Ethan Magistro

Thus Spoke The Undergrads: On being a filthy cheater

“As a friend of the girlfriend’s, you should share what you know. Yet your role as a confidant means you agreed to keep your friend’s secret quiet. If they thought you would share it with their girlfriend, they probably would not have told you that they were cheating. In this situation, obligation gives us no decisive answer about what you should do.”  

“As a friend of the girlfriend’s, you should share what you know. Yet your role as a confidant means you agreed to keep your friend’s secret quiet. If they thought you would share it with their girlfriend, they probably would not have told you that they were cheating. In this situation, obligation gives us no decisive answer about what you should do.”  

Thus Spoke the Undergrads: On noisy roommate sex

“Is there a moral issue here? Can sex and sleep be weighed using a utilitarian metric? And what obligation does a roommate have to fulfill the requests of their neighbor? To answer any of these questions, you, our dear questioner, will first have to confront your roommate.”

“Is there a moral issue here? Can sex and sleep be weighed using a utilitarian metric? And what obligation does a roommate have to fulfill the requests of their neighbor? To answer any of these questions, you, our dear questioner, will first have to confront your roommate.”

Thus Spoke the Undergrads: On indoor gatherings

“Should the University start expelling students for serious contract violations? In our view, no.”

“Should the University start expelling students for serious contract violations? In our view, no.”

A game of broken telephone: Combatting misinformation and building trust

We should work to expose misinformation. Princeton students have already done this by tracing COVID-19 misinformation. The next step is to build up a community that allows for citizens to work together to stymie spews of suspicious stories.

Something about scandal

The news is a town hall of ideas and should encourage an intellectualism that supports that, not a critique of character based on isolated instances of wrongdoing. 

Making the vote count: the case for ranked choice

Even if RCV is not the option the United States ultimately chooses to use, the political division that pervades the country, the soreness about vote distribution, and the want for a thriving third party all indicate that something has to change in the electoral formulas we use to elect citizens into office.

From God’s lips to your ear: Kindness in fraught times

One solution to the problem of fracturing, which the Pope writes in his letter, has been immortalized, repeated, and preached to hundreds of generations in the simplest, one-sentence formula: love your neighbor as yourself. From Confucius, to Scripture, to Hobbes, Spinoza, and Kant, and to kindergarten classrooms, the golden rule is the keystone to human interactions. Somehow, however, it seems the hardest to follow.

An $80K zoom call: the unstable connection between USG and the student body

It is easy to criticize USG. Many criticisms are fair. Yet every critic should remember that, should they feel such anger against USG, they can join the senate, vote for officers, and give USG the power it needs. If USG is not to your liking, the action that should be taken is not complaining on Tiger Confessions but making USG better.

Healing the sick: the vaccine and problems of trust

With these pills, our democracy can recover better than it was before. The question only remains if they are too big to swallow.

Enough smear-mongering: it’s time for real change

We must all work hard to respectfully converse with and listen to each other. This can be tedious, tiring, and painfully frustrating. Further, we should attempt to bracket theoretical differences to create practical, humanitarian change and not ideologically backed revolution. If we fail, then what comes next will be a society that may be better but will be fundamentally unjust. A society founded on injustices will be doomed to repeat them.