Reason & Romanticism
The central premise of my weekly column for the Pocahontas Times is that America sits at a crossroads not unlike the one encountered at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. We see the clash between an urban, STEM-focused, techno-optimist culture and the small-c conservatism of rural culture collide in vaccine denial, in opposition to data centers, in a rejection of elite culture that borders at times on outright anti-intellectualism. I address the tensions from the perspective of a native West Virginian who spent 20 years in DC working in and around public policy before returning to small town West Virginia.
Presents a philosophical defense of armed humanitarian intervention, and shows that Venezuela and Iran—like Iraq before then—fail to meet the moral criteria.
Explores the trope of collective minds in science fiction, with particular emphasis on the pros and cons of the version presented in Pluribus.
Critiques the West Virginia Legislature's decision to fully fund its voucher program, despite having no evidence that the program improves educational outcomes.
Argues that while all reading is good, engaging with complex texts is necessary for unlocking the most important kinds of thinking.
The world needs specialists who go deep on narrow topics. It also needs generalists who can translate between specialties.
A review of the novel Murder by Design that explores its intellectual debt to Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things.
A philosophical argument for minimally decent treatment of animals raised for food, grounded in utilitarianism and the realities of rural life.
Communicating Complexity on the Web
These essays reflect on the difficulties of communicating evidence-based research results and policy recommendations in a rapidly changing digital environment. Recurring themes include hypertext as a mode of thinking, the gaps between reader behavior and traditional research writing, and the potential impacts of AI for both producers and consumers of research and policy communication.
Screens, Research & Hypertext
A monograph-length work presented as nonlinear nonfiction hypertext. Explores the intersections between web design, hypertext theory, and the reading and production of policy research — arguing for, and demonstrating, a radically different approach to publishing research online.
Read the book →The case for modular, semantic content architecture as a practical response to the rise of large language models — written before that argument became obvious.
LLM-authored texts as the logical endpoint of Barthes's "death of the author" — and what that means for how we think about writing, attribution, and meaning.
Most "digital-first" reports are print products formatted in HTML. The distinction matters, and this piece makes the argument for taking it seriously.
The MCU as a case study in combining text and paratext to tell a broader story — and what policy research communicators can learn from it.
FactCheck.org
These items are selected from my work as a staff writer at the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org. The work is the product of meticulous reporting and a rigorous editorial process and has fundamentally shaped my approach of grounding big-picture philosophical work in specific, verifiable details.
A systematic accounting of where McCain and Obama misled voters during the 2008 campaign — the flagship annual piece for one of the web's first fact-checking organizations.
A rigorous takedown of Jerome Corsi's The Obama Nation, demonstrating how a book can be simultaneously widely read and systematically wrong.
A defense of fact-based journalism written in the wake of research (since substantially revised) suggesting that mythbusting can backfire — engaging the evidence rather than ignoring it.
The Slow Work
A philosophy PhD is not an especially useful credential. But the skills required to obtain the credential? Disentangling normative and empirical claims. Following arguments even when they lead to unexpected conclusions. Finding the hidden assumptions in an argument. Those are useful everywhere.
My academic work sits at the intersection of ethics, political theory and international law, with particular emphasis on just war theory and military ethics. That specialized knowledge has also proven useful with entirely too much regularity.
Argues that military officers bear a moral obligation to refuse participation in wars that fail the traditional criteria for just war — regardless of the chain of command. Engages invincible ignorance as a limiting condition and finds it insufficient.
Reexamines Mill's case for armed humanitarian intervention and defends it against charges of warmed-over colonialism — arguing the defense requires more honesty about costs, not less commitment to the principle.
Available for column work, essays, and information architecture engagements.
jjosephmiller@gmail.com