Justin Khoo

Well, five years later, all three parts are now published:

Uncertainty in the Absence of Fact (Phil Studies): www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2699r...

Judging for ourselves (PPR): www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/p1oeb...

Finding and believing (Meaning): www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3t27c...

one about the non-factuality argument, one about the 'acquaintance inference' for reactive predicates (it's odd to say "The Shining is scary" if you've never seen it), and one about the relationship between the attitudes of finding The Shining scary and believing that it is scary... 3/

I wrote this up in a paper called "On Scariness" which I presented here and there, and then tried unsuccessfully to publish for three years. During that time, I realized that I was trying to do too much in one paper, so I split it into three parts... 2/

Five years ago, I noticed a connection between the work I was doing on non-factuality regarding conditionals and what I've come to call "reactive predicates" like "scary" (or "elegant," "lovely," etc). I thought I had a new argument that there's no fact of the matter whether a movie is scary... 1/

MARTY SUPREME! w/ @splicedpersonality.bsky.social

Pick up your paddles... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...

This week on @podcastlikeits The 2000s @emilystjams.bsky.social and I continued our Pixar miniseries with @cowspod.com hosts @justinkhoo.com & Laura Khoo to talk about WALL-E! We discuss silent movies, conservative media reactions and why WALL-E is the cutest little robot ever 🤖

Think of how bad things must be for a Supreme Court Justice to feel he has to explain why it's a good idea to have laws enacted by legislators instead of decreed by wannabe dictators

Our episode on ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is live! w/ @roxana-hadadi.bsky.social so you know it's gonna be a fun time and that some Lockjaw disagreement going down!

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...

Doh!

Yet more misinformation about the #CaliforniaBillionaireTax is circulating on X, drawing on highly misleading analysis from the Tax Foundation. We have posted a short document explaining why that analysis is false.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

NEW EPISODE! It’s a @cowspod.com crossover as @justinkhoo.com and Laura Khoo join GUIDE FOR THE FILM FANATIC to work through Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s THE SHINING — a polarizing picture, throughout the culture, throughout the years, and even within our four-person conversation.

Considering the AI artist for the MIT Tech: thetech.com/2025/11/25/a...

153. Grave of the Fireflies (w/ Sam Liao)

I’m honored to be on @justinkhoo.com ‘s podcast to talk about my favorite heartwarming children’s animated film that is perfect for the whole family to watch together over the holidays. (I cannot listen to myself talk but I hope you will consider doing so!)

open.spotify.com/episode/7eK8...

I think seeing is factive, but what you see is something fictional. I think it’s the common sense view honestly, just one that philosophers get worried about because of their prior ontological scruples

Seeing the Fictional When we see a movie or a play, do we see the fictional entities and events depicted? On the one hand, it seems incredibly natural to think we do. For instance, it seems obvious that one thing that di...

I agree with this: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

WARFARE (2025) w/ @jimpenola.bsky.social! Garland, heroic sacrifice, music(!), decontextualizing violence, the film's commitment to realism, and much more!

pocketcasts.com/podcasts/c9f...

‘Millionaires tax’ has already generated $1.8 billion this year for Massachusetts, blowing past projections - The Boston Globe The estimated haul is already $800 million more than what Governor Maura Healey and state lawmakers planned to spend from its revenue in fiscal year 2024.

Here’s the same headline from a year ago: www.bostonglobe.com/2024/05/20/m...

Massachusetts collected $2 billion more in tax revenue than expected because of millionaires tax - The Boston Globe Total revenue collections for fiscal year 2025 totaled approximately $43.7 billion, which is $2.9 billion, or 7.1 percent, more than the state pulled in the prior fiscal year.

Second year in a row proving that taxing millionaires works www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/08/m...

meanwhile, at the boston globe... lol what is happening

we live in a twilight world

the revolution started with a sandwich

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Christopher Nolan's $200 Million-Dollar Sudoku Puzzles - Reactor A common complaint about Christopher Nolan’s films (often heard in critical circles) is that they are unemotional puzzle boxes—despite dazzling the senses and bewildering the mind, there is no deeper ...

39. This is a nice essay by @justinkhoo.com on where Tenet fits into Nolan's occupation with characters struggling against the constraints that bind us all, particularly time. It doesn't mention le Guin's wonderful essay about the purpose of sci-fi, but it locates Nolan's sci-fi in that tradition:

A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.

“in” fo sho

Same same for “the cat is on the mat”

Marjorie Taylor Greene Is First Republican Lawmaker to Call Gaza Crisis a ‘Genocide’

American politics today is a rollercoaster www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/u...

I love this!

Wait you saw 2001 with Noam Chomsky? What'd he think of it?

Juan Murillo Vargas, How Language-Like is the Language of Thought? - PhilPapers The language of thought hypothesis (LoTH) claims that thoughts are underpinned by language-like vehicles. A central motivation is that there is a relevant similarity between language and thought expla...

Happy to announce that my paper "How Language-Like is the Language of Thought?" is forthcoming at Ergo!

Thread with a TL;DR below!
philpapers.org/rec/MURHLI-3

Reflections

a gallery of reflections photos.justinkhoo.com/street/refle...