can turn virtually any sow's ear into a silk purse. This led Plato to coin the word #rhetoric. The real problem comes when philosophers believe their own hype. #Lukacs.

I always listen to radio-based music when I walk or run, largely with an eye to downloading some of it to my playlist when I work. This sort of connoisseurship manages harmony in my life.

The only sense of ownership that matters is your memory.

Tori Amos meets Jimmy Webb:

And now one from my favourite pastiche artist:

Ah, the good old days!

A neat device of #deconstruction in its heyday was to treat metaphors as psychoanalytic symptoms, which were then mined for their 'hidden meanings' -- without calling them that! We need more of that today.

I hate to say it, but I think AI will be able to forge #Bowie pretty soon, since his stuff is ultimately a tasteful pastiche of words and sounds from all over the place. His artistry lay in his self-presentation, which led people to think there's always something *else* there.

I have become more friendly to the idea of #tolerance, which I previously treated as a consolation prize for failure. It actually allows the sharpness of differences to be exposed, with individuals deciding what to make of them and shifting opinion accordingly.

Causation is a hard problem because we can't easily tell the difference between a trigger and an origin. After all, God may have just triggered the world into existence, unleashing its hidden potential. He knew exactly how to strike.

I left out the Flock of Seagulls haircut...

This sounds so wonderful now because we forget how easy it was to decompose its parts at the time: Bowie x Depeche Mode x Noir-ish backdrop x weird technology.

Laws are like intelligence tests designed to discourage people from even trying.

You can start discounting the value of your own life by looking at how much you life resembles that of others.

People who present themselves well in public usually need a lot of down time to collect themselves. Over the years, I have developed enormous sympathy for professional performers such as actors and musicians. It's much trickier if you're a politician. Trump deserves respect here.