I reread a book that influenced me a lot when I was younger and review it. Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate by Ullica Segerstråle chronicles the intense discussion in the wake of E.O Wilson's book "Sociobiology" from 1975. Read more (20 min, 5100 words).
I read The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson and discuss its implications for the structure of the mind (and how I was wrong about it), our tendency to value loyalty over expertise, my own blindness, and the future of institutions. Read more (27 min, 6800 words).
A long postmortem of the conflict between Sam Harris and Ezra Klein over Harris's podcast with political scientist Charles Murray. I explain their disagreement as stemming from differences in interpretation of the original podcast, cultural expectations and psychological tendencies. Read more (36 min, 9100 words)
In response to an article by Kevin Simler I complain about how often people mistake "selfishness" in an evolutionary sense for selfishness in the normal sense. Read more (12 min, 2900 words).
An article I received from the future, making a passionate argument about gene editing and inequality. Read more (5 min, 1200 words)
Part 4 of a series adapted from my 2009 Bachelor's Thesis in philosophy. It discusses some scientific disciplines with bearing on the self, and how their results are interpreted differently by the traditional paradigm vs. the scientific. Read more (11 min, 2700 words)
I could have had a female identical twin. What would she have looked like?Read more (500 words)
Everything Studies 