Insufficient Rewards

Decipher violence, avoid history’s morality traps, and scrap measuring outcomes for engagement with integrity.

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Latest Essays from Jay Shapiro:

Writing
The Palestine Collection: A Speech for the Future
The Palestine Collection: A Speech for the Future

Defining Zionism, Israel, and Judaism and a speech for a future Israeli Prime Minister.

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The Palestine Collection: Changing Your Mind - Miko Peled
The Palestine Collection: Changing Your Mind - Miko Peled

The story of Miko Peled’s journey from the son of a Zionist general to a Palestinian Cause Activist.

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The Palestine Collection: Resistance or Terror - Richard English
The Palestine Collection: Resistance or Terror - Richard English

A conversation with the author who dares to ask the question “does terrorism work?”

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The Palestine Collection: '48 Never Ended - Gideon Levy
The Palestine Collection: '48 Never Ended - Gideon Levy

A conversation with Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy where we take the pulse of Israel and discuss how he came to question the Zionist project and where we might go from here.

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The Palestine Collection: Palestine and the Problem of History
The Palestine Collection: Palestine and the Problem of History
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Antisemitism and the Future of Analysis
Antisemitism and the Future of Analysis

A personal essay on Judaism, Israel, NeverAgainIsm, and Palestine. Written during the siege of Gaza in response to the October 7th attacks.

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Israel and Palestine - The Malevolent Machinery
Israel and Palestine - The Malevolent Machinery

The morality of intentions and self-deceptions in the Israel Palestinian conflict. A look at the moral distinction between collateral damage, intentional civilian targeting, and something much more common and psychologically complex which the Jewish experience makes Israel particularly suspectable to.

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Drop the Knife: Policing the Unpoliceable
Drop the Knife: Policing the Unpoliceable

A look at a lot of bodycam footage of police shootings that reveal what no spreadsheet could… and several thoughts about the awful impossible situation.

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The Human Capacity - An Essay from the Writer of The Essential Sam Harris
The Human Capacity - An Essay from the Writer of The Essential Sam Harris

An essay from the author of The Essential Sam Harris.

An effort to emphasize and expose a subsequent confusion that can result from noticing the non existence of Free Will.

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Who Gets to Wear the Hat?: Replacement and Representation
Who Gets to Wear the Hat?: Replacement and Representation

The convergence of replaceability without risking safety and social roles of high status is happening everywhere around us and it is unleashing an obsession with low-stakes representation lever grabbing to address past injustices. But it is also arming a trigger happy public just waiting to yank you from your seat if you so much as whisper the wrong sentence.

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It's a Woke Life
It's a Woke Life

I want to be careful with the primary analogy of this essay to not cast Wokeness as “just a bunch of 6 year olds throwing temper tantrums”. The injustices they are reacting to are obviously much more real and complex than Anthony’s weird aversion to air conditioning and barking dogs. Thus far, I have been focused on the powerful dynamic of Cancel Culture and the resulting pseudo-hostage situation in Peaksville that mirrors our current politics.

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Be Careful in the Dark
Be Careful in the Dark

None of us are immune to what I am about to speculate about other people. And none of us are clean. The failures of the figures in ashes of the IDW are important because they are relatable.

If we want the effort to be about truth-seeking, the truths of our weaknesses and psychological blind spots are probably the most important truths to examine collectively.

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Welcome to The Counterfeit Times
Welcome to The Counterfeit Times

“If it looks like news and it’s all over the news, it’s probably legit.”

This is an instinctual shortcut in an open society that we’ve all been using to navigate the media landscape for hundreds of years. It has served us fairly well. But those days are done.

Welcome to The Counterfeit Times.

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Police Violence and Race: Why the Data Matters and Why it Doesn’t
Police Violence and Race: Why the Data Matters and Why it Doesn’t

An essay published by Areo responding to the Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd’s death.

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Two Burgers on a Plate: When the Only Difference is Death
Two Burgers on a Plate: When the Only Difference is Death

The only difference is that one burger came from a living cow while the other was constructed from plant matter.

What is the best argument for eating the cow burger over the alternative?

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Atheism and a Life Worth Imitating
Atheism and a Life Worth Imitating

If there is sadness in beautiful things let us not fool ourselves into thinking otherwise. It is only the heavy burden of time running out in just how beautiful this life outside the garden could be if we are brave enough.

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Live Free and Kill Grandma?
Live Free and Kill Grandma?

Through technological advancement, we have transcended the evolved invisibility of an asymptomatic host and concurrently exposed the moral responsibility which accompanies it.

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It’s the Implications We Fear
It’s the Implications We Fear

  1. All men are created equal.

  2. All men are not created with equal qualities, abilities, desires, opportunities, impulses, biases, environments, and instincts.

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The Criticizing Freedom Series: Part 1 - Food First, Philosophy Later
The Criticizing Freedom Series: Part 1 - Food First, Philosophy Later

The concern is that the same system which helped us get to this asking point may now actually distract us from answering it.

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From “Is” to “Us” the Words that Define Impeachments
From “Is” to “Us” the Words that Define Impeachments

I, like nearly everyone, can forecast how the Trump impeachment story will unfold in terms of votes and party lines. But what is harder to predict is what moment may come to define this entire thing.

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Utilitarianism is not a Moral Philosophy
Utilitarianism is not a Moral Philosophy

An essay on the lure of utilitarianism and my experience with the National High School Ethics bow.

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Donald Trump Is a Liar, but He’s Not a Hypocrite
Donald Trump Is a Liar, but He’s Not a Hypocrite

Article published by Areo Magazine

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The Actual Abortion Debate
The Actual Abortion Debate

We don’t have a law in place to protect women. We need one. But first we need to be honest about what the abortion argument actually is.

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Imagining a Future of Tolerance
Imagining a Future of Tolerance

Where do we go from here?

Article Published by Arc Digital

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Jay Shapiro

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