morsels

Essays, articles, lectures, videos, and other findings worth consuming.

random presentations and slides

podcast appearances

  • I was on The Declaration Podcast discussing AI and free will.
  • Second appearance where a friend and I debate the mind-body problem. We discuss Popper’s three worlds, David Deutsch’s epistemology, and the reality of non-material entities like mind, patterns, and software.

heterodox academy

  • I’m a proud member of Heterodox Academy. Learn more about the importance of viewpoint diversity within academia here.

videos

courses

essays and articles

  • Scott Alexander’s non-fiction writing advice
  • George Orwell’s Politics and The English Language should be read by everyone who speaks, reads, or writes.

  • His Notes on Nationalism is also important. A quote:

    By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’(1). But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests.”

  • David Foster Wallace writes a 20 page review of a dictionary, and it’s hypnotizing.
  • Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis review Lolita
  • Scott Alexander’s the Non-Libertarian FAQ (aka “Why I Hate Your Freedom”)
  • The most reasonable and civil debate on gender differences I’ve come across: Scott Alexander and Adam Grant
  • Another SSC piece: Against Murderism
  • Environmentalism - pessimism + techo-optimism = Ecomodernism
  • If I could pass a law that would forced everyone to read one book, it would be this one: David Deutsch’s The Beginning Of Infinity. Here’s an interview with Deutsch that discusses it.
  • Steven Pinker’s delicious response to critics to Better Angels.
  • Also Pinker writes about the Second Law of Thermodynamics

  • When primatology meets postmodernism. This book review has my favorite opening paragraph of any book review ever:

    This is a book that contradicts itself a hundred times; but that is not a criticism of it, because its author thinks contradictions are a sign of intellectual ferment and vitality. This is a book that systematically distorts and selects historical evidence; but that is not a criticism, because its author thinks that all interpretations are biased, and she regards it as her duty to pick and choose her facts to favor her own brand of politics. This is a book full of vaporous, French-intellectual prose that makes Teilhard de Chardin sound like Ernest Hemingway by comparison; but that is not a criticism, because the author likes that sort of prose and has taken lessons in how to write it, and she thinks that plain, homely speech is part of a conspiracy to oppress the poor. This is a book that clatters around in a dark closet of irrelevancies for 450 pages before it bumps accidentally into its index and stops; but that is not a criticism, either, because its author finds it gratifying and refreshing to bang unrelated facts together as a rebuke to stuffy minds. This book infuriated me; but that is not a defect in it, because it is supposed to infuriate people like me, and the author would have been happier still if I had blown out an artery. In short, this book is flawless, because all its deficiencies are deliberate products of art. Given its assumptions, there is nothing here to criticize. The only course open to a reviewer who dislikes this book as much as I do is to question its author’s fundamental assumptions–which are big-ticket items involving the nature and relationships of language, knowledge, and science.

  • David Deutsch asks “How close are we to creating artificial intelligence”. Answer: Not very.
  • Richard Dawkin’s review of Intellectual Impostures by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont.
  • Karl Popper’s foundational essay: Science as Falsification
  • Matt Ridley on being a climate lukewarmer.
  • John McWhorter reviews J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy
  • Christina Behme’s excellent critique of Chomsky’s contributions to linguistics: A Potpourri of Chomskyan Science

debates

Here are some debates on various subjects I’ve learned a great deal from.

poems