Consider three areas in which America is uniquely bad: Criminal justice *America imprisons more than twice as many people per capita as its nearest developed competitor, Israel. *The US imprisons children at a rate of 60 per 100,000, 11x higher than the western Europe and the highest in the world. Healthcare *The US is the … Continue reading A brief note on the disposability ideology
Category: Above average quality
We know who these people are, so why can they show their face in public
A Robin Redbreast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage. -From Auguries of Innocence, by William Blake At the moment there's a debate about the merits of public shaming. One side says it's a good thing, the other side says it's dreadful mob justice. I take the third position, public shaming is good … Continue reading We know who these people are, so why can they show their face in public
The Resurrection of the Dead
I The 19th-century Russian thinker Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov proposed a "Common Task" which he held to be the most important project of humanity. Fedorov argued that the greatest alienation was one rarely directly remarked on- that of the living from the dead. To lose someone to death is a profound and permanent wound. We are … Continue reading The Resurrection of the Dead
For a Workerpedia
I often have ideas which are beyond my ability to execute. Since ideas are so common as to be mostly valueless I usually simply ignore them. This one seems neat though, so I’m putting it out there in the hope that someone will steal it. Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a Workerpedia? A … Continue reading For a Workerpedia
For communism and against foreclosure on the future
By communism here we mean a system in which the principle of: From each according to their ability, to each according to their need Is implemented as the sole principle of economic distribution. There has never been a a advanced communist society- only societies that aspire to communism in the long run. Money still existed … Continue reading For communism and against foreclosure on the future
Recent advances in Natural Language Processing- Some Woolly speculations
If you enjoy this article, please check out my free book by clicking Here: "Something to Read in Quarantine: Essays 2018-2020." Natural Language Processing (NLP) per Wikipedia: “Is a subfield of linguistics, computer science, information engineering, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human (natural) languages, in particular how to program computers … Continue reading Recent advances in Natural Language Processing- Some Woolly speculations
My method for dealing with anxiety
I wanted to outline the methods, strategies and approaches that have helped me with anxiety (moderate to severe OCD). Although I hope you might find something useful here, you may not. Seek qualified and competent psychological advice. To make it very clear that this is only my experience, and not general advice, I've written a … Continue reading My method for dealing with anxiety
Four parts of belief
A little bit of prodding suggests that beliefs are not so simple as they seem. Consider for example Tamar Gendler's concept of an Aelief- a kind of belief-like state. An Aelief, per Wikipedia is: "...an automatic or habitual belief-like attitude, particularly one that is in tension with a person's explicit beliefs. For example, a person standing … Continue reading Four parts of belief
Why we can’t (usefully) dismiss concern about the income of others as envious
I. The Easterlin paradox is the observation that country level happiness does not seem to increase overtime with income- even though there are many reasons to think it should- for example, income gives us choices, security, additional consumption and so on. The paradox grows even weirder when we reflect that individual increases in income do … Continue reading Why we can’t (usefully) dismiss concern about the income of others as envious
[WIP] [Technical] Extending the veil of ignorance argument for utilitarianism into an argument for ‘egalitarian’ interpersonal utility comparison
I. Plausibly there are actually two problems of interpersonal utility comparison- the epistemic problem and the ontological problem. The epistemic problem is the problem of how we could know that a given comparison is correct. The ontological problem is the problem of why we should think such comparisons are meaningful- anymore than measuring temperature against … Continue reading [WIP] [Technical] Extending the veil of ignorance argument for utilitarianism into an argument for ‘egalitarian’ interpersonal utility comparison
