I once wrote: Weakness Transcends the Weak and Corrupts the Whole I was too narrow. I should have written: “Vice spreads and corrupts the rest” or maybe simply: “Corruption spreads” See there are two paths: 1) You’re already mediocre and complacent, and complacently let yourself gradually sour, corrupt, rot 2) You’re doing quite …
Category: Philosophy
Contrarianism Is Downstream From Being Right
Are you a contrarian? Or just a fool? The question to ask is: Are you MORE OFTEN RIGHT than others? If not — then you’re just a fool, aren’t you? Of course there’s the question of payoff Maybe your scepticism makes you unduly reject prevailing wisdom sometimes, And maybe it makes you susceptible …
The Software and Hardware of Mind
There’s a computational theory of mind Maybe it’s right maybe it’s wrong It’s cute, philosophically But isn’t it profound practically? Your results are downstream from your actions, which are downstream from your mind Isn’t your mind quite like a computer? We speculated about our nature since time immemorial But aren’t computers some of …
There Are No Gurus — Only Experts
There are no gurus Only experts We distrust experts Because experts are sometimes wrong, or corrupted What a joke It’s like distrusting air because sometimes it smells Doesn’t mean you should stop breathing Experts are still the best we have By definition, that’s what expert is — the most qualified, educated, capable person …
Sloppy Details Ruin Entire Thing, Life Most of All
Life is composed of details so does everything, of course (whole comprises of parts), but LIFE is much more about the details, because LIFE is lived IN THE MOMENT i.e. life experience is IN THE MOMENT, not in abstract (so you can have the most glorious life story, the most glorious “life outcome” …
Real vs Fake vs Drunk and Repugnant
Being NOT real (fake) is disgusting because: -then you’re IMPOSSIBLE to be trusted. you’re unknown (real you is unknown) -and unknown comprises both good and bad. -and the bad is not worth risking, if you can have the good instead, from someone else +It also reeks of incompetence and worthlessness. Otherwise you wouldn’t try to …
Sincere Care vs Sincere Learned-Care vs Insincere Care
You look at a thing / person / idea / phenomenon, and you CARE, or DON’T care You can choose to CARE in which case you will provide that thing with more attention, more effort in your actions, more thoughtfulness and respect in how you consider that thing, and it can result in some …
Always Run Top-Down And Bottom-Up
Top-down is a plan of how the WHOLE is going to work Bottom-up is how you intend to EXECUTE various subparts By nature top subsumes the bottom, but it’s only at the bottom that you explore it in all practical nuance (i.e. literally execute). And only once you executed the constituent parts — do …
Object Thinking vs RELATIONAL Thinking
We tend to consider reality in terms of FIXED OBJECTS, ENTITIES, E.g. dog, tree, you, me, Scotsman, Russia, etc. This of course runs into multiple problems, Entity you assume to be fixed — often eludes fixed boundaries, Which poisons your reasoning with category errors, E.g. judging entire race by the behaviour of some of …
Voters Are Always Stupid — It’s Elites That Failed Us
Voters will always be stupid Too stupid to understand the nuance of government, the system, anyway Too stupid to appreciate the legacy they have inherited Therefore it’s elites that failed us Voters are always dumber than the final political, government, business product But elites lead and carry the entire system on their shoulders They …