Month: February 2018

The running narrative

This article went viral on Hacker News: I have forgotten how to read This post is not about the content of the article itself but rather what its viralness signifies. The fact it went viral on Hacker News (abut also on Reddit) agrees with the earlier posts Time Management and The Celebration of the Mundane… Continue reading The running narrative

US Power Will Decline Under Trump, Says Futurist Who Predicted Soviet Collapse

US Power Will Decline Under Trump, Says Futurist Who Predicted Soviet Collapse Galtung has also accurately predicted the 1978 Iranian revolution; the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989 in China; the economic crises of 1987, 2008 and 2011; and even the 9/11 attacks—among other events, according to the late Dietrich Fischer, academic director of the European… Continue reading US Power Will Decline Under Trump, Says Futurist Who Predicted Soviet Collapse

Jordan Peterson’s self-authoring program does not boost college GPAs: study & analysis

An NBER study Goal Setting, Academic Reminders, and College Success: A Large-Scale Field Experiment, which demonstrates that goal-setting programs do not boost college GPAs, went viral, having been shared and up-voted many times on Reddit. The paper was published in August 2017, but didn’t get attention until only a week ago. The abstract: This paper… Continue reading Jordan Peterson’s self-authoring program does not boost college GPAs: study & analysis

Tyranny and Guns

In the wake of Florida school shooting and the renewed debate on gun control, this 4chan post from 2017 went viral: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 Even though I support the 2nd amendment, I’m skeptical that guns are a bulwark against tyranny. Gun ownership is an indispensable part of American history, but despite the… Continue reading Tyranny and Guns

Predictions for 2023

Scott posts his predictions for 2023: FIVE MORE YEARS Those yearly “predictions for next year” posts are starting to reach the limit of their usefulness. Not much changes from year to year, and most of what does change is hard to capture in objective probabilistic predictions. Agree…with the exception of election cycles, not much changes… Continue reading Predictions for 2023

for every $1 of Bitcoin converted into cash, up to $25,000 of paper wealth is destroyed

Bitcoin continues to demonstrate how bad of an investment it is, losing 15% of its value in under 36 hours: A $1000 point drop in just a few hours and a $500 point drop in just a few minutes. Some will respond, “But…but…it’s up 1000% since early 2017!!” …and my response is, “but …but …it’s… Continue reading for every $1 of Bitcoin converted into cash, up to $25,000 of paper wealth is destroyed

Why So Many People Like Jordan Peterson

Even though /r/the_Donald posters tend to be much further to the ‘right’ than Dr. Peterson himself, he is still immensely popular there. But not just on /r/The_Donald; he’s popular among intellectual types of all political stripes, from rationalists who lean left, to reactionaries on the far-right, and everywhere in-between. Dr. Peterson is popular among the… Continue reading Why So Many People Like Jordan Peterson

Philosophical bites: Empiricism vs. Rationalism

There’s a popular YouTube channel titled ‘Bite-sized Philosophy,’ which as its name suggests provides concise summaries pertaining to philosophical matters. Here is my bite-sized summary of Empiricism vs. Rationalism. Consider a cooking range that has four or more individual stove tops. There is also a ‘key’ that shows which knob corresponds to which stove top.… Continue reading Philosophical bites: Empiricism vs. Rationalism

Interesting tweet

This tweet went viral a few weeks ago: If children started school at six months old and their teachers gave them walking lessons, within a single generation people would come to believe that humans couldn't learn to walk without going to school. — Geoff Graham (@geoffreydgraham) February 12, 2018 When I saw it I thought… Continue reading Interesting tweet