The Future Primaeval

Back in the 60s, one group of protesters tried a novel strategy to attack the big banks that they hated. They distributed flyers around town telling »

In the West in the 21st century, things basically work and we have it pretty good. We are for the most part basically good people, fed, »

I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the »

Mild spoilers for Submission follow. Halfway through the novel Submission, the narrator’s parents die in quick succession, an event that's all the more devastating for »

[This occasionally comes up, so I thought I'd explain it, but it's not particularly important.] Much woo has been spilled over Godel's incompleteness theorem. Playing a »

A friend and I analyzed doctors thus: There are two functions of a doctor: Expert Mechanic. Uses superior domain knowledge to actually repair damage to your »

The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated »

When I visited Singapore a few years ago, I kept noticing novel bits of social technology that managed to solve problems that I didn’t even »

In one graph: The world is getting better every year, they tell us. Fewer people dying in war, poverty lifting, education increasing, and most importantly, monotonic »

When I was towards the end of medical school, I had a bout of last minute questioning about my choice of specialty. I had put in »

"Postrationalism" is our reaction against some of the silliness of modern conceptions of "rationality", while keeping the strong emphasis on correct thinking, skeptical evidence-based inquiry, and »

Apparently, this is what Mormons actually believe. It's pretty weird. On the other hand: This is the Mormon temple in Oakland. It's not really my kind »

As steel sharpeneth steel, so one man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. – Proverbs 27:17 There’s a common romantic image of the lone genius »

If we speak in broad strokes and ignore fuzzy edge cases, we can divide people into three different levels of social agency throughout history and across »

Gregory Clark is perhaps best known for his A Farewell To Alms, but he also has a newer pun-based title - The Son Also Rises. The »

The past, it’s said, is a foreign country. If so, that country lies firmly in the third world. Past societies were much poorer than ours, »

These are the official population projections. My understanding of Africa is not great, but I don't think they're going to get away with this without running »

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance »

I think one of the major errors of modern Western thought is the idea that there are dogmatic principles that can apply to every circumstance. "Women »

After us, the people of our race will wear garments of gold; they will eat sweet, greasy food, ride splendid coursers, and hold in their arms »

Science and the Press are broken. Somehow politics has crept in and distorted what they say and what they teach and what we are allowed to »

In his "Gentle Introduction, Part 9a", Mencius Moldbug introduces a neat little political methodology he calls "Passivism", and a Procedure to replace the current political machinery, »

"Walt Disney wanted to be frozen," Bob Nelson says, as casually as if he were talking about municipal bonds. "Lots of people think that he was, »

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's work is excellent. There's one poem of his, "The Ladder of St. Augustine", that I find particularly compelling: Saint Augustine! well hast thou »

A few months ago I was talking to some divinity school students, many of whom were on track to being ordained Methodist ministers. I’m always »

Back in 2010 or so, I used to hang out at /r/anarchism on Reddit. It was a neat place to talk about how different strains »

Sometimes people think of politics as this far-away thing that's about elections and Democrats and Republicans. They imagine that if they simply don't talk about elections »

I'm afraid I don't have a source, but these are allegedly headlines from the French Newspaper "Moniteur" in March of 1815, on the subject of Napoleon's »

Julia Galef, a prominent member of the "Rationality" community, responded in one of her videos a while ago to an argument very like my Structured Argument »

I’ve never been a huge anime fan, but Death Note is the one show that I’ve really enjoyed. The intricate plot can be simplified »

There’s a small movement of personal finance bloggers who argue that a lot of people should be retiring early – think 35 or 40 rather than »

1. When people talk about politics, they generally fall into one of three groups. The first and by far the largest group basically argues “more good »

One of the facts that I like to surprise people with is that in many East Asian countries, there are no such things as ghettos. Oh, »

The scene is Upper Monarch Lake, ten thousand feet up in the mountains of the Sequoia National Park in California. If you got here, you climbed »

Every great company is unique, but there are a few things that every business must get right at the beginning . I stress this so often that »

An argument for traditions: The space of possible human cultural practices is large. The subspace of 1 which is well tuned, robust, compatible with human flourishing, »

The Allais Paradox is a result in behavioural psychology that shows that humans apparently do not behave in accordance with expected utility theory. Specifically, according to »

It has not been apparent until now, but this is actually a group blog, composed of a small group of people with similar ideas which are »

At my previous job, I worked with an interesting man. He was not all that intellectual or cultured, but there were a few key facts that »

Our good friend Rudyard Kipling published "The White Man's Burden" in 1899. The poem argued for the White nations to conquer the world and uplift their »

Glorious Chinese propaganda. Makes me want to treat my elders well and live a virtuous life. »