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TST: New Content, FAQs, Read-Aloud

Latest 5

The 5 latest stories.

One-minute tidbits.

1.

Philosophy FAQ.

Does TST Philosophy use existential givens?.

No, not as a core term. TST does not specifically adopt “existential givens,” or “facticity” as formal vocabulary. Those ideas are useful historical bridges, especially through Sartre and existentialism.

Existential givens usually refer to the facts you are born into or cannot simply wish away: your body, birthplace, family, time period, biology, mortality, and social conditions. Sartre called this kind of thing facticity. These are not choices, but they shape the field in which choices happen. You may feel free to drink water or not, but if you stop drinking water, you stop living. TST uses the common word circumstances, as in your birth circumstances, current circumstances, and upcoming circumstances.

TST keeps the useful insight but avoids making “givens” a separate core term. In TST, a person exists in a current state, with properties and relations already in place. Those conditions create constraints. Within those constraints, some potentials remain open and others are impossible. A human baby can become an adult human, but not a tiger.

So TST frames this topic through choice and constraint. You do not choose the full starting point of your life, but you do make choices from within it. Those choices actualize some potentials and close off others. Your life is not unlimited freedom, and it is not total determinism. It is a lived path through reality’s constraints.

 


That Philosophy FAQ, 

was first published on TST 9 hours ago.

2.

Philosophy FAQ.

Is Aristotle’s Entelechy part of TST Philosophy?.

No, not specifically. TST does not adopt entelechy as a core term. It respects Aristotle’s insight, but TST uses the simpler distinction between potential and actual. That gives us the useful part without carrying over Aristotle’s full teleology or later vitalist baggage.

In Aristotle, entelechy points to a thing’s fulfilled actuality. It is what something becomes when its potential has been fully realized according to its nature. An acorn has the potential to become an oak; the mature oak is closer to its fulfilled form. In this sense, entelechy is not merely potential, and it is not merely process. It is potential brought into completed actuality.

The reason TST does not specifically adopt entelechy is that it can imply a built-in final purpose or destiny. TST does not need that. A newborn baby has the potential to become an adult human, but not a tiger. Reality sets boundaries on what is possible. Within those boundaries, conditions, time, choices, and actions help determine what becomes actual. That is enough.

In TST, potential and actual do the work. Potential means what can become real within the constraints of reality. Actual means what has become real. This applies to human development, ideas, ethics, science, and even abstractions like infinity. Potential matters, but actuality is where reality pushes back.

 


That Philosophy FAQ, 

was first published on TST 11 hours ago.

3.

Science FAQ.

Was T. Rex feathered?.

Maybe. But probably not like a giant chicken.

We do not have direct fossil evidence of feathers on T. rex itself. What we do have are fossil skin impressions from T. rex and close relatives showing small patches of pebbly scales. So, the old fully scaly monster is not totally wrong.

But the story gets more interesting.

The tide is turning on dinosaurs in general. For most of my life, dinosaur art showed a world of leathery reptiles. But more and more fossils are telling a different story. Feathers, fuzz, bristles, and quill-like structures were not just bird things. They show up across surprising branches of the dinosaur family tree. That does not mean every dinosaur was feathered head to toe, but it does mean the prehistoric world was likely much more textured than our old museum murals suggested.

And, some earlier tyrannosaur relatives had feathers. The best example is Yutyrannus, a large cousin of T. rex found with shaggy feather-like filaments. That means the tyrannosaur family had the genetic toolkit for feathers. So it is very reasonable to think young T. rex may have been fuzzier, perhaps for warmth.

Adults were different. A full-grown T. rex was huge, and big bodies hold heat well. In a warm Cretaceous world, a heavy feather coat might have been too much. So the best guess is a multi-textured animal: mostly scaly, with possible patches of simple feathers or bristles along the neck, back, or tail.

Not a lizard. Not a bird. Something stranger—and more alive.

 


That Science FAQ, 

was first published on TST 3 days ago.

4.

Critical Thinking FAQ.

Do empirical ideas require direct observation?.

No. Empirical ideas require confirmation in the material world, not necessarily direct observation. An empirical idea is a direct description of reality. We can confirm it by seeing it, measuring it, detecting its effects, reproducing its behavior, or deducing it from reliable material evidence. Direct observation is one path to empirical truth, but it is not the only path.

The Oort Cloud shows the difference. It is a serious speculative idea because long-period comets seem to point toward a distant reservoir of icy bodies surrounding the solar system. The idea is reasonable, even likely, but the cloud itself has not been confirmed. We have not yet observed, measured, sampled, or otherwise verified the proposed reservoir. So, for now, it remains speculative.

Viruses show the other side. Scientists confirmed viruses before they could see them. In 1892, experiments showed that something smaller than bacteria could pass through filters and still cause disease. That was empirical confirmation by effect, not by sight. Later, electron microscopes allowed us to see viruses directly. The idea became empirical before direct observation because the material world was already pushing back in repeatable, measurable ways.

 


That Critical Thinking FAQ, 

was first published on TST 3 days ago.

5.

Philosophy FAQ.

Is poverty caused by scarcity?.

No. The Earth has enough resources for every person to live with dignity. The real problem is that a handful of billionaires own as much wealth as the poorest half of humanity. 

The distribution of public goods needs to evolve from flourishing for the few to flourishing for all. 

Most people see poverty as a shortage problem. Not enough land. Not enough food. Not enough homes. Not enough energy. But that framing hides the deeper truth. Humanity is not simply struggling because the Earth failed to provide. We are struggling because our systems currently reward greed. 

The average American earns about $76,000 a year; worldwide, that drops to about $23,000. And those are generous numbers. Even so, people still accumulate resources and wealth: phones, clothes, transportation, and sometimes a home. It is sad that just twelve billionaires now own as much wealth as the poorest four billion people on Earth. That fact alone should stop everyone in their tracks. It reveals something structurally broken, not just unfortunate. When so much wealth gathers at the top while billions live with insecurity, the problem is not individual failure. It is a civilization-level distribution failure. This also highlights that global billionaire wealth has surged to an all-time high of $18.3 trillion.

The Earth has enough resources for every person to live with dignity: food, shelter, basic energy, healthcare, education, and connection. And we have enough resources to reward effort, ambition, risk, and talent, while still allowing luck to shape different lives. We even have room for some billionaires. The problem is not that nature failed to provide enough. The problem is how we distribute resources. We do not lack the ability to care for one another. We lack the will, structure, and moral clarity to make dignity the baseline.

 


That Philosophy FAQ, 

was first published on TST 4 days ago.

The end.

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