Tag Archives: long post is long

Considerations On Cost Disease

I. Tyler Cowen writes about cost disease. I’d previously heard the term used to refer only to a specific theory of why costs are increasing, involving labor becoming more efficient in some areas than others. Cowen seems to use it … Continue reading

Book Review: Eichmann In Jerusalem

[Content warning: Holocaust. This is a complicated and emotional subject and I make no claims to know much more than what I read in the book, nor to be 100% certain I am representing Arendt’s views faithfully.] I. For Holocaust … Continue reading

Book Review: Age of Em

[Note: I really liked this book and if I criticize it that’s not meant as an attack but just as what I do with interesting ideas. Note that Robin has offered to debate me about some of this and I’ve … Continue reading

Teachers: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

[Epistemic status: This is really complicated, this is not my field, people who have spent their entire lives studying this subject have different opinions, and I don’t claim to have done more than a very superficial survey. I welcome corrections … Continue reading

Book Review: Albion’s Seed

I. Albion’s Seed by David Fischer is a history professor’s nine-hundred-page treatise on patterns of early immigration to the Eastern United States. It’s not light reading and not the sort of thing I would normally pick up. I read it … Continue reading

The Ideology Is Not The Movement

I. Why is there such a strong Sunni/Shia divide? I know the Comparative Religion 101 answer. The early Muslims were debating who was the rightful caliph. Some of them said Abu Bakr, others said Ali, and the dispute has been … Continue reading

Book Review: Manufacturing Consent

I. Consider: It is our view that, among their other functions, the media serve and propagandize on behalf of the powerful societal interests that control…them. The representatives of these interests have important agendas and principles that they want to advance, … Continue reading

Contra Hallquist On Scientific Rationality

I. Topher Hallquist recently wrote a long article calling Less Wrong and the rationalist community “against scientific rationality” and having “crackpot tendencies”. The piece claims to be about “the Less Wrong community”, but mostly takes the form of a series … Continue reading

Fearful Symmetry

[Content warning: Social justice, anti-social justice, comparisons of social justice to anti-social-justice, comparisons of different groups’ experiences.] The social justice narrative describes a political-economic elite dominated by white males persecuting anybody who doesn’t fit into their culture, like blacks, women, … Continue reading

No Clarity Around Growth Mindset

I. Admitting a bias is the first step to overcoming it, so I’ll admit it: I have a huge bias against growth mindset. (if you’re not familiar with it, growth mindset is the belief that people who believe ability doesn’t … Continue reading