by Thomas R. Wells Many environmentalists support the idea of charging deposits on drink bottles and cans in order to persuade people to bring them back for recycling. They believe this is a good and obvious way to reduce humans environmental impact. They are mistaken. While bottle deposit systems are superficially attractive they are a…

by Thomas R. Wells Drug overdose deaths have more than doubled in America in the past 10 years, mainly due to the appearance of Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. These drugs combine incredible ease of manufacture with potency in tiny amounts and dangerousness (the tiniest miscalculation in dosage makes them deadly). This continues a general…

by Thomas R. Wells Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has reminded everyone of how dangerous a world we live in. As rich countries scramble to rebuild militaries dismantled by post-Cold war complacency, one of the other problems of national success has become apparent: young people have better things to do than play soldier. My solution: conscript…

by Thomas R. Wells Taiwan is an independent prosperous liberal democracy of 24 million free people that the Chinese Communist Party solemnly promises to annex to its empire by whatever means are necessary. Although Taiwan’s flourishing capitalist economy once allowed it to outgun and hence straightforwardly deter China from a military invasion, this military advantage…

by Thomas R. Wells The recent history of the term ‘political correctness’ and its association with the contemporary left and the tedious culture wars obscures its true character and ubiquity. Political correctness is real, significant, and arguably the dominant mode of politics since before humans could even talk. It is the few trying to rule…

by Thomas R. Wells Americans dominate global (social) media and one result of this is that the rest of the world is overexposed to Americans’ ideas, and also to their ideas about themselves. One such idea that is more or less endlessly repeated is that even middle-class Americans are actually poor these days. I accept…

by Thomas R. Wells The term ‘problematic’ seems to be everywhere these days – even in academic philosophy settings where people are supposed to take some care about what they are saying. Both intellectually and morally it is a bad word to use and we should stop. In ordinary conversation, social media, and even mass-media…

by Thomas R. Wells Human minds run on stories, in which things happen at a human level scale and for human meaningful reasons. But the actual world runs on causal processes, largely indifferent to humans’ feelings about them. The great breakthrough in human enlightenment was to develop techniques – empirical science – to allow us…

by Thomas R. Wells Environmentalists are always complaining that governments are obsessed with GDP and economic growth, and that this is a bad thing because economic growth is bad for the environment. They are partly right but mostly wrong. First, while governments talk about GDP a lot, that does not mean that they actually prioritise…

by Thomas R. Wells It is easy to become exasperated with liberal democracy. Various factions bicker and manoeuvre against each other in an endless grubby contest for power, hypocritically appealing to a shared public interest while continuously generating and sustaining social divisions. Things that are necessary – like addressing climate change – do not get…

by Thomas R. Wells When people take to the street to protest this is often supposed to be a sign of democracy in action. People who believe that their concerns about the climate change, Covid lockdowns, racism and so on are not being adequately addressed by the political system make a public display of how…

by Thomas R. Wells According to the meta-charity GiveWell, the most effective charities can save a child’s life for between 3 and 5,000 US dollars. One way of understanding this figure is that whenever you consider spending that amount of money, one of the things you would be choosing not to spend it on is…

by Thomas R. Wells The idea that ‘taxation is theft’ is one of those thrilling, paradigm shifting recognitions that are continually being rediscovered and shared. It is a classic case of pseudo-intellectuality, in which the excitement around an idea determines its popularity, rather than its quality (previously). First, unlike theft, taxation is legal – and…

by Thomas R. Wells Climate change is a huge and urgent problem. It is natural to suppose that it is therefore a terrible mistake, an unforced error that we should regret and try to prevent ever happening again. I disagree. Climate change is the unfortunate outcome of the economic growth that has transformed human civilisation…

by Thomas R. Wells The argument in brief: 1. Romantic love hijacks our desires and practical reasoning 2. If your desires and practical reasoning are hijacked your decisions aren’t authentically your own 3. If there were something that would prevent you from falling in love (a ‘vaccine’), it would prevent this hijacking Therefore, 4. If…

by Thomas R. Wells Countries exist. They are places on the map which have a political identity and borders and which people or things can live in, come from, or go to. But countries are not anymore than that. Firstly and most obviously, countries are merely a social construction. They are collectively produced fictions (like…

by Thomas R. Wells A large number of jobs exist not because they create economic value but because they make business sense given the institutions we have – customer expectations, bureaucratic regulations, and so on. They do not solve a real problem but a fake problem created by inefficient institutions. They therefore do not make…

by Thomas R. Wells “The poorest he that is in England has a life to live as the greatest he” (Thomas Rainsborough, spokesman for the Levellers at the Putnam Debates) What does it mean to say that everyone is equal? It does not mean that everyone has (or should have) the same amount of nice…

by Thomas R. Wells Suppose that we could all be good for just one day. No one would be tempted away from doing the right thing and towards their own selfish interests or illicit urges. No one would be afraid of retribution. We would be free of all internal and external obstacles to being good.…

by Thomas Wells Billions of people around the world continue to live in great poverty. What is the responsibility of rich countries to address this? This essay takes the view that the best we can do is the least we ought to do, but also that the best we can do is heavily constrained by…