You wouldn’t call someone an “idiot” as an argument Or a “cunt” But you will call others “bad person” Or “evil” Or “greedy” Or whatever else You’ll recognise an obvious ad hominem, and it’s failure to constitute an argument You’ll fail to recognise an obvious ad hominem – when you have been conditioned …
Should You Be Strategically Self-Effacing?
The real humility is epistemic humility You should just be REAL. As confident as warranted by data. No more, no less Reality tempers your confidence. You can be good but you’re never good enough. If life doesn’t humble you — you’re not challenging yourself enough Pretending you’re smaller than you are is …
Virtue Exculpating Ignorance
Who needs to be wise informed, even if they can be VIRTUOUS “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” But this is more insidious than that You fuck up despite your good intention — you still at least learn that you fucked up hopefully, anyway In this case — you are not …
The Courage to Be Ignorant
The main reason we fail to own up our ignorance is the discomfort of not having control the EXISTENTIAL DREAD, truly It’s better to rub a bromide in one’s own face than to face the abyss But the other reason is that we’re so tribal And tribes optimise themselves for homogeneity And no matter …
Losers Are First to Pass Moral Judgement
Someone is doing well Couple options follow: -it’s great and inspiring — lets do the same -it’s great for them but not good for me — let’s not do this -it’s great for them but not good for anyone else — let’s not do this +I don’t know what to make of it now …
Idealism, Standards and Individuality
If you’re fucking going to do something — might as well do it well -and if you’re going to bother doing something that someone else has already done — might as well do it differently, and BETTER -and differently — as in more idiosyncratically — is better (from your point of view, obviously) And …
Just Ask Them More Questions
just ask a question, like a shrink “oh you think that? WHY?!” “why did I have this thought?” “is this the best way?” “is this what you think? interesting tell me why…” “do you think this idea of yours is better than y ?” “and do you think the opposite is wrong?” “you say …
Observation Is the Beginning of Theories — and the End
You know, when you’re young and naive, you sometimes have an INSIGHT, you think you’re seeing something that others don’t you now think you know it all and usually you’re delusional, and yet you’re also right later you discover that people had written books about it, had this exact same “idea” that you …
Know You to Forget You
it’s like when you really know who you are, you don’t overthink it, it’s like a cat, you know it’s not a dog, you know it’s not a mouse, you know it has whiskers and a tail and a smug look on its face you’re not CONSIDERING if it’s better than other animals or worse, …
Empathy Is Not Morality
Empathy is but a tool It facilitates collective action It also sabotages collective action Empathy is a tool, it’s a bias in favour of cooperating with others (Empathy’s role was to counterweight the innate selfishness — in favour of a potentially more robust tribal design) If cooperation is impossible — it is …