Notes on Notes

24 September, 202017 January, 2022 ~ Jnerst ~ 6 Comments

A tale on the nature of footnotes, writing in general, and other things, told almost entirely in footnotes. Read more (18 min, 5500 words).

Turnabout Trash: An Exercise in Lowbrow Cryptonormativism

18 August, 202017 January, 2022 ~ Jnerst ~ 11 Comments

I roleplay being a culture warrior in response to something unusually irritating, and decide not to do it again. Read more (15 min, 3800 words).

To Die Happily Ever After

29 July, 202017 January, 2022 ~ Jnerst ~ 11 Comments

I'm apprehensive about transhumanism, and have no particular desire to live forever. A big part of the reason is that I believe happiness is precarious, and our chance at achieveing it in radically altered circumstances is not great.
Read more (13 min, 2800 words).

Good vs. Good

25 June, 202017 January, 2022 ~ Jnerst ~ 16 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, 202017 January, 2022 ~ Jnerst ~ 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, 202017 January, 2022 ~ Jnerst ~ 7 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, 202017 January, 2022 ~ Jnerst ~ 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, 202017 January, 2022 ~ Jnerst ~ 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, 201917 January, 2022 ~ Jnerst ~ 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, 201917 January, 2022 ~ Jnerst ~ 1 Comment

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