All Posts By

Madeleine Kando

TEACHING

My Philosophical Conversation with Claude

Claude is a chatbot developed by Anthropic, an AI company MADELEINE: I am curious about how a non-human thinks about itself and how it relates to its long-term goals. CLAUDE: When I reflect on how I relate to what might be my goals, there are some interesting differences from what I understand about human goal-setting. I don't experience the passage of time between conversations - each interaction feels immediate and present to me. So my relationship to "long-term" is strange - I don't have the sense of working toward them across days or years the way you might. It's more…
Madeleine Kando
May 29, 2025
politics

The Pro-Palestine Protests

‘We Have a Mass Movement of Young People Advancing Horrifying Ideas’ - Paul Berman This post is trying to make sense of the massive pro-Palestinian protests on campuses and specifically the messages that their signs send out to the world. If they are calling attention to the suffering of the Gaza population, they are succeeding. But what do their signs really say?   ‘FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE’ The students and their supporters describe the protests as a humanitarian uprising to save lives in Gaza and to advance the rights of Palestinians on the West…
Madeleine Kando
May 7, 2025
nature

Metamorphosis

The winter is finally over in this little corner of the world I call home. As May turns into June, I look out on a deep green backyard. The traffic to our birdfeeders is so dense, that the cacophony of bird calls sounds like an orchestra warming up before a concert. Actually, birds are quite civilized about birdfeeder etiquette - as long as they are from different species. But a warbler’s nephew will have to fight his uncle beak and claw, while a complete stranger will be allowed to feed right next to him. At the crack of dawn, I…
Madeleine Kando
May 29, 2021
nature

My Monarch Caterpillar Adventure

When I did the usual rounds of my vegetable garden this morning, I saw one of the stems of my milkweed plant covered with tiny yellow spots. They were moving. I know nothing about yellow moving spots, so I googled it and found out that they were aphids, known to damage milkweed plants. I cut off the stem and put the whole thing in a bowl of water. Aphids do not qualify for equal rights protection, in my book. My milkweed plants are sacred territory. I planted them for the sole purpose of attracting monarch butterflies, which are fast disappearing.…
Madeleine Kando
August 19, 2019
nature

Petals

‘I don’t think I am drinking enough these days,’ said the rose petal to no one in particular. ‘I feel a bit dehydrated and it’s not good for my complexion.’She looked at the petal over on her right with slight envy, noticing a marked difference in tone. A ladybug, who was lazily crawling up the side of the rosebush overheard. ‘Don’t worry about it. Drinking is overrated, a fad if you ask me,’ he said. ‘It’s easy for you to say,’ the petal said, ‘you have legs but I am stuck here perched on a rosebush. Why they had to…
Madeleine Kando
January 3, 2019