Skip to content
Everything Studies

Everything Studies

I have an abstraction problem

  • Home
  • About/Start here
  • Archive
  • What is Erisology?
  • Support Everything Studies on Patreon

Author: John Nerst

Good vs. Good

25 June, 202028 June, 2020 ~ John Nerst ~ 15 Comments

I use a poor innocent guide book author as a target for complaining about empty consumerism, and explain why features of the Swedish language makes it slightly less unreasonable than it appears. Read more (6 min, 1500 words).

Leftovers from Last Time

22 May, 202011 November, 2020 ~ John Nerst ~ 17 Comments

I pick up and elaborate on some parts that were cut from my review of "The AI Does Not Hate You", including some riffing on mind dumps, weirdness, tensions between the rationalist community and polite society, my conservatism-free youth, the conservatism of Star Trek and my hopes for AI stagnation. Read more (17 min, 4300 words).

Review: The AI Does Not Hate You

20 March, 202020 March, 2020 ~ John Nerst ~ 4 Comments

I review Tom Chivers's book The AI Does Not Hate You, about AI risk, the rationalist community and his own process finding out whether he agrees with them. I note that I wanted to hear more about the last part, mostly because of how similar to the author I seem to be. Read more (16 min, 3900 words).

Picking Apart Eugenics

17 February, 202018 February, 2020 ~ John Nerst ~ 13 Comments

A quick-and-dirty piece on what the hell people mean by "eugenics", promted by the fallout from a tweet by Richard Dawkins. Read more(7 min, 1700 words).

It’s Not So Only

28 January, 202028 January, 2020 ~ John Nerst ~ 10 Comments

Are mental illnesses actual illnesses or are they unusual preferences? Or maybe this is a non-issue because it's only about words? Well, that's not so only. Read more (8 min, 1900 words).

The End of 2019

30 December, 201930 December, 2019 ~ John Nerst ~ 5 Comments

I try to sum up 2019, a year that started out well but took a weird turn about a third of the way through. Read more (6 min, 1400 words.)

Erisology, Round Three

22 November, 201923 November, 2019 ~ John Nerst ~ 1 Comment

Third attempt at a relatively user-friendly introduction to what "erisology" means. Read more (10 min, 2600 words).

Cat Couplings

30 October, 201930 October, 2019 ~ John Nerst ~ 15 Comments

"I prefer honest argumentation to dishonest rhetoric." Do I mean that rhetoric is essentially dishonest, or am I talking about the kind of rhetoric that's dishonest? That's a cat coupling. Read more (7 min, 1800 words).

Interpretation Matrix: Free Trade Benefits Everyone

12 September, 201912 September, 2019 ~ John Nerst ~ 6 Comments

Many disagreements are complicated by terms having several meanings. What if a claim is made up of more than one such term? How would we deal with that complexity? I look at an example about the benefits of free trade. Read more (7 min, 1800 words).

The Prince and the Figurehead

19 August, 201919 August, 2019 ~ John Nerst ~ 16 Comments

When we misrepresent other people, is it a mistake or do we do it on purpose? Neither explanation feels right to me. Rather, I think we should consider that we often perform "semitentional" actions, which is the result of our agency being more distributed than we think. Read more (6 min, 2900 words).

Posts navigation

Older posts
Newer posts
Follow Everything Studies on WordPress.com

Stuff I say on Twitter

My Tweets
Website Powered by WordPress.com.
Everything Studies
Website Powered by WordPress.com.
Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×