Speech: Jaan Tallin explains the singularity. Your understanding of the world will be permanently altered.

Next up: Why Now? A Quest in Metaphysics: https://youtu.be/29AgSo6KOtI?t=86 Jaan Tallinn is someone I respect because he created Skype, something once deemed the realm of science fiction, and also because he created the term "Steelmanning". I like this speech because it is a good introduction to large number of topics in philosophy. The speech may be … Continue reading Speech: Jaan Tallin explains the singularity. Your understanding of the world will be permanently altered. →

Speech: Richard Dawkins explains the adaptive valley

I want to spread the ideas of others, but I don’t want to plagiarize them. So, for the next few weeks, I will run a series called “Speech Highlights” wherein I’ll link to some fascinating speeches and discuss them. First up: Biologist Richard Dawkins demonstrates the evolution of the eye: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X1iwLqM2t0 The eye is often … Continue reading Speech: Richard Dawkins explains the adaptive valley →

Late Culture Change Aversion (The Adaptive Valley, Part 3)

Previous posts: Part 1 - Part 2 Ancient history is a long list of civilizations that were once world leaders, region superpowers, and centers of innovation, that have since fallen from prominence. The British Empire, the Mongol Empire, the Roman Empire, various Caliphates, and too many to list. These were all at one point the … Continue reading Late Culture Change Aversion (The Adaptive Valley, Part 3) →

Platitude Conspiracies

I have long been an enemy of bullshit language. The type employed by politicians, new-age mystics like Deepak Chopra, Postmodernists, and CEOs. I want language to be precise, or at least to MEAN something. For now, I'll call language “bullshitspeak” if it’s just vague nonsense that contains little actual meaning. This video is a great example … Continue reading Platitude Conspiracies →

The Case for Anonymity Online

A couple months ago, and in succession, two public intellectuals, Jonathan Haidt and Charles Murray, put out uncharacteristically poorly thought out comments. They denounced online anonymity, specifically, with respect to their preferred social platform, Twitter, although their comments were meant to be generalizable to the Internet. This is an example of what one could call … Continue reading The Case for Anonymity Online →

Why Do Males Exist? (The Adaptive Valley, Part 1)

Why do males exist? It doesn't make any sense. Introduction: Convergent Structures Convergent Structures are where two species develop the same characteristics, separately. They acquired like traits because they worked, not because of any shared ancestor. This should be familiar from high school bio. Birds evolved wings - but so did many and mammals (with the bats). … Continue reading Why Do Males Exist? (The Adaptive Valley, Part 1) →