: Podcast Recommendations - 12/11/23
: I’m Still Pissed We Didn’t Do Human Challenge Trials
: Podcast Recommendations - 05/11/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 29/10/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 22/10/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 15/10/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 08/10/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 01/10/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 24/09/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 17/09/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 10/09/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 03/09/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 27/08/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 20/08/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 13/08/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 30/07/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 23/07/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 16/07/23
: Ideological Tactical Ambiguity
: Podcast Recommendations - 09/07/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 02/07/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 25/06/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 18/06/23
: Why Phase-In Minimum Wage Laws?
: Podcast Recommendations - 11/06/23
: Poor People Should Embrace Privatisation
: Podcast Recommendations - 04/06/23
: The Ugly Truth About Free Speech
: Podcast Recommendations - 28/05/23
: Which UK Immigrants Do We Send Back?
: Were Nazi Soldiers Bad People?
: Podcast Recommendations - 21/05/23
: I’m Not Convinced That Power Corrupts
: The Bleeding Hearts Do the Most Harm
: Podcast Recommendations - 14/05/23
: Policy Compromises: The Pitfalls of Implementation and the Case for Laissez-faire
: Left-Wing Authoritarianism Doesn’t Damn Consequentialism
: Podcast Recommendations - 07/05/23
: The Illusion of Disagreement
: Podcast Recommendations - 30/04/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 16/04/23
: Politicians Dodge Questions Because You Want Them To
: Politics is a Club for Demagogues
: Podcast Recommendations - 09/04/23
: The Disheartening Reality of Policy-Making
: Greed (+ Other Stuff) is Good
: Podcast Recommendations - 02/04/23
: How Much Can We Criticise Our Politicians?
: Podcast Recommendations - 26/03/23
: Low Birth Rate Is and Isn’t a Problem
: Podcast Recommendations - 19/03/23
: What Explains the Man-babies and the Incels?
: Marry for Love (in a pre-selected group of successful people)
: What Explains the Female Marriage Penalty?
: Podcast Recommendations - 05/03/23
: What Explains the Male Marriage Premium?
: Podcast Recommendations - 26/02/23
: Podcast Recommendations - 19/02/23
: [The Male Marriage Premium is …
: Podcast Recommendations - 12/02/23
: Stop Ignoring the Marriage Premium, or Start Ignoring the Education One
: Podcast Recommendations - 05/02/23
: Trains drivers earn £60k, refused an offer for £65k, and the union leader said the strikes continued …
: When heated to its melting point, candle wax molecules weaken, and the liquid is drawn up the wick …
: Podcast Recommendations - 29/01/23
: Supply Curves When a product is selling at higher prices, more people are motivated to supply it. If Saudi Arabia …
: Man conquers the world by conquering himself. - Zeno
: Podcast Recommendations - 22/01/23
: Go see Derren Brown now!!! Phenomenal.
: Katsu Risotto - my own creation 😎
: Podcast Recommendations - 15/01/23
: There Are No Free Lunches (or Benefits) It’s not as easy as demanding a worker be paid more, have generous maternity leave, or feel …
: I can buy a gadget for £100 and use it occasionally, then I casually pick up a bag like this and …
: The indulgence continues - combining my training-induced need for calories, love of food, and …
: Remember the Long Term and the Bigger Picture It’s easy to see the negatives of immigration in Europe. Increased gang crime can feel like a …
: Podcast Recommendations - 08/01/23
: It’s crazy that I can get this stuff for free with no personal CG skills. I was literally asking for …
: The mind, once enlightened, cannot again become dark. - Thomas Paine
: The Next Job “Never let hold of what you’ve got until you’ve got hold of something else.” …
: The Proper Role of Government
: Podcast Recommendations - 02/01/23
: It’s been a tough day. And now it’s all okay. 🥰
: I strongly recommend The Banshees of Inisherin; a hilarious and haunting character-driven drama on a …
: Some Thoughts on a Government's Role Government exists to protect freedom and is neither a provider nor a master. Limited and …
: Podcast Recommendations - 25/12/22
: The Glorious Freedom to Leave
: The reward for our work is not what we get but what we become. - Paulo Coelho
: Snackcidents Cookie Dough is phenomenal 🤩
: Podcast Recommendations - 18/12/22
: Podcast Recommendations - 18/12/22 Sean Carroll’s Mindscape - #220: Lara Buchak | Risk and Rationality Lara made a persuasive …
: Put the new mantle brackets up. Now we need to plaster around it, clean it up, and screw it in.
: Are you irresponsible? It depends on how rich you are.
: I loved this advice on being managed: …
: I’m trying substack: catallactics.substack.com
: Massive internal migration played a huge role in China’s economic growth, from a national GDP …
: Take the Success Sequence Seriously Life can never be nor should ever be without friction, pain, and challenge. However, in developed …
: Designated experts talk about the climate pretending it is stable and homogenous across our planet. …
: Podcast Recommendations - 11/12/22 The Megyn Kelly Show - #448: Censorship as Virtue Signalling and False Meghan and Harry Claims The …
: ServerSide Swift Conference 2022 👌
: Behind Every Assertion is a Counterfactual Burning money makes you poorer (if you don’t rip it up instead). Eating broccoli makes you …
: Podcast Recommendations - 04/12/22 Philosophy Bites - Edith Hall: Aristotle’s Way Aristotle’s pragmatic guide to living a …
: The beginning of a cosy lodge staycation. 🪵 🥰
: Hosted the family for a Sunday roast ♥️
: Why Leftists Should Favour Cuts to Public Funding for Education Why Leftists Should Favour Cuts to Public Funding for Education Calls to cut public spending on …
: We Don't Know What the Future Jobs Are, and That's Fine Most of us want to live in a country with a dynamic and growing economy. In such a nation, …
: Why did comedy die? An article on Kvetch was the best analysis of comedy’s decline that I’ve read. I have a …
: Podcast Recommendations - 27/11/22 The Essential Sam Harris - Making Sense of Artificial Intelligence This was the first episode of Jay …
: Good intentions are ubiquitous in politics; what is scarce is accurate beliefs. - Bryan Caplan
: Challenge the Status Quo One of many themes running through Bryan Caplan’s work is his willingness to challenge …
: The Hypocrisy About Excuses for Not Succeeding Many people realise how much more money they could earn if they’d finished high school and …
: Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
: Why Is Art a School Lesson? Schools don’t impart an appreciation of high culture. If education was responsible for 100% of …
: Side Effects of Increase Oil Prices It’s worth considering what materials companies have switched to you during the extended …
: Podcast Recommendations - 20/11/22 You Are Not So Smart - #246: Ideaflow | Jeremy Utley I came away from the episode wanting to take …
: ولو أن إبليس يوما رآك، لقبل عينيك ثم اهتدى And if the devil was to ever see you, he’d kiss your eyes …
: Lazy Professor or Bad Incentives? Those of us too apathetic or unmotivated will struggle to succeed. Even accounting for survivorship …
: The US Needs to Stop Funding Higher Education The US government education funding is insane. A student can burn over $100k in taxpayer money and …
: Crockpot Barbecue Chicken Ingredients 175g Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar 1 tbsp sugar 1 tsp paprika 1 tsp …
: Stop Funding Higher Education Governments support higher education because most think it’s economically beneficial and …
: Iron laws of Pedagogy Students only learn a fraction of what they’re taught. Students remember only …
: Podcast Recommendations - 13/11/22 The Reason Roundtable - This is What Democracy Looks Like - and It Kinda Sucks The title says it …
: Inequality and Assortative Mating In considering even the micro-level decisions each human makes, inequality strikes me as …
: Why Do People Ignore the Signalling Theory? Education credentials don’t so much demonstrate the holder has the requisite job skills. …
: This Is Democracy I need somebody to help me understand the democracy existentialist angst rampant amongst the …
: Isn't School About Learning? In recent decades, schooling has rapidly increased throughout the Third World, yet literacy and …
: Hatred Begets Kindness, and Vice Versa The minimum group paradigm is a methodology in social psychology most commonly used to investigate …
: Podcast Recommendations - 06/11/22 The Fifth Column - #379: Midterm Closing Arguments and Killing Kanye | Coleman Hughes and Nick …
: It’s all about those relationships.
: What worries you, masters you. - John Locke
: Selecting for Precisely the Wrong People Almost all teachers are those rare people who stayed in education their entire lives. Unlike the …
: "Hollowing Out the Middle Class" Americans often complain that too many manufacturing companies outsourced their jobs to China, and …
: Lockdown Sucked for a Couple of Years. Border Lockdowns have Sucked for Decades. People in the UK recently experienced what it was like to hear you couldn’t drive to your …
: Exchange Creates Value Voluntary exchange can, alone, create value because both parties can benefit. Keeping resources and …
: Podcast Recommendations - 30/10/22 Honestly - Has Criminal Justice Reform Made Us Less Safe? Kmele Foster hosted a debate between Lara …
: An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. - Albert Camus
: There Is No “Flood” of Immigrants If the UK were to open its borders today, there wouldn’t immediately be an unimaginable number of …
: A Disadvantage of Standardised Tests Federal education law requires every state to create a standardised test for every student. The …
: "Those Lazy Immigrants!" The accusation of idolatry against immigrants is second only to the emphasis on their apparent …
: Why the Best Should Sometimes Do Something Else Supreme Court Justice John Roberts hires attorneys who are less skilled than himself to do his …
: Podcast Recommendations - 23/10/22 The Reason Interview - Balaji Srinivasan: How to Build Your Own Country in the Cloud Balaji is the …
: As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter …
: Podcast Recommendations - 23/10/22 The Reason Interview - Balaji Srinivasan: How to Build Your Own Country in the Cloud Balaji is the …
: Bingo and Tuppy: A Tale of Division of Knowledge and Comparative Advantage When two recently abandoned cats, Bingo and Tuppy, needed to survive alone, they faced a choice: go …
: I Can’t Work With Them! An argument against hiring from culturally heterogeneous nations is that it doesn’t consider …
: Why Ringo Starr Played the Drums When asked whether Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world, John Lennon reportedly quipped, …
: Why Do Americans Take So Many Drugs? Americans consume more of everything, including illegal and prescription drugs. 80% of global …
: Podcast Recommendations - 16/10/22 EconTalk - Roland Fryer: Educational Reform Russ went deep into Roland’s attempts to improve …
: The Costs of Migration Pale in Comparison to the Payout When looking at the potential impact of immigration on global wealth, we must consider the costs. …
: A friend to all is a friend to none. - Aristotle
: A perfect day. Happy 30th, honey. ♥️
: Let come what comes, let go what goes. See what remains. - Ramana Maharshi
: Why is Immigration So Low? Mexicans looking to cross the border into the US pay 2 to 3 years’ worth of salary for the …
: Don't Saunter Adam Smith stated, “a man commonly saunters a little in turning his hand from one sort of employment …
: Podcast Recommendations - 09/10/22 The Dishcast - Richard Reeves: Struggling Men and Boys Sometimes I think there needs to be a …
: Under the Guise of Free Markets Liz Truss is the free-market leader I’ve wanted. But the arguments can be tricky to make …
: You Don't Want to Be Self-Reliant A world of self-reliant individuals is worse than one in which people specialise. To take the …
: Better Immigration Outreach It seems to me the UK need to improve their outreach to people in Iran and Iraq who clearly want to …
: There Are Losers in Globalisation, but Human Progress Benefits Many More Throughout history, globalisation has accelerated human progress. While many innovations in …
: Sometimes It's Nurture Immigrants’ descendants are super-charged achievers, improving on their parents at a rate far …
: Trade is Positive Sum, and International Trade Is Not an Exception It is imprudent for a man to make what is cheaper for him to buy. A naive man might find the …
: Podcast Recommendations - 02/10/22 Making Sense - #297: Preparing for the End BJ Miller is the rare individual meaningfully and …
: Comparative Advantage and Wages If not for the fact it is sad, it would be funny how countries of varying development levels all …
: How Immigration Boosts Natives' Wages Immigration increases native wages because when lower or differently skilled immigrants enter their …
: The Government Says You Must Discriminate (Against The People They Don’t Like) In England, the punishment for hiring an illegal worker is up to five years in prison. The …
: Absolute and Comparative Advantage - Why Every Country Benefits From Trade A country has an absolute advantage when it can produce the same good using few inputs. If a person …
: Podcast Recommendations - 25/09/22 The Reason Interview - Phil Magness: Holding Leftists and Libertarians Accountable Phil was a …
: The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience. - Arthur Schopenhauer
: Cultural Protectionism is Empty Rhetoric While people continue to live in areas where immigration is higher, we should meet their complaints …
: The Miracle of Specialisation One of the myriad benefits of trade is that it engenders specialisation. When people can rest …
: Where were you during the Queen’s funeral?
: Free Markets Are Deflationary Central banks are the only organisation capable of increasing the money supply, which causes …
: Podcast Recommendations - 18/09/22 The Adam Buxton Podcast - #187: Anil Seth I’m unsure how Anil justifies his belief that …
: Simple: Creating Value Trade creates value by moving goods from people who value them less to those …
: More Low-Paid Satisfied Workers and Fewer Unemployed Discontents As somebody who lives in the UK, it’s disheartening to learn of the broad economic consensus …
: Podcast Recommendations - 11/09/22 The Daily Stoic - Tyler Cowen: Identifying talent and Self-Improvement Seeing the Roman …
: The past is never dead. It’s not even past. - William Faulkner
: You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realise how seldom …
: The Not-So-Dismal Science Considered the “dismal science”, economics can strike people as bleak. It prescribes …
: Podcast Recommendations - 04/09/22 Freakonomics Radio - #514: Roland Fryer Refuses to Lie to Black America I respect Stephen for …
: The Kinship of Economics and Medicine Paul Krugman incisively notes the similarities between economics and medicine: both have emerged …
: There Is No Good Way to Reduce a Worker’s Costs For markets to work efficiently, prices need to equilibrate to shifting supply and demand. As …
: Why Solving Hyperinflation is Like Dieting Some economic problems are genuinely complex, with the best estimate for what might work being the …
: What The Great Depression Can Teach Us About Humility Arguably, an exacerbating factor in The Great Depression’s destruction was that economists of the …
: Picnic and Mario Kart with My Lovely Lady ♥️
: Podcast Recommendations - 28/08/22 EconTalk - Raj Chetty: Economic Mobility Raj’s research explores the power of networks through …
: Are There More or Fewer Poor People? The UN estimates roughly 300 million humans were alive one thousand years ago. That’s a 2600% growth …
: Minimum Wage and Welfare Hides Problems Nothing can change the fact minimum wage laws increase the incentive to work and reduce the …
: Epistemic Humility False consensus is a misattribution of opinions to more people than hold them - the notion that your …
: A new member of the family 🥲
: 30 Years - Best parents ever 🥰
: Podcast Recommendations - 21/08/22 The Good Fight - Coleman Hughes: How America Racialises Its Citizens I wanted to join Coleman and …
: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. - Stephen R. Covey
: The Fool in the Shower Milton Friedman once analogised an incompetent central banker to a fool in the shower. There is a …
: The Extremes of Elasticity; You Can’t Have it Both Ways David Card is the author of a study that purports immigration has almost zero effect on the wages of …
: Poor countries can’t rectify their economic woes by printing more money. The supply of goods would …
: Beautiful days do not come to you. You must walk towards them. - Rūmī
: What Do People Do When Technology Replaces Them? Most US workers were farmers a century and a half ago. In a relatively short period, 2% of Americans …
: Podcast Recommendations - 14/08/22 Conversations with Tyler - William MacAskill: Effective Altruism, Moral Progress, and Cultural …
: It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. - Andre Gide
: The government can mitigate hyperinflation by printing less money, and when money makes its way back …
: First Dev Meetup since the pandemic! NSLondon 😄
: It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else. - …
: Specialisation and Trade Keep Us Alive and Happy Specialisation and trade have been crucial to humans’ survival since their ape origins. More …
: Podcast Recommendations - 07/08/22 The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast - #42: Rafael Mangual | Crime in America Rafael’s honest appraisal …
: It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. - JK Rowling
: Economics suggests a customer or negotiating partner should be disagreeable and critical because it …
: Yes, I Read the Study. No, Minimum Wage Laws Still Aren't a Good Idea. The standard economic principles conclude minimum wage policies will reduce employment amongst …
: The Profit Motive A scientist working for prestige and recognition will have little incentive to put in the extra …
: Innovation is a collective phenomena which happens between, not within, brains. - Matt Ridley*
: Entrepreneurs Grow Wealth Entrepreneurs support economic growth by saving and investing in physical capital, human capital, …
: Podcast Recommendations - 31/07/22 The Fifth Column - #366: John McWhorter and Glenn Loury | Racial Identity, Abolition, and Reckonings …
: Supercentenarian The “mysterious” locations where many people appear to surpass 100 years old are …
: Focusing Illusion “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.” The human …
: The Tragedy of Rape Few decisions are as consequential for women as mate selection, and rape negates this choice. The …
: Life without experiences and sufferings is not life. - Socrates
: Central Banking is Challenging The time between a central bank making a decision and seeing the effects on the economy can take …
: #288: The End of Global Order #289: Time Management for Mortal #290: What Went Wrong? Making …
: Increases in Money Supply Cause Inflation Inflation makes people feel poorer and shakes their confidence in the economy because they don’t …
: Honesty in Firing Firing employees is psychologically and legally challenging. Employees make connections within a …
: Economic Booms and Busts Must Be Moderated, Not Avoided Economic conditions will change, and resultant booms and busts are inevitable. Monetary and fiscal …
: Economics teaches you that making a choice means giving up something. - Russ Roberts
: Institutions Matter Institutions have the power to create incentives for entrepreneurs, investors, and savers to save …
: Podcast Recommendations - 17/07/22 The Megyn Kelly Show - #355: Dr Jill’s Taco Gaffe and Narrative v Truth | Kmele Foster, …
: Nothing like a few small home improvements 😁
: The Importance of Wealth and Economic Growth Aspiring to be wealthier isn’t greedy: it’s just about the most reasonable target if you …
: All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. …
: The Power of Trade Each participant in trade is made better off, and this is true whether they’re neighbours or …
: Podcast Recommendations - 10/07/22 People I (Mostly) Admire - #82: Is This the Future of High School? My initial reaction is to envy …
: Thor: Love and Thunder I’m too close to it to say this is my favourite Marvel movie, but that’s how I feel …
: Thinking on the Margin To think on the margin is to evaluate the marginal cost and benefits of choices. Basically: what are …
: Opportunity Cost The cost of something doesn’t pertain only to its immediate monetary value. The cost of going to …
: If you want, you can make silence very noisy. - José Mourinho
: Trade-offs In attempting to maximise the good, we eventually create more harm. When the FDA gets stricter, good …
: Podcast Recommendations - 03/07/22 The Fifth Column - #363: Guns, Abortion, The End of All Things Matt hinted at problems he’s …
: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. - Theodore Roosevelt
: Pandemic Relief Needs to Target Self-Interest I look back on the pandemic and wonder, for all the money many governments spent, why didn’t …
: Nominal Wage Rigidity? We Need Lower Wages An area in which the market routinely fails is price adjustment regarding wages. A shopkeeper …
: Rail Strikes: A Compromise For many disparate economic reasons, I oppose the strikes. However, pointing out the inherent greed …
: Demand More, Pay More Think about those contexts where the power dynamic seems a little funny: employer/employee, …
: Basic Economic Mistakes The following three policies are those that I now consider foolish in light of their impact and what …
: Podcast Recommendations - 26/06/22 This American Life - #773: The Longest Distance Between Two Points China seems most messed up when I …
: Who Decides For You? In India, a government official explicitly stated that he did not want multinational companies …
: Tim Key at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre 🎭
: The Disparate Impact of Natural Disasters The most effective way to mitigate the devastating impact of natural disasters on economies and …
: Sexism in the Workplace - It's Not That Simple The past few years have featured some heavy-handed attempts to police interactions between the two …
: Can Politicians "Solve" Economics Problems? A politician might want to correct an economic problem with a law or policy, often with good …
: Podcast Recommendations - 19/06/22 People I (Mostly) Admire - #79: Solar Geoengineering Would Be Radical. It Might Also Be Necessary …
: Malta Holiday ☀️ - Day 8: Travelling home 🚖 ✈️ 🚌 🚘
: Malta Holiday ☀️ - Day 7: Last Day, Spent in Marsaskala
: Malta Holiday ☀️ - Day 6: Ramla Bay and Azure
: Malta Holiday ☀️ - Day 5: Travelling to Gozo
: Malta Holiday ☀️ - Day 4: Gym, Mdina, and Marsaskala
: Malta Holiday ☀️ - Day 3: Mosta Rotunda, Selima, and Marsaxxlok
: Podcast Recommendations - 12/06/22 Hold These Truths - This Will Make You Feel Angry | How Human Impulses Create Bad Policies | Paul …
: Malta Holiday ☀️ - Day 2: Gym, St. Thomas’ Bay, and Valletta
: Malta Holiday ☀️ - Day 2: Pretty Bay and Uncle Anton’s
: Malta Holiday ☀️ - Day 1: Getting There
: Podcast Recommendations - 29/05/22 The Good Fight - Aldolph Reed, Jr: Race and Class in America Schumpeter’s book gifted me with …
: A shortcut to riches is to subtract from our desires. - Petrarch
: The Trap of Finding "Solutions" for "Problems" A politician might want to correct an economic problem with a law or policy, often with good …
: American sweets are legitimately delicious.
: “Affordable” Healthcare To say that prices should be reasonable or affordable is to demand the economic realities adjust to …
: Economists' Ideology Doesn't Negate Their Value When unhappy with the current consensus of economists, people may dismiss it as merely a reflection …
: Podcast Recommendations - 22/05/22 Two for Tea - #126: Simon Prentis | How Language Made Us Human This conversation gave me an …
: The Temptation of Price Controls During War Despite a consensus that the rich should be deprived of their luxuries before the poor are rendered …
: It's Worth Caring About Labour Demand Elasticity As somebody who reads a lot of “economics for laymen” books, I find some of the esoteric …
: To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great. - …
: Dumbass Internship Regulations In the US, one of the most blatant and inadvertently hilarious examples of anti-market is in the …
: Do Commercial Business Overcharge? When judging whether service providers charge too much, we can look at people’s preferences …
: Podcast Recommendations - 15/05/22 Quillette Podcast - How Elon Musk Can Promote Free Speech Without Turning Twitter Into One Big …
: Capitalism Can't Afford to Discriminate Before World War II, non-profit foundations were among the most racially discriminatory …
: Windfall Taxes Move Us Further Away From the Renewables Future Imposing a windfall tax on energy companies has the long-term harm of disincentivising investment. …
: … people saying “it can’t be done,” are always being interrupted by somebody doing it.
: Free-Marketers Need to Face Up to Unemployment If you admire the power of the free market to fuel growth and increase living standards for …
: Non-Profits Don't Have to Care A non-profit organisation’s goods and services may be worth the minimal or nonexistent costs …
: Podcast Recommendations - 08/05/22 The Fifth Column = #355: Ministry of Truth, Competence Inflation They talked about the cultural …
: Austria’s super modern €1.4bn Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant never went into service because …
: Profits Keep Organisations On Track A non-profit organisation’s goods and services may be worth the minimal or nonexistent costs …
: Minimum Wage and Elasticities Arguments against the minimum wage are not levelled by sadistic and wealthy individuals who …
: The Necessity of Open Discourse Speech must first and foremost be free but attempts to bring about “equality of speech” …
: The Marginal Revolution Most leading economists between the 1770s and 1870s misguidedly believed relative prices of goods …
: Podcast Recommendations - 01/05/22 The Fifth Column - #354: Sarah Hepola | Barack’s Misinformation Warfare Unit Between Teenage …
: Immigration Needs Nationalism The people of Western countries seem to have roughly divided themselves into two camps on …
: The Benefit of Brands Brands are a way of economising on little knowledge - they force producers to compete in quality …
: America's Individuality is the Danger Tocqueville observed America’s equality inspired its spirited resistance to authority. The …
: He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. - Lao Tzu
: Anti-Discrimination Laws Are Pointless The most blatant flaw with a law that protects employees against discrimination is that it pretends …
: Mercantilist vs Classical Economists The mercantilist economists argued for policies enabling a nation to export more than it imports, …
: Podcast Recommendations - 24/04/22 Very Bad Wizards - #235: Animated Objects Tamler and David do the best job of deconstructing …
: Self-Interest Voter Hypothesis The self-interested voter hypothesis fails on consequential policy questions. A selfless, misguided …
: The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever. - Henri Cartier-Bresson
: Don't Thank the Government, Part 2 If you’re reading this in a WEIRD country, congratulations: you’re one of the luckiest …
: Why Does One Place Charge More Than Another for Identical Products? Sometimes two physically identical objects demand significantly different prices. There are …
: Don't Thank the Government People often attribute higher standards of living to government intervention. They thank the …
: Podcast Recommendations - 17/04/22 Two for Tea - #124: Oliver Burkeman | Time Management for Mortals Have I bought this yet? An outside …
: Interviews Many studies have concluded that interviews are an exercise in confirmation bias. An observing …
: Happiness Identify that which makes life worth living, then recognise that every decision may ask you to trade …
: The French Revolution - What Went Wrong? No doubt, Louis XIV’s embrace of Dutch revolutionaries in 1787 made sense to him. After …
: The Promise of Web 1.0 The initial promise of the World Wide Web is hard to fathom. John Perry Barlow’s “A …
: The False Promise of the Arab Spring In 2010, a video of a Tunisia street protestor self-immolating went viral. Fuelled by the global …
: The Fallacy of "Saving Just One Life" As provocative as the statement “if it saves just one life, it is worth it” can be, it is worthy of …
: Podcast Recommendations - 10/04/22 The Fifth Column - #351: The Problem with Jon Stewart, Will Smith, OJ Simpson, Sex Parties, and …
: Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop …
: We are truly in a free speech recession. From 1992 to 2003, a peak in global press freedom, at least …
: A Free Speech Hero: Eleanor Rosevelt The former first lady, Eleanor Rosevelt, led the charge in drafting the UN’s Universal …
: Free Markets Disproportionately Help Smaller Nations Some products require such vast upfront investment to manufacture that it is only financially viable …
: A Beacon of Liberty: America's Off the Table Topic The nation that inspired Continental Europe to fight more fervently than ever for its liberties was …
: Podcast Recommendations - 03/04/22 The Munk Debates Podcast - The Federal Reserve needs to fight inflation aggressively or risk its own …
: One of the biggest ways to level the playing field is to give all young people the same context on …
: The Initial Ripples of Revolution Inspired by the American Revolution, the Dutch sought greater freedoms from their rulers. They were …
: The American Revolution: A Battle Fought with a Pen, not a Sword John Adams believed the war in 1775 was the consequence of a pre-existing battle raging in print and …
: Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love. - Marcus …
: Protections Against "Dumping" “Dumping” is an accusation levelled at foreign competitors who are purportedly competing …
: Podcast Recommendations - 27/03/22 This American Life - #765: Off Course I cried listening to the Chinese lady’s story of …
: The Dutch Golden-Age: A Precursor to The Enlightenment At a time of religious intolerance and censorship, the Dutch Republic stood out in Continental …
: Historical Moments - The Gutenberg Press Johannes Gutenberg wouldn’t have known how he would change the world when, in 1450, he …
: Implications of Muscle Fibre Types for Training Muscles with fast-twitch fibres require longer to heal than slow-twitch because they have …
: You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. …
: The Male Marriage Premium In the US labour market, there is a premium for male marriage. Interestingly, it is higher than the …
: The Cultural Harms of Isolation Vibrant cultures and economies belong to nations that sit in vast catchment areas, in which people …
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: Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose. - Viktor …
: Desirability Bias, Not Confirmation Bias, Is Holding You Back In the psychological study of belief updating, the theory of “confirmation bias” has …
: Prices and Turnover When prices are higher in the stores in low-income neighbourhoods, people are more likely to swallow …
: The Enlightenment gave rise to the norms and institutions which allow us to transcend our …
: Do not try to persuade someone of their brilliance. Upon realising it, that person may well lose it.
: The Necessity of Open Discourse Speech must first and foremost be free, but it cannot be made equal. Attempts to bring about …
: Of those animals which fascinate humans, amongst them are the creatures that evolved to take …
: Protecting Competitors Does Not Protect Competition Competition exists as a condition even in the absence of competitors - it must be considered …
: Machine Bias We understand the world through our bias, and the best AI is that which best uses prejudice - …
: When Luxury Hotel Rooms Are Cheaper Than the Budget Hotel Down the Road With an unutilised capacity, a luxury hotel often lowers prices on the unaccommodated rooms. After …
: He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. - Sun Tzu
: Profits on Sales Are Different to Profits on Investment Adjustments to the profits on sales can have an inverse effect on the profits on investment. The …
: The Curse of Knowledge Identified by Steven Pinker, the curse of the knowledge can be concisely put: The more you know, …
: We Cannot Eliminate Middlemen, Nor Should We In correctly functioning free markets, those who can most efficiently handle a good at a given stage …
: Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no …
: Don’t use up all your resources on the easy stuff. Google X’s Moonshot Labs takes a “monkey first” …
: When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. - Maya Angelou
: Amara’s Law Roy Amara said that we overestimate the impact of new technology in the short run but underestimate …
: Liberty is the parent of science and of virtue, and a nation will be great in both in proportion as …
: The Economics of Travelling Off-Peak Travel companies build and purchase planes and cruise ships to handle demand at peak volume. …
: Always be prepared to think that experts are stupid. They often are. - Jane Jacobs
: The Market Exacts a Price for Inertia The little guy with insight can defeat financial titans in the free market. A successful business …
: Happiness Identify that which makes life worth living, then recognise that every decision may ask you to trade …
: Who is Advertising For? People commonly believe that advertising is of benefit to the advertiser alone. Some people argue …
: Saccadic Masking In 1898, Erdmann and Dodge first described saccadic blindness following observations in unrelated …
: The Benefits of Limited Liability Some gigantic economic activities are only possible because corporations have limited liability. It …
: Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s …
: We Need Formative, Not Performative Institutions In surveys, participants reported faith in institutions is rapidly decreasing. There is no longer a …
: Racism is not innate, it is learned. Teaching children to care about skin colour could only ever …
: Diseconomies of Scale In the Soviet Union, fields were vast, numerous, and under government supervision. The tractors …
: Pigouvian Taxes Arthur Pigou was the economist who developed the study of externalities. In particular, he thought …
: Pluralistic Ignorance The Aberdeen Effect has its name after a story of one person in a group suggesting a trip to …
: I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
: The Benefits of Specialisation A company in the United States benefits from focusing on that which they do best. The economy in the …
: Societal Changes and the Swings in Retail Preferences The population movement from rural to urban America highlighted how the companies with the …
: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it. …
: Pasta al Salmone Ingredients 125g asparagus tips 170g pasta 10g butter 1 lemon 100ml single cream 100g smoked …
: Striving Striving is important but one should uncouple it from happiness. Pursuit makes the world better. The …
: Inefficient Transportation Without Profits Economies that remove profits create inefficiencies in the transportation of goods. The existence of …
: I Am Not Proud I am not proud of my country. I’m grateful to have been born here. I am not proud of my sexual …
: Large Inventories - A Symptom of Economic Problems Inventories are a net negative; they cost money and make none. Resources sitting in a warehouse are …
: A Brief Look at the Swedish Economy Roughly one-hundred-years of successful private innovation, free markets, and low taxes made Sweden …
: On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but …
: Special Pleading Fallacy Special pleading occurs when one conveniently identifies a particular thing as a rare exception to a …
: A large enough company risks losing billions of dollars with an incompetent CEO. Therefore it is …
: Embrace Gentrification Critics of gentrification give two main reasons for their opposition: (1) wealthy newcomers drive up …
: Quality and Age of Housing Under Rent Controls Under rent control, landlords cannot afford to maintain a higher quality of housing. They also have …
: When Spurs suck, I legitimately feel better after a victory in FIFA 21. 😅
: Price controls can result in hoarding in those products that are amenable to such stockpiling. One …
: We have two lives, and the second begins when we realise we only have one. - Confucius
: Left vs Right-Handed Left-handed people are at slightly increased risk of a long list of diseases and disabilities, and …
: The Price-Based Distribution of Resources The price that one producer is willing to pay for any given resource becomes the prices that other …
: The UK continue to perform exceptionally well regarding vaccination distribution. The cumulative …
: A year from now you will wish you had started today. - Karen Lamb
: I believe there is a compelling conversation to be had about anything. The philosophical mind …
: Chronobiology There are many body clocks over the body. The “master clock” is a bundle of …
: The Economic Consequences of Centralised Planning Versus the Market Centralised planning creates different economic results from market economies in the five ways: #### …
: There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self. …
: Chimpanzee / Bonobo Split Many millions of years ago, the Congo river grew wider and split genetically identical apes into two …
: The Change in Residents' Behaviour Under Rent Controls Rent controls increase the average amount of time residents stay within an apartment, concomitantly …
: This is one of the best conversations about free will I have heard.
: The Real Cost of Things The real cost of anything under any system is its value in alternative uses. A price-adjusted …
: To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or principle. - Confucius
: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction There is a document stating that Maths, as it currently stands, is not suitable for …
: "National Priorities" Are Misguided A government makes a fundamental mistake when official policy establishes national priorities. To …
: An Effective Vaccine for Malaria Read about it here Scientists are working on a vaccine for Malaria! It builds upon the incredible …
: In nutrition science, there can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. When The New York Times claims that …
: Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence. - Pythagoras
: What Has Britain Become? The government is now selecting for its citizens the approved activities. Alone, this fact paints a …
: Rationally Counter-Productive Most people are interested more in what will benefit them than strangers. Aligning self-interest …
: Why Prices Are Higher in Low-Income Neighbourhoods Prices are usually higher in low-income neighbourhoods. This premium is not, as some would have you …
: Broadly speaking there are two counter-ideologies to liberalism: * Those that state it is too …
: Chromosomal Disruption Each of the four species of great apes - gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangoutangs - have 24 …
: How Unaffordable Housing Stock Can Increase During Housing Shortages Luxury housing is commonly exempt from rent control laws. This exemption incentivises an unnatural …
: Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. - Seren Kierkegaard
: Where Do Mothers Best Serve Society? Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. With this, perhaps we can look at the …
: Efficiently Allocating Resources Under Price Controls During housing shortages in New York, construction companies used their resources for office …
: Drainage Water is an obsession of farmers; they account for over 70% of human consumption of the stuff. …
: Four Requirements for Evolution • Reproduction • Variation between products of reproduction • …
: Do nothing which is of no use. - Miyamoto Musashi
: The Effect of Price Controls on Auxiliary Services In a situation such as rent control, the construction work is no longer required because the profit …
: This is the best of all worlds. A vaccine more effective than expected, developed three times faster …
: The Perpetrator Can't Fix It I see a parallel between the expectation that - ‘white’ people should fix the problems …
: Price Controls and Hoarding Shortages occur when prices for products are prevented from reaching the levels they would in a free …
: Country Star Cancellation - Does It Help? Recently there was an incident barely worthy of comment involving a highly regarded country singer …
: Speech codes can exist when selectively applied.
: Kmele Foster, modelling conversation in the face of disagreement: shows.acast.com/wethefift…
: How Price Controls Create a Black Market Price controls do not change demand, only the practicalities in acquiring the product. The prices of …
: How Price Controls Effect Quality When the government artificially caps the prices for products, it forces the manufacturers to reduce …
: Recognising Faces Why do we look different? If we look at elephants, they have distinct features, but they aren’t …
: In a free or laissez-faire market, an individual would work and interact with others in the economy …
: How Rent Control Effects Demand for Housing Under rent control, the demand for housing changes in both axes. It increases because those who …
: In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity. - Sun Tzu
: Rent Control Creates Housing Shortages Investment in producing a product is only worthwhile so long as it is an efficient use of the …
: Religion and Culture Culture and religion heavily influence one another. Under the rubric of a theocracy, the two are …
: Islam Devalues Women In Mesopotamia, women could buy, own, sell, and inherit land. They could engage in commerce and …
: Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something. - …
: Why Don't Religions Die? It takes a unique type of person to start an institution, be it religious or in business. Research …
: Rent Controls and Housing Shortages Housing shortages can suddenly disappear in the absence of new housing. These shortages were likely …
: Biden's Executive Orders on Day One The 100 Days Masking Challenge. I don’t have much to say about this. Biden will stop the …
: Do nothing which is of no use. - Miyamoto Musashi
: Starvation in the Presence of Food Abundance There can be a surplus of food while people go hungry. A centralised determination of how much crop …
: Implications of the Dunbar Number The Dunbar number encapsulates the common-sense notion that humans would have evolved with an …
: Motivated Psychologising of Behaviour There is a pattern of psychologising that which a culture wants to discourage. In the past, the APA …
: Shift the Framing of Climate Change Intervention Perhaps we can’t turn it all around. In a basic sense some rise in planetary temperature is …
: A sign of intelligence is an awareness of one’s own ignorance. - Niccolò Machiavelli
: Fundamental Attribution Error Humans underestimate the role played by context in shaping another person’s behaviour. …
: The Power of Economic Thinking Economics is a study of the allocation of scarce resources. How the resources are allocated can …
: International Disparities in Company Inventory Size Inventories are a net negative; they cost money and make none. Resources sitting in a warehouse are …
: The Three Prongs of China's Strategy Broadly, there are three prongs to China’s strategy: - Made in China 2025 - Belt and Road …
: The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. - L. P. Hartley
: Relational Models Theory Alan Fiske proposes that we can describe all human interactions with reference to four relational …
: Training with Type II Diabetes is Safe The common concerns are neuropathic. The first is about the autonomic nervous system; the tightening …
: Gossip Ain't So Bad Rob Wilder, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, has researched the …
: A historical takeover of Capitol Hill.
: The Tension Between Beliefs and Democracy One must simultaneously believe their opinion correct, yet respect the democratic process enough to …
: The biggest generator of long-term results is learning to do things when you don’t feel like doing …
: Too Many Disasters! When deciding where you should direct your energies never do so considering what people tell you is …
: The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to wholly trust those who have …
: Shortages versus Scarcity Shortages and scarcity are not synonymous. Nor do the processes depend on one another. Scarcity is …
: The Increasing Heritability of Intelligence Intelligence is understood to be 50% genetically …
: Negativity Bias It is human nature to more readily register and think about negative stimuli than positive. Even …
: Racism is like AIDS, you may want to eradicate it, and I support those efforts, in the meantime, I’m …
: Via Negativa There are many systems in which improvement is best, or only possible, when it is brought about as a …
: Washington Consensus In 1985, then–Treasury Secretary James Baker gave a speech in South Korea laying out a series of …
: Escaping Our Tribalism We can either expand our group such that it encompasses more of humanity and therefore reduces those …
: The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. - Socrates
: Irrationality and Money The fungibility of money is perhaps its biggest advantage. Funny then, that humans would …
: Nickel Mining Plants There are nickel rich planets which naturally “mine” large quantities of the material. It is thought …
: Spoilers Can we test whether a spoiler-free experience is actually subjectively better than a …
: Do Bad Things Keep Happening to You? This Might Be Genetic. Human psychology is about 50% heritable. Not only is one’s predisposition to depression or …
: Better a diamond with a flaw, than a pebble without. - Confucius
: Kurzgesagt - What If We Nuke The Moon?
: China: • Organ harvesting ✅ • Cotton picking slave labour ✅ • Concentration camps ✅ • Panopticon ✅ • …
: John Law killed a man in a duel, fled to France, and invented the modern monetary system; fractional …
: I think protein folding is going to be important. Watch this summary:
: I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. - Friedrich …
: Infantoriums Dr Martin Couney single-handedly spearheaded the mass use of incubators for premature babies. Over …
: If you want pride, you must also accept shame. Neither are useful.
: Difficult Conversations Difficult conversations are difficult. There are simple things that can make them less so, but the …
: I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better. - Abraham Lincoln
: Incremental vs Revolutionary Improvement Improvement is driven either by an unsubstantiated instinct that things could be better and this is …
: Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. - C.S. Lewis
: National Health Policy - "Follow the Science" There is a viewpoint is that ideology should not enter into matters of public health. The scientific …
: Externalities An externality is a consequence of an entity’s actions on somebody who did not agree to it. If I …
: Chesterton’s Fence Chesterton’s Fence is a thought experiment: There exists in such a case a certain institution or …
: The Illusion of Being Controlled The illusion of control describes people’s overestimation of their ability to control events. …
: Outdated Framing - Israel v Palestine It is important to note when our framing becomes outdated. In the 21st century, the Israel / …
: Telomeres: Death's Cure and Cause Immortality is a death sentence; the cure is death. The telomeres in our cells are effectively a …
: A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with …
: "Formative" or "Performative" Institutions In the 21st century, our institutions have lost the trust of the people. In part, this is because …
: Your Fears Are Irrational ” width=“600” height=“450” alt=“” /> It strikes me as …
: Hong Kong's Democracy is Being Killed by the Mainland | The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown #13 While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has had their crosshairs on Hong Kong for years, the global …
: There are no natural rights, just useful ones.
: Adopting a Mindset of Constructive Paranoia Jared Diamond purports to have adopted a philosophy of “constructive paranoia”. It is an …
: Interoception is the sense of the internal state of the body, either conscious or non-conscious.
: Opportunity Cost An opportunity cost is a foregone benefit that would have been derived via an option not taken. To …
: As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it. - Albert …
: Socialism Isn't Even Good in Theory “Socialism is a good theory but fails in practice.” But is it even a good theory? Everyone being …
: Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon You’ve likely experienced a situation in which a thing that you have just learned or has taken your …
: Who Is Allowed to Love Themselves? It seems to be more acceptable to proselytise about loving oneself when those doing so are less …
: Gender Bias in Academia While some of the gender disparities in academic fields might be due to interest that isn’t …
: Thinking at the Margin To think at the margin is to think ahead. Here we use “marginal” to mean “additional”. The utility …
: A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with …
: Deutsche Bank research states that the government should tax home workers ‘to help those who …
: Do We Throw Away Octavian? The point here is to call attention to the shutting down of an important conversation surrounding …
: Comparative Advantage Comparative advantage is an economic advantage not consisting of higher quantity or quality in …
: I’m beginning to wonder if Trump united more people (against him) than we appreciated.
: “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” - …
: Austerity If public debt is large enough that the risk of default is a real possibility, the government may …
: The Elaboration Likelihood Model Richard Petty’s model This theory states that there are two paths through which a person’s …
: Joe Biden wins the 2020 election.
: Nihilism is a mood disorder masquerading as philosophical insight.
: Beware Reliance on Forecasts Forecasts can be divided into those that encourage the user to think more, and those that ease …
: Following the 2020 election? I recommend fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog…
: I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. - Friedrich …
: 80 Millisecond Rule Research by David Eagleman shows that it takes about 80 milliseconds for the brain to process all of …
: Uncoupling Pursuit From Happiness Uncoupling the striving and ambition necessary to make progress from personal happiness is crucial, …
: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it. …
: Time for me to read up on history. I was entirely unaware until within the past year that the Irish …
: The Nature of Nurture The nature of nurture was a landmark finding in behavioural genetics. There is robust evidence to …
: The light dove, in free flight cutting through the air the resistance of which it feels, could get …
: Utopia | The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown #12 We discuss: What does “Utopia” even mean? Different types of Utopia and the …
: Take Responsibility I see a parallel between the expectation that - ‘white’ people should fix the problems …
: The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself. - …
: Representativeness Heuristic When judging the probability of anything we weight the salience of examples which comes to mind, how …
: Progress Isn't Smooth Ignaz Semmelweis figured out he was killing patients by going from cutting open cadavers to helping …
: Laws Against Hate Crime Aren't Just Useless. They're Harmful. Defining hate speech isn’t practical because people will find new words. The list will grow …
: A Fan's Frustrations with Sam Harris As a supporter of Sam, I’m a little disappointed in a few areas. On the topic of his podcast, …
: The sense deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to wholly trust those who have deceived …
: Clayton Christensen’s Theory of Disruption How is it that a small company with meagre resources can challenge and eventually replace a much …
: Perspective, Please. This has not been the next great plague. This has been a trial run. Yet we’ve immeasurably …
: Is the NHS Worth Celebrating? As somebody who has grown up in England, I have long been appreciative of the NHS. However, more …
: A shout out to Asda Mini White Choc Rocky Road Bites. They are one of the better products available …
: Actor-Observer Bias Actor-observer bias refers to a tendency to attribute one’s actions to external causes while …
: Mental Accounting One of the best things about money is that it is fungible, meaning it is mutually interchangeable. …
: Equivalent Retaliation (Tit for Tat) Robert Axelrod sought the optimal strategy to an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma scenario. He convened a …
: Check Out Diana Fleischman Diana Fleischman is an evolutionary psychologist worth following. Amongst her myriad interesting …
: In the 1992 LA uprising $1 billion worth of property damage was incurred. Worse yet, it cost $6 …
: China is a problem. I love the way H.R. McMaster lays out the three prongs: 1. Made in China 2025 2. …
: Illusion of Knowledge In the human mind familiarity is shown to be regularly conflated with knowledge about those things. …
: Sexual Arousal and Disgust Diana Fleischman, an evolutionary psychologist, has researched the role that sexual arousal plays in …
: Overcoming the Dunning-Kruger Effect Some of the best techniques for working against the Dunning-Kruger effect were developed during the …
: Neither blame nor praise yourself - Plutarch
: Is Gender a "Social Construct"? There are various strong arguments against the idea that gender is a “social construct”. Great books …
: Wakun complained when he saw a picture of the bearded Bodhidharma: “Why hasn’t that …
: Double Coincidence of Wants A double coincidence of this type occurs when two people have goods which they are both are happy to …
: The video makers likely had an agenda. Apply appropriate scepticism when watching it. It’s 1 …
: Elastic / Inelastic demand The elasticity of demand refers to the degree to which demand will change concomitant to a change in …
: “Socialism is a good theory but fails in practice” But is it even a good theory? Everyone being …
: War Without Enemies, Enlightenment Values, and Identifying Problems | The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown #11 An ability to dehumanise the “other” is an unfortunate component of human nature. As …
: The Fallacy Fallacy One must remember that an argument poorly made is not an argument worthy of writing off. An …
: The Irony of Empathy There is an irony of empathy in that the most empathetic individuals can appear to be, or behave in …
: The Lake Wobegon Effect The Lake Wobegon effect speaks to a ‘positive illusion’ which results in the nature of humans to …
: It is difficult to maintain enemies when you recognise that there are systems in which you would …
: Princeton's Delf-Declared "Racism" is Being Investigated Read about it here. I’m happy about this. It’s unfortunate I have no confidence that a …
: The Social Dilemma Short Review A point well made, if a little exaggerated. I worry that the agency ascribed to AI will mislead a …
: Impact Bias A sizeable amount of research into affective forecasting has shown that we overestimate the …
: The Search Effect - How the Internet Makes Us Feel Smarter Matthew Fisher et al show that searching the internet for explanatory knowledge creates an illusion …
: Human Self-Domestication When looking at domesticated animals, such as dogs as compared to wolves, amongst many differences …
: Spaced Repetition A typical spaced repetition system includes these key components: A schedule for review of …
: A question I do not feel has been satisfactorily answered: why in most species did there evolve to …
: Stimulus-as-Fixed-Effect Fallacy In much of psychology, the experimental stimuli are considered a fixed, rather than random, factor. …
: Insufficient Justification Effect This theory is an attempt to explain how some people escape the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. …
: Fanboy Psychology: In a Pepsi versus Coke study it was observed via brains scans that their …
: Increasing Anti-Family Sentiment There is an anti-family and anti-natalist ideology concretising amongst a certain contingent of the …
: Black Victims & White Swans | The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown #10 What happens in the US does not stay in the US. As the big daddy of the democratic free world, …
: Identifiable Victim Effect People are more willing to offer aid when provided with the details of a single suffering human than …
: Andrew Yang’s Six Ideas for Police Reform: - UBI - Federal oversight - Better training - Better data …
: Via Negativa / Via Positiva The Via Negativa is the “apophatic way” and holds that God can only be described in terms of what it …
: Money Hungry Leftists The current social justice movement is disturbingly materialistic. The most common complaints about …
: Parental Investment Robert Trivers developed a theory of parental investment which has been used to make sense of sex …
: The Continuum Fallacy Also known as Sorites paradox the argument is that no useful distinction can be made between two …
: Length Time Bias This bias results in an overestimation of the survival duration resultant from the detection of more …
: Micromort A micromort is a unit of risk defined as a one-in-a-million chance of death. A microprobability is a …
: Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one. - Martin Heidegger
: There are three questions that would destroy most of the arguments on the left: Compared to what? …
: Better a diamond with a flaw, than a pebble without. - Confucius
: Investment Bias - The Psychology of Fanboys Back in 1968, two researchers (Knox & Inkster) surveyed bettors at a horse race. All bettors …
: Do Our Role Models Need to Look Like Us? Is the purported need for role models as justification for diversity quotas an acceptance of racial …
: Cancel Culture Checklist 1: Punitiveness - Denunciation to employer - Blacklisting - Intention to jeopardise livelihood and …
: Egocentric Bias: Most people think they did most of the work. This is not only negatively valenced.
: Tennessee Democratic State Representative John J. DeBerry Jr. on BLM Riots This is the ne plus ultra of all that needs to be said. I need read no other article nor watch …
: The Einstellung Effect Experience can be negative when it causes us to attempt to solve new problems in the same manner as …
: The Ferguson Effect Reactive policing involves responding to 911 calls and remains unchanged, but proactive policing is …
: The Moralisation Gap The “Moralisation Gap” is a self-serving bias that allows us to see our behaviour in a positive …
: Lead Time Bias Lead time is the time between an easy diagnosis of a disease with improved screening, and when the …
: Ignoring Genocide While Nuking Rodents | The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown #9 🔴 the Uyghur Genocide in China that is largely ignored by the West 🔴 the 40+ million modern-day …
: Social desirability bias is a type of response bias in the social sciences and describes the …
: “Left intelligentsia, indeed, have so long worshipped foreign gods that they seem to have …
: If the Nazis were as technologically sophisticated as the Chinese Communist Party would their …
: IQ and a Call for UBI Even the army, incentivised to be inclusive, rejects individuals with IQs over 83 as they are a …
: Yesterday I was clever, and so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing …
: Explaining Consciousness - Illusionism Jay Shapiro’s conversation with Keith Frankish about consciousness has profoundly changed me. …
: Binary of Sex The sex of an individual is dependent on how their reproductive systems are set up to …
: Female Power Female power does not punch you in the face as male power can. However, there is nothing invisible …
: The Selective Laziness of Reasoning Research from Mercier et al showed quite clearly people use more stringent criteria when they …
: I want everybody to watch this PBS documentary.
: Reductionism Reductionism encompasses a myriad of philosophies that share the feature of describing complex …
: Philosophy of Travel Are we going to philosophise everything? To the casual eye, there appear to be topics immune to …
: Two Different Understandings of Complexity There are two different senses of complexity. The one that is almost universally used is the …
: Truth Seeking and the Open Society | The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown #8 An exploration of closed and open societies, and the different types of knowledge produced by each. …
: The Weakest Link Argument for Open Science Peer review is only as strong as its weakest link. A lenient reviewer may let through crap while a …
: Evolution is heritable variation leading to reproductive success.
: For a society to develop a product such as the “chicken of tomorrow” with its large breast and …
: Can We Inherit Trauma? Authors of a study on Civil War prisoners came to the conclusion that the children of abused war …
: Tiktaalik A fossil you should know about. It is dated to 375 million years ago and speaks to facts about the …
: This is an exceptional article: www.mercatus.org/bridge/co… The idea of the super-Dunbar …
: The "No One Left to Blame" Theory of Suicide Steven Levitt and Steven Dubner, Think Like a Freak There are about 38,000 suicides a year in the …
: Racial Wealth Gap According to Matt Bruenig’s analysis of the data over ¾ of the racial wealth gap is accounted …
: A Union Strike Which Ended Poorly Being an air traffic controller is said to be one of the more stressful jobs in the world. The …
: As individuals we can only change that over which we have control. If we see our fate as controlled …
: Decoy Effect The assessment of any given option in a set of options does not occur within a vacuum. The choices …
: Lexicographic Decision Rule Having looked at the idealised but impractical compensatory rule we now consider the more commonly …
: Corner is ready for the new shelves 🥳
: Fragility By my reckoning we appear to have become a nation willing to cater to the weakest and most fragile …
: Whites done. Wall basically finished! The final task is the book shelf in the left corner 😊
: Compensatory Decisions Compensatory decisions are the perfectly rational decisions that we wish we made. Perhaps we …
: Start praying like this and you’ll see. Not “some way to sleep with her” - but a …
: Examples of Plan Continuation Bias [Read about the bias here]. Your itinerary for the day growing out of hand and the understandable …
: Just need to redo the whites. It never ends!
: Plan Continuation Bias A fallacy related to that of sunk costs. This is the inability of people to reassess a plan in light …
: Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Hurry and you risk mistakes. Make a mistake and you lose time …
: Impact of Sleep on Taste Perception There is evidence which strongly suggests that our sweet taste perception is significantly altered …
: Cultural Impact on Learned Helplessness In studying the effect of culture on learned helplessness a group of researchers tested two …
: Gyms Are Reopening - Home Workouts Coming To An End 😄 Monday Wednesday Friday Saturday
: The Utility of Beauty We over exaggerate how unique our tastes are. “I like blonde hair”, or “I think a Russian accent is …
: Plan on painting this weekend 🤞🏼 Thursday
: Replaced an analog stick in my Switch joy con. Not easy 😅
: Kalam Cosmological Argument The Kalam cosmological argument was popularised by Dr. William Laine Craig as a proof for the …
: Algorithms are unforgiving. Moral relativism does not survive application. We will also have to face …
: I wonder whether, within my lifetime, I will see a day in which it is odd for a person to refer to …
: In a Utopia the long term infinite good can justify unfathomable atrocity in the short. Those who …
: Pratītyasamutpāda Pratītyasamutpāda refers to the dependant origination of phenomena. This is to say that if a series …
: The Electric Car Future In 2019 2.5% (1 in 40) of the new cars sold were electric while just over 0.5% (1 in 200) of the …
: A simple question; why are there two sexes instead of one, or three? Turns out it’s not …
: Minority Rule It suffices for an intransigent minority to reach a minutely small level, 3-4% of the total …
: I plan on painting the wall in my office a geometric pattern. This is the rough guide I mocked up. …
: Right now I recommend reading the article Stop Preparing for the Last Disaster over at Farnam …
: The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown - #7: Existential Crises, Liberties, and Race We began with a desire to air some of our thoughts about existential crises, but as usual (without a …
: Ludic Fallacy This is the misuse of games to model real-life situations. It is a rare form of observation in that …
: The demarcation problem in the philosophy of science and epistemology is about how to distinguish …
: I would rather have “black skin” than any one of the following: Male pattern baldness Ginger hair …
: The question even I'm too afraid to discuss Was George Floyd actually murdered? By which I mean not just did Derek Chauvin mean to kill George, …
: Two spectacular essays on the failing of our sensemaking apparatus; how we are witness a …
: A conversation is ticking along within the evolutionary sciences around whether or not religion is …
: Neo-Darwinism The label generally used to describe an integrated theory of evolution consisting of Charles …
: All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. …
: The Value of a Life When I consider the value of a human life it terrifies me. How do you actually capture what is lost …
: I highly recommend the latest episode of Conversations with Tyler. It was delightful to hear an …
: In a world where porn is abundant, masculinity is shunned, and consent is ill-defined, Peggy …
: Resources to Learn About the Education System in the US I’ve created a Gist to allow for public input. Find it here.
: Religion's Comeback and the Meaning Crisis Apparently there’s a meaning crisis, maybe you heard about it? You could have been on the …
: Ignorance Navigation To function decisions must be made, decisions are informed by opinion, opinions are creatively …
: A deep problem I have with the way we talk about groups is we pretend we are talking about the same …
: The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown - #6: The OG False Dichotomy | Race, Racism, and Sensemaking Not an easy conversation to have, at least not unless you have friends like Ciaran O’Regan or …
: I will never change in my basic idea that non-violence is the most potent weapon available to the …
: The Arab Slave Trade ran from the 7th Century through to the 1960s and consisted of mostly Africans …
: Consider the Consequences The average citizen does not know to consider the subsequent order affects of a decision. This has …
: Unharmonious groups have a tendency to seek a common enemy in effort to overlook inter-group …
: This is the first time I have ever quit Twitter. Never before have I felt so alienated in my …
: I’m finding contemporary events a little difficult. I’m not suffering greatly, but …
: The Minneapolis Riots Let us imagine a world in which the US was not obsessed with race. A world in which a man is …
: This is an absolutely brilliant documentary about the Tiananmen Square massacre: …
: A Socially Distanced Family Gathering
: Minority Rule It suffices for an intransigent minority –a certain type of intransigent minorities –to reach a …
: My friend’s podcast is a brilliant rumination on sense-making. Get it here or in any podcast …
: The government governs all those who do not govern themselves. Does the government govern itself? Or …
: Barber Paradox In a small rural town there is a barber. The barber shaves everybody in the town who does not shave …
: Parkinson’s Law of Trivialities (Bikeshedding) Humans tend to devote the most time to that which requires the least. The unimportant details easily …
: There have to be races for there to be racists. The problem is the perpetuation of that initial lie.
: Is There Truth? Is there a truth claim to be made about a sentence like “this sentence is false”? If …
: Parkinson’s Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
: On Reopening The death toll is going to rise. For years there will be no planet Earth without the death of more …
: Muge Cevil says the data show that nine percent of infected people are responsible for 80% of the …
: Is Religion Adaptive or Exaptive? The extended phenotype encompasses any phenotypic traits external to the organism, from nests, to …
: A Gene’s Eye View of Evolution: Human beings are the disposable carriers for the real agents; …
: The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown - #5: How China Sees the World, Part II Ciaran and James finish off their discussion of H. R. McMaster’s brilliant article in The …
: Toxic Masculinity Toxic masculinity describes something real - the propensity of some men to take what can be positive …
: Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. – C.S. Lewis
: Personality Changes People can change. This was believed as early as Aristotle who wrote about the modifications in …
: I’m not satisfied with our justifications for a few enormously important phenomenon: - Free …
: Ad Hominem An attack on a person’s character or personal traits as though it discredits their …
: Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared …
: ACEs - How childhood trauma causes mental & physical health conditions Nadine Burke Harris identified a correlation between traumatic experiences suffered as a child and …
: The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown - #4: How China Sees the World Ciaran and James ostensibly discuss H. R. McMaster’s brilliant article in The Atlantic called …
: Sortition voting is a system in which the political officials are selected stochastically from a …
: Moral Luck The inescapable truth is that in life we all take occasional risks. Even when we know we shouldn’t. …
: Our political system is largely based on people holding ideologies, but what if people care too much …
: University Endowments An “endowment” in this context refers to the pool of money donated to the university to be used in …
: Brahmavihārās - Sublime State of Mind Mettā - Loving kindness Muditā - Compassion Karuṇā - Sympathetic joy Upekṣā - Equanimity These …
: Washington is run by people who think that there is a 1% difference between 2% growth and 3% growth …
: Worrywart Paradox The person who plans ahead is likely seen as a “worrywart” and may never receive praise if correct. …
: Some Great Articles How to Protect Civil Liberties in a Pandemic by Conor Friedersdorf The Coronavirus Makes Our Old …
: Fearing Technology Technology has been a source of fantasies for a utopia as well as a near infinite fount of concerns, …
: I’ve been thinking about “assume the worst and hope for the best”. I almost always disagree. …
: “Trump doesn’t prevaricate.” Sorry what? Does that mean something different now?
: L’esprit de l’escalier is a French term used in English for the predicament of thinking …
: Omotenashi Omotenashi is the philosophy of Japanese hospitality. It is the subjugation of oneself to one’s …
: Machine Bias The way that we understand the world is through our bias and great AI is actually the best at using …
: Quarantine Training - 6 days / week
: Quarantine Food Still On Point Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday
: Economics teaches you that making a choice means giving up something. Russ Roberts
: Signal Detection Theory This is the means by which one intends to remove the noise when sifting …
: Reality of Perception Not until the work of Pythagoras, Parmenides, and Aristotle was the flat Earth intuition truly …
: Self Illusion The illusion of our narrative can be pointedly evidenced by a number of facts about how our …
: Pretended Societal Progress What if the West is in a position where it appears to have progressed …
: How Much is a Life Worth? Few people would argue a life is without any value, that it is insignificant and could be discarded …
: Saccadic Masking (Redux) During eye movements our brain selectively blocks the visual processing of the blurred image and …
: Neural Correlates of Consciousness Neural correlates of consciousness are exactly that - they are our mapping of activity in the brain …
: The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown - #3: Psycioponomics? | Psychology, Economics, Sociology, Politics A rambling conversation covering many topics but with the ostensible focus on Ciaran’s …
: Appeal to Novelty argumentum ad novitatem The claim that something new is superior based entirely on …
: Argument From Antiquity argumentum ad antiquitatem One falls into this trap when they attribute too much weight to …
: An Opportunity for Redistribution The raid on supermarkets strike me as a missed opportunity for these stores to charge more for …
: Einstein’s 5 Levels of Cognitive Prowess 5 - smart 4 - intelligent 3 - brilliant 2 - genius 1 - simple Importantly, simple supercedes all …
: Multi-disciplinary Approach to Thinking - Peter Kaufman The Three Buckets Peter finds it useful to split up the universe into three buckets: Bucket 1: 13.7 …
: Pigouvian Taxes Arthur Pigou was an economist who developed the concept of externalities and thought seriously about …
: Fun Statistics Age of the universe: 13,799,000,000 years Number of neurons in a human’s cerebral cortex: …
: The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown - #2: An Introduction to the "Enlightenment" Ciaran O’Regan & James Valaitis discuss Daniel Schmachtenberger’s …
: Costly Signals Amotz Zahavi suggested that, evolutionarily, bluffing could be made more difficult by the handicap …
: Collider Bias When a person is trying to measure the association between an exposure and an outcome they might …
: The Mystery of Eels For almost as long as we’ve known about eels we’ve known them to be carnivorous and cannibalistic. …
: Today would be a bad day for any major progress to occur in the war against SARS-CoV-2. I almost …
: Pluralistic Ignorance The Aberdeen Effect is so named after a story of one person in a group suggesting a trip to Aberdeen …
: A Redesigned Role for Managers Counter intuitively a manager should not have power over who to hire, who to fire, or the salary of …
: Let mot juste is le mot juste for expressing that you’ve hit upon the perfect word or phrase. …
: Survivorship Bias in Hiring When interviewing for candidates it is important to keep in mind the fact a high success rate might …
: The Axiom of the Infinite Unknown - #1: The Wuhan Flu This is the first episode of a podcast I hope to continue with my friend, Ciaran O’Regan. I …
: The World After Coronavirus In this time of crisis, we face two particularly important choices. The first is between …
: Improving Interviews It has been pretty well documented that interviews are an exercise in confirmation bias. An …
: What Explains Perversity? The human mind is not rational. Daniel Kahneman would balk at this description stating that the …
: If I’m lucky enough to have children I’ll tell them the beautiful manner in which people came …
: Consciousness and Corpus Callosotomy (Split Brain) Patients
: Using Rule Omega for Better Sensemaking Rule Omega accepts that which is most important to communicate is also difficult to articulate. If …
: This conversation between Coleman Hughes and Annaka Harris served as a reminder that consciousness …
: Egg-Based Vaccine Manufacturing The egg-based production process begins with CDC or another laboratory partner in the WHO Global …
: Left vs. Right Handed Left handed people are at slightly increased risk of a long list of diseases and disabilities, and …
: The distinction to make between this ostensible recession and the others is that the supply side has …
: My Thinking on the UK "Herd Immunity" Policy It is risk blind. Ignores the possibility that those who contract the illness won’t be …
: The Bills of Rights (The First Ten Amendments to the United States Constitution)
: A C.S. Lewis Quote to Consider During the Coronavirus In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” …
: More Lessons From Biology About Cooperation Cells work in synchrony without completely sacrificing sovereignty, as is true of organs and other …
: Free Energy Principle The principle explicates a biological system’s attempt to maintain order by restricting itself to a …
: Tight and Loose Cultures Michele Gelfand makes the case for considering cultures as existing along a continuum from “tight” …
: The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between …
: Five Lessons from Hegel Important parts of ourselves can be found in History - rescue from the past the best ideas Learn …
: The Many Worlds theory of quantum mechanics (Everettian quantum mechanics) appeals to me a lot. To …
: Preference Falsification Prof. Timur Kuran termed “preference falsification” for those acts of communicating a preference …
: Tiny Habits Start with the smallest form of the habit you want to create. It should be so tiny as to be …
: US Violent Crime - Males experience higher victimisation rates for all types except rape / sexual assault. - Males …
: Communal Sensemaking in Biology In biology individual cells are self organising and do not only what is best for them but also the …
: Level of Analysis The level at which a problem is manifested is the level at which it needs to be analysed. If we have …
: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Stephen R. Covey
: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” Albert Einstein
: Listening Listening is difficult because it involves suppressing your ego long enough to consider what is …
: Chimpanzee / Bonobo Split When the Congo river grew wider and split genetically identical apes into two areas, one with more …
: Reaching Conclusions From Observations A mathematician, a physicist, and an astronomer were traveling north by train. They had just crossed …
: Liberty - Is it Better, or Not? Some Libertarians appear to have an unshakable faith in their approach to minimal censorship up …
: I believe in the virtue of enjoying the art of those with whom you vehemently disagree on political …
: Chronobiology There are many body clocks over the body. The “master clock” is a bundle of 20-30k neuronal cells in …
: It’s a great irony that the same people who deny the progress made in tolerance & equality are …
: Gut Health When considering the health of the gut microbiome we are looking at: - Taxonomic diversity - …
: Unfortunately I don’t expect to finish all of these books in even a single year. My eyes were bigger …
: Backshift Also known as sequence-of-tense rule. In English grammar a backshift is the changing of a present …
: Transgender in Sports - USAPL Up front it is worth mentioning that there has yet to be a case of a transgender female dominating …
: Energy Flux Describes the difference between a person maintaining a stable body weight doing no …
: Infectious Disease An endemic is a disease that exists permanently in a particular region or population. Malaria is a …
: Origins of the Periodic Table Following the Big Bang there were initially only 3 elements; mostly hydrogen, a little helium, and a …
: Hitchens’ Razor: “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without …
: Chromosomal Disruption The 4 species of great apes; gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangoutangs; each have 24 …
: Four Requirements for Evolution: Reproduction Variation between products of reproduction …
: Dilemma Podcast - #13: Self Driving Cars | Matthew B. Crawford I feel like every new episode of Dilemma Podcast is my new favourite episode. With that preface, I …
: Culture is Just as Biological as Genetics The overlap in generations of humans and the long development times of infants allows for easy …
: A civil conversation between two intelligent people who disagree upon the topic of paying …
: Mirror Self Recognition Mirror self recognition has been demonstrated with certainty only in the most social of animals; …
: Your Present Today is not the day after yesterday. It is not the day before tomorrow. This moment is not that …
: This article in The Guardian is so close to self awareness about the damage done by identitarian …
: Renewables Aren’t the Future When considering how we decrease our reliance on fossil fuels and reduce our carbon emissions many …
: Recognising Faces Why do we look different? If we look at elephants they have distinct features, but they aren’t …
: My Hip Hop playlist for the gym. Spreading the love - it’s got me through many a session.
: Matthew Effect Coined by Robert K. Merton this term describes how eminent scientists will often get more credit …
: Friend Selection More than any other species, humans form social ties to individuals who are neither kin nor mates, …
: Focusing Illusion Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it. The human brain …
: Convergent Evolution An oft cited example of convergent evolution is the eye. The camera-style eye has evolved many times …
: Why Are Supercentenarians Grouped into Certain Areas? The vast majority of the time these “mysterious” locations in which many people appear to be …
: Escheat This is when the state claims ownership of apparently lost or forgotten property. A person can …
: Oikophobia This describes a dislike of one’s own culture. Really only present in the West. It was …
: My review of Music To Be Murdered By.
: Hatred Begets Kindness, and Vice Versa The minimum group paradigm is a methodology In social psychology most commonly used to investigate …
: Motte-and-Bailey Doctrine Also referred to as strategic equivocation. The origins refer to the Bailey, a well-kept and …
: Social Suite Humans adapted across the world to different environments but all humans adapted to be in commune …
: Oxytocin and Monogamy Monogamous prairie voles are known to have higher levels of receptors for these neurotransmitters …
: Wooly Mammoths Wooly Mammoths were hunted to near extinction by humans 10,000 yrs ago. An isolated …
: Slate Star Codex - The Toxoplasma of Rage by Scott Alexander Scott points out the masochistic tendency of movements to elevate the most …
: But I hope I have said enough to suggest that the summary demand for an absolute yes-or-no answer, …
: New Eminem album. This has made me immensely happy.
: Trump Has Made Us All Stupid This short opinion piece in The New York Times by David Brooks is brilliant. Trump’s behaviour has …
: Essentialism The view that every entity has an “essence”, which is to say a set of attributes that …
: Positivism Positivists hold that the only “truths” worth recognising are those that can be …
: Genuinely saddened to hear of the passing of Roger Scruton. I was fortunate enough to see him live …
: The Helmholtz Club The Helmholtz Club was a monthly meeting at UC Irvine for key members from various backgrounds to …
: The Daily - *The Case Against Harvey Weinstein* The New York Times did an excellent job in explaining to me how 80 potential plaintiffs levelling …
: Install Oh My Zsh If you’re using the Terminal on a Mac you’ll now be using the shell zsh. Do yourself a …
: Affect Heuristic This is a mental shortcut wherein a difficult question is replaced with an easier question based on …
: World Index of Moral Freedom This is an international index rating 160 countries on their performance in 5 categories: religious …
: Human Empathy for Robots Study by Cliff Nass et al which had subjects perform a task on a computer before being asked to rate …
: Pete Buttigeig wants to decriminalise all drugs. I like Andrew Yang and appreciate his pushing for …
: Took me a long time to post this short article on reparations. I had written it after watching a …
: Too Many Disasters! When deciding on what you should direct your energies never do so in consideration as to what people …
: Rent Seeking This is a poorly named but important concept in microeconomics. The idea was originated by Gordon …
: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker I had many criticisms. Through the beginning it struck me that too many conveniences took place and …
: Struggling to decide which is my favourite book of 2019, but Douglas Murray’s The Madness of …
: Actualism and Possibilism in Ethics Actualist philosophy concerns itself with what will actually happen, while possibilist philosophy …
: History of Sensory Skepticism In ~400BCE Democritus said “hot, cold, sweet, bitter, and colour …
: Escaping Our Tribalism We can either expand our group such that it encompasses more of humanity and therefore reduces those …
: Co-operative vs. Competitive Technology A co-operative technology is one that creates adaptive …
: Ethnocentrism is when one views the world through the lens of their own culture.
: Reading Aloud to Children Picture books at an early age allows for connections to be made while reading along. Children are …
: Is Ethno-Traditional Nationalism the Answer to Populism? The populist right is on the rise. That is at least the consensus among many. While I have yet to …
: The programme that is run to “mine” Bitcoin keeps generating random hash pre-images …
: Via Negativa There are many systems in which improvement is best, or only possible, when it is brought about as a …
: If you trade passion for stability, you basically trade one fiction for another. Both are products …
: What Shirebrook Tells Us About the 2019 General Election The town of Shirebrook formed around the colliery in Bolsover so as to provide residence to the …
: Argument from Incredulity a specific form of the argument from ignorance Concluding that one’s …
: Principle of Generosity and Curiosity If you find somebody enjoying the comedy of Louis C.K. do them the courtesy of not assuming they …
: Founder Effect A common sense realisation first formulated by Ernst Mayr in 1942 that a new population initialised …
: Occhiolism is the awareness of the limitation of one’s perspective.
: Exercise and Healthcare If everybody in the US were to exercise more 5 million lives would be saved as well as $50 billion …
: General Election 2019 With the choice between a post-modern, woke party led by an antisemite socialist, or the same …
: Everything I Never Wanted to Have to Know About Labour and Antisemitism Read it here. A little late to be posting this, but it resonated with me and I wanted to share it. …
: Blue Story Rapman has achieved something special, this has had me thinking pointedly since leaving the cinema, …
: Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of …
: Homeostasis The first thing to note about homeostasis is that it is thought to be ‘static’ but is actually a …
: One of the larger problems with “cancelling” is that it misses all nuance. I don’t agree it is never …
: The Lack of Qualitative Information in English It is my experience that English language gets in the way of meditation practice. What is already a …
: Now that I better appreciate the psychological aspect of phenomenology the Pepsi challenge seems …
: Illusion of the Self Consciousness is irreducibly subjective. Francis Krick famously said “we are nothing but a pack of …
: Infantoriums Dr. Martin Couney single-handedly spearheaded the mass use of incubators for premature babies. Over …
: Hospitals Are Suing Their Patients Hospitals in the United States have been suing their patients. Hospitals don’t function as a …
: What It Means for Us If Religion Was Evolutionarily Adaptive Culture is an off boarding of evolutionary information. Without accumulated ancestral knowledge a …
: Altschmerz is the fatigue borne of managing the same personal anxieties and flaws over many years.
: Difficult Conversations Difficult conversations are, well, difficult. There are simple things that can be done to make them …
: I’ve found perfectionism to be a large contributor to procrastination. The fear of not …
: Consider the Base Rates A base rate refers to the proportion of a population with a given characteristic (10% of people are …
: Incremental vs. Revolutionary Improvement Improvement is driven by an unproven instinct that things either could be better and this is …
: Money Isn't Required for Success The children of poor parents do not necessarily benefit from a higher household income. Via the use …
: Russell’s Paradox According to naïve set theory any definable collection is a set. Bertrand Russell …
: The Wrong Method for AI? If the task is to get as close to the moon as possible a determined man may climb a mountain, but …
: What to do About Addiction There is a misguided belief that a single taste of heroin will almost inevitably result in an …
: The Evolution of Imagination The eyes of our ancestors evolved millions of years prior to our transition from land to sea which, …
: Healthy User Bias This is a type of sampling bias which can effect epidemiological studies testing the efficacy of …
: Impact of Sleep on Taste Perception, Cravings, and Food Reward Not content with messing with our hormones effecting appetite (leptin & ghrelin), sleep …
: Simulated Thinking There are two forms of thinking, habit mode and explore mode. Simulated thinking …
: Hanlon’s Razor Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Robert …
: Liberosis is the desire to care less about things.
: Via Negativa There are many systems in which improvement is best, or only possible, when it is brought about as a …
: Spaced Repetition This is an evidence-based learning technique usually employing the use of flash-cards It exploits …
: Why Not Nuclear Energy? I’ve been thinking about the nature of a certain type of liberal to view nuclear energy as an …
: First Principles Thinking Breaking down complexity into basic constituent elements and reassembling them from the foundations …
: Taking Seriously the Problem of Perception Over-confidence in our perception, or even our capacity to accurately perceive, results in a …
: Important Buddhist Terms Dukkha Unhelpfully translates to “suffering” but is better understood as the …
: Logos in Stoicism The universal order was understood to be represented by the logos. The logos infuses and is welded …
: “philosophy of science is philosophy enough” Willard Van Orman Quine
: Metaphysical Naturalism This is a philosophical worldview holding that only those elements, …
: Pathological Altruism Altruism in which the attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated …
: Income Effect and Substitution Effect The income effect describes the impact of increased purchasing power made on consumption. The …
: Venkatesh Rao’s "Waldenponding" “Waldenponding” refers to the act of taking a break from all things digital. Venkatesh Rao’s …
: Structural Realism Introduced by John Worrall in 1989 “structural realism” was intended to serve as a mediator between …
: Battle of Ideas 2019 Saturday Sunday
: Illusion of Cause Humans will incorrectly infer causation where none exists, as seen in the mass hysteria around …
: We the Fifth - Unlearning Race I love the way my thinking changes while listening to Kmele and Thomas in conversation. I’ll be …
: I dislike the pessimistic attitude towards human nature. Signs of intolerance are considered real …
: Circle of Competence To truly understand where your knowledge is stronger than others, as well as …
: Malaysia 2019 Friday Thursday Tuesday Monday Sunday Saturday Friday Thursday Wednesday Tuesday
: John Gottman is a man who can predict divorce with 83% accuracy and has learned a lot about what …
: A few major opportunities, clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously …
: Saccadic Masking During eye movements our brain selectively blocks the visual processing of the blurred image and …
: What makes a good hierarchy?
: Disingenuous Values In light of recent events I’ve been working through my dislike of the far left’s behaviour. The …
: Illusion of Knowledge In the human mind familiarity is shown to be regularly conflated with knowledge about those things. …
: Confabulation The human mind will manufacture narratives to justify actions after the fact and these reasons …
: Overcoming the Dunning-Kruger Effect Some of the best techniques for working against the Dunning-Kruger effect were developed during the …
: We must use time as a tool, not as a couch John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis
: Liberosis is the desire to care less about things.
: Motivation - Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose
: Learned Helplessness In the late 1960s Martin Seligman et al conducted an experiment to condition dogs to jump a barrier …
: A Legitimate Reason for Optimism For those of you a little tired of the bleak interpretations of the modern era and where we are …
: The Schelling Model of Segregation This is an agent based model which illustrates how even weak preferences result in segregation. The …
: Peter Thiel’s Zero to One Each moment happens once As Heraclitus said, you can only step into the same river once. Thiel …
: Irony of Empathy There is an irony of empathy in that the most empathetic individuals can appear to be, or behave in …
: Bodily Resonance Humans experience a real physical response to observed sensation in other humans. The strength of …
: Avoiding Dichotomy - Privilege
: Cretaceous–Paleogene Extinction Event A meteor the size of Mount Everest hit the Earth 66 million years ago between June and July with a …
: Intelligence Squared - The West Should Pay Reparations for Slavery Kehinde Andrews can rub me the wrong way, but amongst his majority nonsense reasons for reparations …
: The Backfire of Bragging According to a study published in the Psychological Science journal the people who engage in …
: Rewards can be useful given a short time horizon. In a study MIT student were split into three …
: Over-Justification Effect In what is known as the over-justification effect, an explicit extrinsic incentive can actually …
: Onism is the frustration of being stuck in just one body which will inhabit a single place at any …
: Adam Smith on Free Markets The “father of free markets”, Adam Smith is often quoted as having said: In a free or …
: Brian Cox Live 2019 Last night my brother and I were lucky enough to see Brian Cox perform what could be inadequately …
: Generous Tit for Tat Be “nice” initially and then mimic the other party’s last action. This can …
: The Decline in Renewable Energy Costs The decline in the cost of solar, wind, and batteries all follow the learning curve, or what is …
: Iatrogenics is when a treatment produced is actually a net harm. The Hippocratic oath is an explicit …
: Insufficient Justification Effect This theory is an attempt to explain how some people escape the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. …
: High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) There are many misconceptions around this nutritive sweetener and I want to address a couple. First …
: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation There was a 1973 study by Mark Lepper, David Greene, and Richard Nisbett which sought to measure the …
: The Potential for AI Suffering If consciousness is such that an artificial intelligence could suffer surely it would be the most …
: Questionable Cause cum hoc ergo propter hoc Assuming that the association of two things means that one caused the …
: Dunning-Kruger Effect Incompetent people are not in a position to know that they are incompetent. Those who know the least …
: Halo Effect In a study a mock jury would be given the crimes of individuals and occasionally also a photo. When …
: The Self Illusion The brain creates the experience of the self to bring together the many parliaments of the mind. …
: Nodus Tollens: The realisation that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore—that …
: Blind Insight Blind insight refers to an unconscious learning. A subject may not be consciously aware that they …
: Anchor Effect Humans are inclined to rely too heavily on an initial piece of information while making subsequent …
: Drainage Water is an obsession of farmers; they account for over 70% of human consumption of the stuff. …
: Differences in Sexes There is a small part of the hypothalamus responsible for regulating sexual behaviour which is …
: This theory states that there are two paths through which a person’s mind can be changed. Read …
: Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives Liberals have been shown to have a higher level of openness to experience as compared to …
: Drawing with Sound In watching this beautifully produced Smarter Every Day video, “Drawing with Sound” one …
: Apartame: Is It Safe? Aspartame is the food additive E951 (E-numbers are a certificate of safety in human consumption from …
: Neurodiversity With less tolerance from certain people when it comes to unintentionally saying something deemed …
: Sexual overperception refers to the robust finding that men overperceive women’s sexual interest. …
: The New Atlantis - Fiction in the Age of Screens by Erik P. Hoel > Given its very nature, the novel cannot help but stand in cultural opposition …
: Is Consciousness Epiphenomenal? The question as to whether consciousness i epiphenomenal fascinated me. Does it impact the world …
: Dualism Substance dualism believes there to be a distinction between the mental aspect of a human being, and …
: Rückkehrunruhe is the feeling of returning from an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly …
: Inverted qualia describes the hypothetical phenomena in which one person’s red is another’s green …
: Qualities in Experts hyperbole and exaggeration vs realistic outcomes over realistic time frames cure alls/fix alls/one …
: What 'Yield Curve Inversion' Means Yield curve inversion which lasts for at least 1 quarter has been shown to occur 1 to 2 years prior …
: Not Really Ramen Serves 1 Ingredients Sugarsnap peas & babycorn 15g English mustard 25g tom yum paste MSG & …
: Overfitting Overfitting, a statistical concept, is when a model is too sensitive to the data it’s been fed, and …
: Wicked / Kind Scale Each learning environment falls somewhere on the wicked / kind scale. The most kind environment is …
: Noumenon Noumenon was a difficult concept for me to grasp. Is is often contrasted with phenomenon which we …
: An Evolutionary Understanding of Language Why would language evolve when the sharing of information doesn’t obviously serve the organism and …
: A Russian missile exploded in the Arctic killing 5 nuclear engineers. This occurred during a test of …
: Rebel Wisdom - Jay Shapiro, the state of the Intellectual Dark Web In this video Jay Shapiro spoke to David Fuller with such perspicuity about the promise and failings …
: Metabolic Theory of Ecology MTE posits that body size, body temperature, and metabolic rate are related. Metabolic rate scales …
: Phenomenology of Dreams Dreaming may not be about integrating new memories or processing the day’s events; it is, rather, a …
: Is There a Truth to Phenomenology? A thought experiment; imagine a child kept in a monochrome room and offered only an extension …
: Adronitis is the frustration with how long it takes to get to know a person.
: Kashmir The partition of India occurred in 1947 with the creation of two independent dominions, India and …
: Satiety vs. Satiation: - Satiety refers to the time spent without a desire for more food between …
: Sigma Nutrition Radio - #292: Jessica Setnick, RD | Orthorexia: Positive vs. Pathological Nutrition Defining eating disorders is difficult, and even looking at everything somebody eats isn’t …
: Emergence Describing certain phenomena on a macro level is better because it allows for a clarity and …
: Contronyms Also known as auto-antonyms, these are words with multiple meanings of which one is the antonym of …
: Pragmatics in Language Unlike semantics, which are words with meaning, pragmatics are words which do something within a …
: Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, as opposed to myofibrillar hypertrophy, results in an increase in the …
: Describing the spin of an electron as up or down makes a statement about the way in which it would …
: Probability in Everettian Quantum Mechanics The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics states that every time a measurement is made of …
: Cyanobacteria This bacteria was the first organism to evolve the capacity to take H₂O and CO₂ and convert them …
: Clade From the Ancient Greek word “branch”, a clade is exactly that, a branch in the “tree of life”. It is …
: When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you …
: An Unusual Argument Against Vegetarianism The suffering of conscious creatures should be a guiding principle in assessing the morality of a …
: Exulansis is the tendency to give up on trying to explain an experience in the acknowledgement that …
: It is technically possible to lose infinite money when “shorting” a stock. You are …
: There are over 20000 genes that play in a role in determining height. With machine learning models …
: A Different Answer to the Fermi Paradox In his 2006 article for Edge, Geoffrey Miller offered another answer to the Fermi Paradox; perhaps …
: Infinite Space Theory Our observable universe is just that, the portion of space which is observable. However, there is …
: Phosphorous Morocco has 75% of the Earth’s phosphorous and agriculture is heavily reliant on it. …
: The Futility of Taking Offence Taking offence is never the answer. In many western societies offence is functioning is an …
: On the May 6 2010 a stock market crash occurred starting at 14:32 and lasting about 36 minutes …
: The Portal with Eric Weinstein Eric Weinstein just released what will indubitably be a new favourite podcast, but what is the …
: The Case for Resistance Training for Endurance Athletes Currently just 18.6% runners meet the recommendation of 2-3 resistance training sessions a week. …
: Hindsight Bias When one retrospectively assesses an action or decision they are inclined to distort the past …
: Chinese Entrepreneurial Enterprise The Chinese government leaves the entrepreneurial space as a private, self-regulating enterprise but …
: Definitions in Meta-ethics Realism: The belief that there are real, objective answers to the morality of an action. …
: The Inversion Technique The technique of inversion is employed in acknowledgement of the fact that attempts to “improve” …
: Earn Your Opinion Much like John Stuart Mill, it turns out that Charles Munger cared a lot about people earning their …
: Reading - Do It Properly Types of Reading Elementary reading The type of reading learned in primary school. Inspectional …
: Response to Sean Carroll's Issues with the Simulated World Hypothesis In the latest episode of Lex Fridman’s Artificial Intelligence Podcast Sean Carroll argued …
: Urbanisation is rapidly accelerating - we’re currently adding the equivalent of 8 New York Cities to …
: The Blank Sheet Method (for Reading) Before you start reading a new book, take out a blank sheet of paper. Write down what you know about …
: What We Know about Rotator Cuff Injuries We have evidence that rotator cuff tears appear in asymptomatic populations and increase in …
: Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society. Unfortunately I cannot recall every single brilliant lesson learned and story enjoyed, but I can …
: Joe Rogan Experience - #1320: Eric Weinstein Eric is one of my idols; he has dramatically bettered my thinking, and my experience of the world is …
: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you. Nor can the shifts and changes in the …
: The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang This short story looked at a man’s resistance to incoming artificial intelligence …
: Guaranteed Jobs The positives are obvious - lowered unemployment, investment in local infrastructure, a sense of …
: SpaceX's Starlink Starlink is the SpaceX project to provide truly global access to an internet connection at an …
: Function of Psychedelics Psychedelics are an agonist for the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor site. Psychedelics also appears to …
: Kuebiko is a state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.
: The Commercialisation of Pride
: Minor Oral Surgery - Wisdom Tooth Extraction The process was entirely pain free and over within 5 minutes. The dentist began with an initial …
: A Brief History of Doom According to Richard Vague all of the major financial crashes over the past 200 years, of which …
: A Brief History of Doom According to Richard Vague all of the major financial crashes over the past 200 years, of which …
: Fighting Cancer with Hybridoma Cells A result of fusing immune cells with cancer cells, the hybridoma cells have the antibody immune …
: Toy Story 4 Yesterday I watched this fourth, and supposed final, instalment in my favourite ever franchise. I …
: If you do what everyone else does, you’ll get what everyone else gets. Stephen Richards
: The Baffler - Enter the Supersensorium by Erik Hoel What started as a look at the overload of Entertainment with a capital ‘E’ moved into a …
: Anne Frank was bisexual and wrote extensively about her attraction to both men and women. The common …
: A kōan is a a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate …
: Origins of the Periodic Table Following the Big Bang there were initially only 3 elements; mostly hydrogen, a little helium, and a …
: Chromosomal Disruption The 4 species of great apes; gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangoutangs; each have 24 …
: Ellipsism describes the sadness felt when one contemplates the fact that they can never know how …
: Implicit Bias The interest in “implicit bias” began with implicit memory as seen in patients with memory loss who …
: Even if you’re going to live three thousand more years, or ten times that, remember: you cannot lose …
: 89 years ago, on 18 April 1930, the BBC’s news announcer had nothing to communicate. …
: Orthosomnia is a preoccupation with healthy sleep to the degree that it actually worsens sleep.
: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft Gemeinschaft, or community, is comprised of personal social ties and in-person interactions that are …
: The Feynman Technique for learning: 1. Choose a Concept 2. Teach it to a Toddler 3. Identify Gaps …
: Anti-Life Anti-natalism A philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth. …
: Origins of Psychological Investigation into Self Delusion In 1951, a brutal game of football between Dartmouth and Princeton launched the modern psychological …
: Phenomenology is likely an area of science in which you don’t even realise you’re …
: Benefits of Resistance Training Neurological Cognitive performance and ability to retain information. Reduces the rate of decline …
: Escaping Our Tribalism We can either expand our group such that it encompasses more of humanity and therefore reduces those …
: Daniel Kahneman Is No More Rational Than You There is a futility experienced in hearing Daniel Kahneman concede that his unique awareness of …
: Anechdoche is a conversation in which everybody is talking but nobody is listening.
: Record Lows in U.S. Unemployment Unemployment in the US is at just 3.6% which is nearing full employment and shifting the power back …
: Intelligence Squared - Identity Politics Is Tearing Society Apart Lionel Shriver’s opening speech for the motion was what you would expect of a writer of her quality. …
: The Case of WikiLeaks and the Attack of First Amendment Protections Julian Assange has been hit with 17 new charges under the Espionage Act. They accuse him of …
: Tom MacDonald - "Straight White Male" Tom MacDonald is a rapper with an interesting focus. He now has a few songs which are in some way …
: Free Will Emergentism Free will emergentism, like compatibilism, strikes me as another ill-fated attempt to hold on to …
: 5 Foundations of Morality Harm / care Fairness / reciprocity (golden rule) In-group / loyalty …
: This conversation dominating push-back on the perverted ideology of the regressive left is tiresome.
: Reparations Now? | #BHerd Town Hall Coleman Hughes recently participated in a “town hall” about the ever-elusive and …
: Genetics-Based Expectations What Was Tested? In two separate experiments, researchers told people they had either the good or …
: The World Index of Moral Freedom is an interesting project. Hard not to see a commonality amongst …
: Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral …
: In the human evolutionary lineage two ancestral ape chromosomes fused at their telomeres producing …
: “We are, finally, all wanderers in search of knowledge. Most of us hold the dream of becoming …
: Vemödalen is the frustration of photographing something amazing in the knowledge that thousands of …
: Detecting Cancer with a Shop-Bought Urine Test A company called NanoMed Diagnostics is developing a urine test which analyses DNA fragments that …
: Metabolic Adaptations Hypothalamus is the key integrator of energy availability and subsequent behaviour and experience. …
: People Are Polite to Computers Clifford Nass, author of The Man Who Lied to His Laptop studied the way people interacted with …
: Empathy is running the data of somebody else’s experience through one’s own brain architecture to …
: The Map is Not the Territory: We would do well to realise that in assessing anything from an …
: In North Korea women suspected of having been impregnated by Chinese men are subjected to forced …
: I hope to write a little more about the Rebel Wisdom Summit but for now I will simply express my …
: Mindfulness meditation may reduce age and racial bias. Gannon, M. C., & Nuttall, F. Q. (2006). …
: The Origin of the Research into Self Delusion In 1951, a brutal game of football between Dartmouth and Princeton launched the modern psychological …
: Bret Weinstein and Alister McGrath - Religion: Useful Fiction or Ultimate Truth In reflecting on who it is that provides me with the most joy in conversation I have decided Bret …
: Douglas Murray and Roger Scrution in Conversation on ‘The Future of Conservatism’ I’m resistant to adopting the identity of “conservative”, but in honesty many of my instincts align …
: Apparently it would take 400 qubits (electrons in a magnetic field) to store all of the information …
: Guaranteed Jobs Proposal The positives are obvious - lowered unemployment, investment in local infrastructure, a sense of …
: Chrysalism is the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
: Let Caster Semenya Compete I’d like to write more about Caster Semenya, but in brief it is my belief that we should …
: Behind the Curve The documentary mainly follows a man named Mark Sargent who clearly understands himself to be the …
: Crepitus Crepitus refers to the snap, crackle, and pop of joints within the body. While it cannot be said …
: Kimberlé Crenshaw's Effect on Post Modernism Post modernism can be best understood as the belief that objectivity itself is an ideology. There is …
: Brief Thoughts on Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground Part 2 The three stories in this second part get successively less funny and more upsetting. His fantasies …
: Brief Thoughts on Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground Part 1 There is a hilarious and uncomfortable relatability to the subject’s futile, flailing …
: Empathy, hate, and disgust are all drivers in moral decision making, and yet I cannot think of a …
: The Importance of "Hate Speech" For multiple reasons I have argued previously that all speech should be protected; the slippery …
: The "Binding Problem" in the Brain The “binding problem” in the brain may be solved by synchronicity, which is to say that …
: reCAPTCHA v3 monitors activity on a given website and assigns a probability that it is a bot. It is …
: Oestrogen Matters Contrary to popular belief oestrogen replacement therapy does not significantly increase the risk of …
: Blind Sight There are individuals who have suffered brain damage and can no longer consciously see, yet when …
: Kayfabe is a term used within professional wrestling to refer to the loose fourth wall nature of the …
: Jouska is a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.
: In regard to “wisdom”, perhaps one does not become less stupid with experience, but rather …
: Prospect Theory - Reference Dependence Any decision involving risk and uncertainty is subject to reference dependence. This describes the …
: Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie. …
: Adverse Selection When asymmetric information is exploited and results in a negative consequence for the party with …
: The atmosphere around the Sun, the corona, can get as hot as 2 million degrees Celsius which is 300 …
: G.I. Joe Fallacy This is a meta fallacy because it describes the way in which knowing is not half the battle. …
: Psychological Planned Obsolescence
: Oriental effectively means ‘east’ while occidental is ‘west’.
: The unexamined life is not worth living Socrates at his trial, 399 B.C. As attributed by his …
: Alcohol and Neurochemistry Alcohol is a depressant in as much as it suppresses the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate and …
: Today history was made as scientists revealed the first ever photo of a black hole. As well as …
: Humanisation of others can often allow us to act even worse to them. Take for example an enemy - …
: Why We End Friendships Being able to end a friendship sustains cooperation because free riders would otherwise cause a …
: Mauerbauertraurigkeit is the inexplicable urge to push people away, even those closest to you for …
: Marginal Propensity To Consume Marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is the proportion of an aggregate raise in pay that a consumer …
: Ricky Gervais’s After Life is a well-executed look at what it is to lose meaning in …
: “I have decided to stick to love… Hate is too great a burden to bear.” ― Martin Luther King …
: Art competitions formed part of the modern Olympic Games during its early years, from 1912 to 1948. …
: A systematic review of 6 randomly controlled trials showed short term memory and …
: Paul Bloom makes a strong case for why empathy is a poor tool in navigating interactions with others …
: The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam by Douglas Murray by Douglas Murray I finished this book today and I couldn’t possibly …
: Human Self-Domestication When looking at domesticated animals, such as dogs as compared to wolves, amongst many differences …
: There was an actual cartel, the Phoebus cartel, which controlled the manufacture and sale of …
: The Hidden Tribes report is eye opening.
: This Jussie Smollett Case Has Bothered Me
: Optimal Stopping Theory When searching for the optimal stopping point one could achieve a 1/3 chance of finding the best …
: If you want truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between “for” and …
: Kenopsia is the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place usually bustling with people but is now …
: Anarcho-syndicalism This is a form of anarchism which understands labour unions to be instrumental in bringing about the …
: Watch this. There is a way in which a genius speaks on something about which they have thought for a …
: Robert Bork: The Man Who Changed Antitrust Law Robert Bork noticed an overreach on the part of the government in “antitrust” regulation …
: The small button on the top of a baseball cap is called a “squatchee”.
: Our subscionscious sense of magnetic fields.
: Muscle Damage vs. Peak Tension as Causes of Hypertrophy If muscle damage were causal of hypertrophy we would expect to see high levels of hypertrophy in …
: Akrasia Socrates Socrates This describes a lack of self-control or a state of acting against one’s …
: Tragedy of the Commons When a resource is shared those that benefit from said resource may independently use it in a …
: Collective Munchausen Gad Saad sought a theory to explain the mass hysteria associated with social justice warriors, and …
: Bayard Rustin was a gay and black civil rights hero who now largely goes unacknowledged, likely …
: An Evening with Diana Fleischman and Geoffrey Miller
: The Absence of Faith As an atheist I have been resistant to the notion that a mass loss of interest in religion could be …
: Brief Update on the State of Brexit - March 2019 Watch the video here. There is a balance to be struck between on the one side being entirely …
: Sexual Dimorphism This is the condition where the two sexes of the same species will demonstrate …
: Yet Another Evolutionary & Biological Look at Homosexuality Differences in genders can be cultural and biological, and the specifics can be difficult to know …
: Sunk Cost Fallacy Reasoning that further investment is a rational means with which to proceed based …
: Success in Networking Stage 1: Be curious and ask genuine open-ended questions. Stage 2: Listen and probe - investigating …
: Science confirmed that bragging annoys people.
: Success of the United States and the Disgusting History of Slavery While listening to Kmele Foster I learned that more slaves were shipped from Africa to South America …
: The Fifth Column - #132: Mark Weisbrot | Venezuela: Failed State or Coup D’etat? Listen to it here Listen to it here Michael C. Moynihan allowed Mark to speak at length about …
: Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution December 15, 1971 December 15, 1971 No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or …
: Is-Ought Problem David Hume stated that many writers make claims about what ought to be, based on statements about …
: Genetic Fallacy Basing the truth of a claim on its origins or source is fallacious because …
: One theory as to why homosexuality proved beneficial through evolution is because the resources of …
: Many diamonds naturally already resemble the shape with which we associate them.
: Developments in DNA Some up front knowledge: a nucleic acid sequence is a succession of letters indicating the order of …
: Rubatosis is the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.
: Post Hoc Fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc post hoc ergo propter hoc This is a fallacy stating “since event Y …
: Centre Parcs with the family ❤️
: Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS) Muscle protein synthesis is the process that the human body uses to repair, grow, and strengthen …
: The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part I’m heartened that unique movies are still being made, and that they needn’t be eccentric or …
: Begging the Question petitio principii petitio principii This is any form of argument in which the conclusion is …
: Concealed Oestrus in Humans Evolution decided upon hiding signals of oestrus from both the male and the female which is unique …
: Strawman Fallacy Substituting an opponent’s actual position for a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version …
: Glenn Loury’s utter shock in learning that some Chi-town natives want to see the complete …
: Gated Institutional Narrative as theorised by Eric Weinstein
: Moralistic Fallacy Originally defined by Edward C. Moore in 1957 as an assertion that moral judgements are of a …
: Naturalistic Fallacy Also known as the is-ought fallacy it describes the derivation of what ought to be from what is. An …
: Fitness Landscapes Thomas Sewall, 1932 Thomas Sewall, 1932 Fitness landscapes are used to visualise the …
: Senescence Typically referred to as ageing it is a concept meant to communicate that organisms become less …
: Variability Hypothesis The greater male variability hypothesis states that males display greater variability in traits than …
: Vellichor - The strange wistfulness of used bookshops.
: Intelligence Squared - The West Should Cut Ties with Saudi Arabia This was a fascinating debate between Mehdi Hasan & Madawi al-Rasheed for the motion, and Mamoun …
: Intelligence Squared - The West Should Cut Ties with Saudi Arabia This was a fascinating debate between Mehdi Hasan & Madawi al-Rasheed for the motion, and Mamoun …
: Theories: The Architecture of Humans Posited by Bret Weinstein The body serves as the machine - the robotic exterior if you will. It is …
: Some Problems in Artificial Intelligence The Alignment Problem There is no reason that AI would be aligned with our goals unless we made sure …
: Argument from Ignorance ad ignoranti The assumption of a conclusion or a fact based primarily on the lack of evidence to the …
: Conversations to be Had - Tribalism Our evolved programming for tribal conflict made sense but it is now fatal with our current weaponry …
: The Coddling of the American Mind This book is well-written, well-researched, and structured masterfully. Most people ackowledge the …
: Ego Depletion Sigmund Freud proffered the two distinct systems of the id and the ego. The research by psychologist …
: This closely follows the Eminem and Run the Jewels concerts as up amongst my favourite ever music …
: The War on Excellence Excellence is a high cost but low variance character trait. Taking for example an excellent …
: Douglas Harding, On Having No Head “What actually happened was something absurdly simple and unspectacular: I stopped thinking. …
: Facebook has been paying teens $20 a month for total access to their phone activity The article can be found here. With the teens having consented I see no problem with this collection …
: The Latest Episode of Making Sense is Amazing Making Sense with Sam Harris - #147: Stephen Fry Stephen Fry is an incredibly articulate and …
: Intermittent Dieting Refeeds and diet breaks both fall under the category of intermittent dieting. Refeeds refer to a …
: Trust Rachel Botsman’s definition of trust is “a confident relationship to the unknown”. Trust …
: Re-entrification Re-entrification stands as an alternative to fighting gentrification. People should be trying to …
: Dax Shepard’s latest episode of Experts on Expert with Bret Weinstein is one of my all time …
: Hagfish Slime Hagfish slime is an incredible substance produced by the hagfish consisting of two main components - …
: Cross-Examination of an Accuser Two of the load-bearing pillars of our judicial system are the requirement of no reasonable doubt …
: Misaligned Incentives in Banks Executives at banks are incentivised to take on a lot of risk, even when it does not increase …
: I created a handy extension on UIView for adding borders to the corners of a view. The extension can …
: Accommodationism Jerry Coyne applies the term accommodationism to the misguided notion that science and religion are …
: Following in the stead of great minds such as John McWhorter, Gad Saad, James Lindsay, and many …
: The Most Important Video I've Watched This Week The Evergreen State College - Part One: Bret Weinstein, Heather Heying, and the Evergreen Equity …
: Self Reporting Methodologies in Nutritional Science Food diary 24hr recall Food frequency questionnaire Each offers a different mix of reliability and …
: Thin Privilege Apparently thin privilege is the latest pointless gripe, and so since I like to stay hip and cool I …
: Ultrasociality In nature there are socialised species, but humans should be regarded as an ultrasocialised species. …
: Metabolism Metabolism is the sum of all biochemical processes which occur within an organism, …
: Énouement describes the bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, now the present, knowing …
: Equity as Viewed Through an Evolutionary Lens Moral Panic As in the case of Salman Rushdie or with the Charlie Hebdo cartoon, there would be more …
: Almost Everything is Better Than Ever! To discuss the fact that by almost every metric things are better now than they were in the past is …
: Satisficing is a decision-making strategy which entails the consumption of information and options …
: UK Magistrates No formal qualifications or legal training required. Can be any age between 18-65. …
: Choose not to be harmed - and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed - and you haven’t …
: My Favourite TV Show of 2018 The highlight for me was the 3 episode documentary series by Louis Theroux called Altered States. I …
: I’ve been working on a post about Free Speech since watching Brendan O’Neill and Yaron …
: I have started a YouTube channel - here’s hoping it lasts. 🤞🏼 At first it will be slightly …
: Some of My Favourite Podcasts in 2018 Waking Up with Sam Harris Soon to be renamed to Making Sense with Sam Harris Easily my favourite …
: I sent a letter to my future self: thisnextyear.com
: Monachopsis describes the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.
: Phenotype A phenotype is influenced by genes within the body by means of embryonic processes (wings, noses, …
: Homo Floresiensis “Flores Man” are considered the extinct hobbit species in the Homo genus. In September …
: Witch-Hunts In 1979 James Begesen published: A Durkheimian Theory of "Witch-Hunts" with the Chinese …
: Kehinde Andrews with Russell Brand on Under the Skin - I Couldn't Even Finish It www.russellbrand.com/podcast/0… Early on Kehinde Andrews passingly states that “Trump …
: Creative Destruction In economics creative destruction is a theory of economic innovation and the business cycle. The …
: Merry Christmas from the Valaitis family. 🎄❤️
: Zahavi Signalling Theory Amotz Zahavi suggested that, evolutionarily, bluffing could be made more difficult by the handicap …
: The “Atheists Believe in God Otherwise They’d Kill” Argument The argument that atheists must unknowingly harbour some belief in God otherwise they would murder, …
: Origins of the Gene The first gene would have been an organism capable of replicating itself, with error. DNA is a …
: Deimatic Behaviour Deimatic behaviour describes a bluffing behaviour often seen in somewhat defenceless organisms. The …
: The “Ferguson” Effect Reactive policing involves responding to 911 calls and remains unchanged, but proactive policing is …
: Even Brexit Takes a Back Seat to Identity Politics This is perhaps the most contemporary I have ever …
: This American Life's "81 Words" Changed How I Think About Transgenderism This podcast covered the same period of time in the psychologising of homosexuality as was featured …
: Labels - From the Benign to the Fatal
: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse First and foremost I want to give due attention to the animation because I haven’t previously …
: Big Five Personality Traits Openness to experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness …
: Problems in Consciousness Easy Problem Why do we behave as we do? This can be explained by finding each complex neural system …
: Could eating less protein make you live longer?
: Quillette's What Happened When We Tried to Debate Immigration by Matthew Goodwin and Eric Kaufmann by Matthew Goodwin and Eric Kaufmann I appreciated that …
: Fallacy of Relative Privation Relative privation refers to when somebody attempts to make a scenario seem better by appealing to …
: Contention on Kin Selection in Evolutionary Biology Sexual selection has been a matter of disagreement in evolutionary biology. Taking the peacock tail …
: 9 Common Cognitive Distortions Emotional reasoning - mistakenly believing feelings tell us any more than how we feel. …
: Aposematism Aposematism is a term coined by Edward Bagnall Poulton for Alfred Russel Wallace’s concept of …
: Cognitive Tradeoff Hypothesis Chimpanzees have a superhuman short-term memory which can be practically observed in their capacity …
: Pretty happy with this. I was inspired to write it after watching the last talk from The Day of …
: Many-Worlds Interpretation The description that made the most sense of this theory for me was imagining an electron in a …
: Should Being Offensive be an Offence? I don’t know how I supposed to feel about this, nor how I actually feel. I do know that I …
: Opia describes the ambiguous intensity of looking somebody in the eye, which can feel simultaneously …
: Block Universe A block universe can best be thought of as analogising the universe to a book with pages. All of the …
: Bret Weinstein's Explorer Modes The most important unanswered question in evoltionary biology is arguably “from where does …
: You Are Not So Smart - #139: The Friendship Cure David McRaney spoke with Kate Leaver her about her book, The Friendship Cure. It appears that …
: Interesting Evolutionary Adaptations Variety preference results in people eating more …
: Downward Causation Downward causation is the misguided notion that the macro level on which something can be viewed has …
: Naturalism > Atheism Where atheism is a negative statement about what is false (a theorised …
: Sigma Nutrition Radio Live in Dublin An absolutely amazing conference in which I learned about type II diabetes, nutrition for endurance …
: The Quantum Problem with Laplace's Demon Laplace posited that if this demon knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the …
: Marcus Aurelius, considered a true philosopher king, was born 121AD, died in 180AD, and served as …
: Economics Kaldor-Hicks Efficiency Re-allocation of resources which results in some people being …
: Very Bad Wizards - #152: Ruthlessness, Public, and Private Tamler Sommers and David Pizarro first discussed a new journal for “dangerous” ideas and while David …
: Joe Rogan Experience - #1203: Eric Weinstein They started by talking about the benefits of vice signalling in contrast to the ills of virtue …
: International Men’s Day Today, 19th November, is International Men’s Day. Why does it exist? Because men: - constitute 76% …
: Gene-Environment Interaction *(GxE)* This interaction is evident when two different genotypes are seen to respond to environmental …
: The Rubin Report - Brendan O’Neill: Free Speech and Hypocrisy of the Radical Left & Antifa Political correctness is a rehabilitation of the racial imagination… shoving people back into …
: Serial Season 3 The first season of this podcast absolutely exploded, and perhaps quite rightly because it sated a …
: Caffeine Adenosine Caffeine blocks adenosine from binding to receptors in the brain. The first receptor site …
: Gene Coding for Homosexuality Homosexuality presents a fascinating paradox on an evolutionary perspective. The allele (groups of …
: Podcast & Video Highlights Sean Carroll’s Mindscape - #22: Joe Walton on Conservation, Urbanization, and the Way We Live on …
: Enclothed cognition shows that what a person wears has an effect on their performance depending on …
: WWI: Remembering the Sacrifice While remembering WWI it strikes me that in the important modern day …
: Four Evolutionary Modules Survival Any adaptation which confers a survival advantage. Those who found calorically dense …
: A Day of Reckoning - Part 2: The Path Forward Watch this Intellectual Dark Web conversation here. Douglas posited that we do not yet know how to …
: Exposure Therapy Exposure therapy is used to battle anxiety by working against the instinct of avoiding the anxiety …
: The Senate and the House of Representatives The Senate The Senate is known as “The Upper House” and was originally conceived by the framers to …
: Wouldn’t the world be better if we could more easily converse? I wrote about the Intellectual Dark …
: The Thucydides Trap Graham Allison theorised that a war between the established power and a rising power is inevitable. …
: Partial Range of Motion is Not the Devil Recently on Revive Stronger Mike Israetel and Nick Tumminello argued for exercise diversity as …
: Philosophy: Stuff I've Learned Recently Gettier Problem Gettier counter-examples challenge the long-held Justified True Belief account of …
: Ideological Neutrality in Government I enjoyed the all too uncommon privilege of having my mind completely changed today by Yaron Brook …
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