https://joshdunigan.com/ Essays and blog posts by Joshua Dunigan. en-us Wed, 08 Apr 2026 21:13:17 +0000 https://joshdunigan.com/blog/since-the-beginning-of-time.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/since-the-beginning-of-time.html Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Blog We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/2025-books.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/2025-books.html Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog What I read in 2025. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/ai-hopes.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/ai-hopes.html Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog My original hypothesis for the hype around AI was that the hype was less about the potential for revolutionizing the economy and more about the wish that it would. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/vibe-coding.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/vibe-coding.html Mon, 29 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog I believe it was February of 2025 when I first started using Cursor on personal projects. I had an idea to use it on an idea I wanted to build for some time now, Porcupine. Until AI tools were good enough, I did not want to spend my outside of work time coding, it would be too much coding in my life. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/porcupine.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/porcupine.html Mon, 29 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog Schopenhauer has this parable. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/nozick-rawls-at-the-hospital.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/nozick-rawls-at-the-hospital.html Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog The philosophy paper that I attribute to my original interest in philosophy was one by my professor, Helga Varden, called Rawls vs Nozick vs Kant on Domestic Economic Justice. Helga's argument blew open the standstill between the ideology of the two political parties in America. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/morrow-plots.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/morrow-plots.html Thu, 25 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog At the end of part 1 of The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Gordon writes about the many positive interventions of the government to spur economic growth. One of the greatest, in my opinion, was the Morril Land-Grant Act of 1862. This act established a set of land to be put aside and funded for the specific purpose of further higher education for agricultural studies, but also mechanical and military studies. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/america-working-class.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/america-working-class.html Wed, 24 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog Further on in my reading of The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Gordon writes about conditions of steelworkers in America. Steelworkers would work 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week. The steel industry went through boom and bust cycles that were incredibly difficult on the workers. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/coding.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/coding.html Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog I don't actually like coding. When I chose a major, a huge part of it was the appeal of the salaries in software engineering. There was a little optimism that I would enjoy it in the beginning. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/benefits.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/benefits.html Mon, 22 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog I am currently reading and trying to finish a book that I have picked up and put down a few times now, The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert Gordon. I might write some longer review about it, but currently the part that I am at is heavily related to my job. https://joshdunigan.com/essays/onto-theo-logy.html https://joshdunigan.com/essays/onto-theo-logy.html Sun, 07 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Essay Ontotheology means the science of God and Being. It is about God-as-Being as much as Being-as-God. https://joshdunigan.com/essays/transcendental-chaos.html https://joshdunigan.com/essays/transcendental-chaos.html Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Essay Kant makes the transcendental status of this issue plainest in the following passage, though here he speaks of a 'logical law of genera' instead of the 'transcendental affinity of the sensory manifold'. https://joshdunigan.com/essays/philosophical-conversion.html https://joshdunigan.com/essays/philosophical-conversion.html Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Essay Sebastian Gardner's review of Robert Pippin's The Culmination presented balanced commentary, with reservations at the conclusion. https://joshdunigan.com/essays/post-secular-reason.html https://joshdunigan.com/essays/post-secular-reason.html Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Essay At one point, the debate between religion and reason was the most important one that the West could engage in. Whether it was the problem of evil, the French Revolution, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, the American separation of Church and State, there was always considerable importance around this debate. The conflict between the secular and religious persists today, for example, in the abortion debate. https://joshdunigan.com/essays/back-to-kant.html https://joshdunigan.com/essays/back-to-kant.html Fri, 26 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Essay What is the purpose of the United Nations? It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it's not even coming close to living up to that potential. For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. It's empty words and empty words don't solve war. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/trade-beef.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/trade-beef.html Sun, 20 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog I wrote this satire about beef tariffs on April 20th. I was wrong at the time when I wrote to my friend that there were no tariffs at the time, saying I was gonna go into more detail but I figured a satirical newslike article would be funnier. I don't think there are any tariffs on beef because he thought this was a real article while skimming it. https://joshdunigan.com/blog/america-47.html https://joshdunigan.com/blog/america-47.html Sat, 22 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Blog Robert Nozick gained fame for Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Unlike most American philosophy books, it achieved both academic and popular success, even appearing in a scene of The Sopranos. John Rawls's A Theory of Justice proved even more successful.