Month: July 2018

As a follow-up to my earlier post moral nihilism, a question I kept pondering is, why should anyone be moral? After some contemplation, the answer is, within certain limitation, there is no reason to be moral. As echoed by Lion, sociopathy pays, but I will add the caveat that only up to certain point. Those… Continue reading Is Morality Overrated?

A 1996 speech by Peter Thiel, What is Multiculturalism Really About?, went viral: If not for the date, one would easily think he was talking about today, but it was over 20 years ago when he gave that talk. So that’s a pretty long time ago, and gives an opportunity to test how well his… Continue reading Peter Thiel: What is Multiculturalism Really About

This tweet yesterday from Elon Musk went hugely viral: According to the comments on Reddit and Twitter, by my estimate 90% are in agreement. The SJW-left (in contrast to the classical-liberal left) don’t understand that it’s the rich who create jobs. [1] That’s just an inescapable part of economic reality. But the good news is,… Continue reading Elon Musk Schools Twitter

This article from Quillette Why Should We Be Good? went viral, but it possibly gets some things wrong. Today we are witnessing an irrepressible and admirable pushback against the specters of ‘cultural relativism’ and moral ‘nihilism.’ On the Right, thinkers such as Patrick Deneen and Jordan Peterson have responded to an increasingly cynical postmodern culture… Continue reading Moral Nihilism

Right now the big story is Trump’s Supreme Court appointment. Supreme Court appointments are supposed to last a lifetime, but positions have changed hands far more frequently than one would intuitively expect. Since 2005, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Neil Gorsuch have acceded the position, and now there will be a… Continue reading Trump updates

From Scott’s Periscope https://www.pscp.tv/w/1nAKEQjQkpYKL Although I usually agree with Scott Adams, when political pundits start pontificating about HBD, they tend to sound misinformed, often misconstruing or getting the pro-HBD arguments wrong. Even someone as smart as Scott Adams gets it wrong. When these so-called ‘racists’ talk about white superiority, they don’t mean at the individual… Continue reading Scott Adams gets HBD Wrong

In an uncharacteristically short post, Scott discusses the state of the so-called rationality community. What is rationalism, anyway, or at least in the context of this internet movement and community? What makes someone or something rational? Rationalism, in my opinion, encompasses more than object-level topics such as AI risk, human psychology, or effective altruism. Although… Continue reading The Craft of Rationality

From Scott Adams’ Periscope https://www.pscp.tv/w/1yNGaXyVWDDKj I agree with the beginning of the video, that America’s system of government has proven to be surprisingly resilient. But more interestingly, Scott takes a neo-liberal view, praising America’s ‘checks and balances system’ and how the media (by acting as a defacto branch of government) shaped Trump’s policy regarding his… Continue reading Why Scott Adams is so popular

From Paul Graham: Economic Inequality and The Refragmentation: Economics is a social science, which means, to some extent, it affects everyone, allowing anyone to participate in the debate. Wealth inequality touches everyone, including the rich, who are often blamed for wealth inequality. People have observed how much things have changed in this ‘new era’ we… Continue reading Wealth, Intellectualism, and Individualism, Part 16

Repeating something over and over does not make it so. For the ‘left’, for example, it’s the narrative that Trump is bad for the economy. The evidence suggest his contributions are positive or, at worst, neutral. Nearly six months later, the tariffs have had no deleterious effects on GDP or other metrics. One can argue… Continue reading The death of neoconservatism? Unlikely