This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareFacebook memories informed me this morning that two years ago today I posted (along with some cat pictures):Just finished volunteer training, after hanging out with Ayla and Zuzu. I'm now no longer a frequent guest at Almost Home Cat Rescue, but also
When a house burns, it is in a decay mode. As it is when it is abandoned. The large systems in which houses are embedded try to prevent and resist such decay modes, but even so such modes still happen at times.When our bodies get sick they are in decay modes, modes we try to prevent and resist. But
Francis Fukuyama is on Substack; last month he wrote Liberalism Needs Community. As always, read the whole thing and don't trust my summary, but the key point is:According to R. R. Reno, editor of the magazine First Things, the liberal project of the past three generations has sought to weaken the "
Author: Dan Peterson Category: Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Race, Philosophy of Sex and Gender Wordcount: 1000 History is full of atrocities. These evils are often accompanied by language comparing victims to animals. For instance, white southerners compared lynching Black
People forget that I am in love with a man named Johann Gottlieb Fichte. When I read Kant, it's like reading Newton: a really smart guy conveying important truths that I wouldn't have been able to figure out by myself. But when I read Fichte, it's like I'm reading my own thoughts. This man is my sou
Should it be possible to own an idea? The debate around intellectual property has deep roots in the history of philosophy - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon]]>
This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. Most content is free, some is subscriber only; you can subscribe here. Also:1: The Horizon Fello
Predators naturally try to kill as many prey as they can eat. But if they could reflect on what is in their collective interest, the set of all predators on an isolated island should want to avoid killing all of the island's prey. And even in a famine, all the farmers on such an island should want t
Get 25% off for 1 yearI, Justin Smith-Ruiu (ב), born 30071972 and uploaded 18102036, hereby submit to the Council my Petition for immediate and permanent shutdown. Almost sixty years have passed since I made the transition. Although it was standard for those in my cohort to receive a guarantee of pe
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you've read them all, I'll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked]My d
How do you say goodbye to a beloved dog who will never understand what that means? A meditation on the limits of language - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon]]>
In the face of government denial, this powerful film reveals the devastating gendered violence of Indonesia’s 1998 riots - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon]]>
Throughout the animal kingdom, the parents of newborns must strive to create snug sanctuaries in a hazardous world - by Helen Jukes Read at Aeon]]>
Here's a question: suppose there are two philosophical views, A and B. Both of them equally well predict everything we see, including our intuitions about various philosophical matters. They also both have the same theoretical virtues—simplicity, unity, explanatory power, etc. To a detached observer
A decade ago, the French economist Thomas Piketty published “Capital In The 21st Century,” a blockbuster screed against the rich getting richer. In that weighty tome, he encapsulated the dynamic of steadily increasing inequality with the formula r > g: the compounded rate of return on capital is gre
"Justin Smith-Ruiu's speculative fiction is consistently as sumptuous as it is demanding." —Dmitri Bezmozgov, The Oort Cloud Review, vol. 2. Get 25% off for 1 yearNever say never. Until a few years ago I "never" thought my partner and I would end up installing a Gro-Pad in front of our open window i
Yesterday, I talked on cultural drift, w/o slides, for 90min (~1/2 time in Q&A) to 75 smart engaged elite teens. Happily, they seemed to mostly understand me, suggesting that I've found sufficient ways to explain the issue at their level.However, their most common objection, by far, suggests a big c
1 Introduction The Rationalists are a group of people, largely in the Bay Area, who spend their time on the internet site LessWrong and make a great show out of trying to come to their beliefs rationally. They're disproportionately utilitarians, atheists, physicalists, moral anti-realists, and fans
This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. Most content is free, some is subscriber only; you can subscribe here. Also: 1: This is your las
Quick post for just two announcements!I'm nearing 1k subscribers, and conditional on me getting that, I'll do an AMA. If you want to ask a question, either leave a comment here or reply to my post on X (formerly Twitter), which you can find here. You are allowed to ask me anything, though I will not
The systems that make people unfree are deeply intertwined. This prison abolitionist dares to envision real alternatives - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon]]>
Protagoras the Sophist (left) vs Plato the Philosopher (right).In 5th century BCE Athens the power of speech was crucial, because in a democracy one had to convince others, by way of facts and reason, that a certain course of action was best for the community. Imagine what that meant: for the first
Ngram shows how often words and phrase are used in English books over time. "Diversity" has been rising steadily since 1960:But different kinds rose at different times. First was "ecological diversity", plausibly from environmentalism:Next was "ethnic diversity", plausibly combining racial and envir
Life is complicated. In Cameroon, initiated diviners read the messages of spiders to untangle possible futures - by David Zeitlyn Read at Aeon]]>
Just a little bit earlier today, I had a very interesting, although short, conversation that got me thinking about something that could be turned into a decent analogy for philosophical study. And it wasn't directly about philosophy. It was actually about taking different routes, whether you stay on
Here is my chat with the one and only ! I don't usually post the recordings of my substack live conversations (it isn't as if I'm otherwise light on substack articles) but I thought this was good enough that it merited sending out. Small PotatoesPsychology, philosophy, jokes, and more By Paul Bloom
[see footnote 4 for conflicts of interest]In 2021, Genomic Prediction announced the first polygenically selected baby.When a couple uses IVF, they may get as many as ten embryos. If they only want one child, which one do they implant? In the early days, doctors would just eyeball them and choose whi
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)"Why is there only one possible exit from modern philosophy? Because modern philosophy lives and breathes from a single basic principle: the notion that thought and world are the two poles of the universe, the first of them immediate and radically certain, the latter less ce
[This article has a 3/10 Woo Rating].If the purpose of our existence is the evolution of our consciousness, then maps of human development are pretty important. Whether you like it or not, these models probably apply to you. So it's best to know where you might be and what might be coming next. Ther
Subscribe nowThe Scientific Revolution did not take place, to paraphrase Steven Shapin, and this is a short film about it. No scientific instrument epitomizes the spirit of that complex and historiographically dubious process more fully than the air pump (again here we may reference Shapin, this tim
After a busy day at work as a prompt engineer for a marketing agency — working from your laptop in your own living room — it’s time to relax. You scroll through TikTok for a while, and then upload a video about the novel you discovered recently from a Threads post. After ordering dinner through Door
We need new forms of global diplomacy to transcend the current pathetic bargaining of national and commercial interests - by David Van Reybrouck Read at Aeon]]>
The little-known painter who found beauty in bugs, transforming pests into wondrous creatures and works of art - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon]]>
Below is the third part of the transcript of my invited presentation to the Emmy Noether Research Group at the University of Würtzburg. If you would like to watch or listen to the presentation, here is the videorecording. You can read the first part here and the second part here.This post is public
Author: Nathan Nobis Categories: Epistemology, Logic and Reasoning, Ethics, Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art, Philosophy of Education Word Count: 997 “That’s subjective!” People sometimes respond like this to claims about what’s true, what’s ethical, what others find beautiful or aesthetically pleas
Okay. I'm sorry. The quickest possible introduction to Bayesian decision theory is ending up longer than I expected. Part 2 will itself be a In my last post in this series, we covered some basic probability theory, including probability functions, updating & Bayes' theorem, and "Dutch book" argument
I come with unfortunate news: in my investigations, I have stumbled on a completely decisive proof of atheism. I know, me even saying this is proof enough to convince you, but you should at least read the argument since it's a good maxim to think for yourself. Take some time to emotionally adjust, a
The tumulus where the Athenians who fell at Marathon are buried, photo by the Author.Civilizations do not start on a specific date, though the question is still open on whether they can end in one day (future nuclear or astronomic catastrophe, perhaps?). And yet, an argument can, and has been made t
There are crazy people on both the left and the right. On the left you have people who work in Universities and sometimes write papers with titles like "the queer non-binary body's decolonial resistance politics." On the left you have random people with no political power on TikTok melting down over
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