Jiří Menzel’s treatment of sacrifice

The paper explores the philosophical treatment of sacrifice in four of Jiří Menzel’s films of the 1960’s, Closely observed trains (Ostře sledované vlaky), Capricious summer (Rozmarné léto), Mr Balthazar’s death (Smrt pana Baltazara), his short film contribution to the anthology film of the New Wave, Pearls of the deep (Perličky na dně), and Larks on a string (Skřivánci na niti). The paper argues that Menzel problematizes romanticized versions of messianic sacrifice as they all too easily disregard the moral significance of mundane relations. By analysing the treatment of sacrifice in each of these films, the paper makes a case for the significance of Menzel’s treatment of sacrifice for current philosophical debates

Surfing like a girl:A critique of feminine embodied movement in surfing

This article explores the position of women in the sport of surfing. I contend that within surfing there remain many forms of oppression that have not been given appropriate attention in feminist studies. In this article I apply Iris Marion Young's analysis from “Throwing Like a Girl” to the sport of surfing. Young's article offers many insights into forms of domination and oppression that pervade the sport, and that are demonstrated through the restricted movement of female surfers. I conclude by making suggestions for how to address these issues in surfing through a greater promotion of big‐wave surfing.</jats:p

Monopole Bubbling via String Theory

In this paper, we propose a string theory description of generic 't Hooft defects in $\mathcal{N}=2$ $SU(N)$ supersymmetric gauge theories. We show that the space of supersymmetric ground states is given by the moduli space of singular monopoles and that in this setting, Kronheimer's correspondence is realized as T-duality. We conjecture that this brane configuration can be used to study the full dynamics of monopole bubbling.Comment: 46 pages plus Appendi

The String Landscape, the Swampland, and the Missing Corner

We give a brief overview of the string landscape and techniques used to construct string compactifications. We then explain how this motivates the notion of the swampland and review a number of conjectures that attempt to characterize theories in the swampland. We also compare holography in the context of superstrings with the similar, but much simpler case of topological string theory. For topological strings, there is a direct definition of topological gravity based on a sum over a "quantum gravitational foam." In this context, holography is the statement of an identification between a gravity and gauge theory, both of which are defined independently of one another. This points to a missing corner in string dualities which suggests the search for a direct definition of quantum theory of gravity rather than relying on its strongly coupled holographic dual as an adequate substitute (Based on TASI 2017 lectures given by C. Vafa)

Strange Loops: Apparent versus Actual Human Involvement in Automated Decision-Making

The era of AI-based decision-making fast approaches, and anxiety is mounting about when, and why, we should keep “humans in the loop” (“HITL”). Thus far, commentary has focused primarily on two questions: whether, and when, keeping humans involved will improve the results of decision-making (making them safer or more accurate), and whether, and when, non-accuracy-related values—legitimacy, dignity, and so forth—are vindicated by the inclusion of humans in decision-making. Here, we take up a related but distinct question, which has eluded the scholarship thus far: does it matter if humans appear to be in the loop of decision-making, independent from whether they actually are? In other words, what is stake in the disjunction between whether humans in fact have ultimate authority over decision-making versus whether humans merely seem, from the outside, to have such authority? Our argument proceeds in four parts. First, we build our formal model, enriching the HITL question to include not only whether humans are actually in the loop of decision-making, but also whether they appear to be so. Second, we describe situations in which the actuality and appearance of HITL align: those that seem to involve human judgment and actually do, and those that seem automated and actually are. Third, we explore instances of misalignment: situations in which systems that seem to involve human judgment actually do not, and situations in which systems that hold themselves out as automated actually rely on humans operating “behind the curtain.” Fourth, we examine the normative issues that result from HITL misalignment, arguing that it challenges individual decision-making about automated systems and complicates collective governance of automation