I comment on a critical article and take the opportunity to further elaborate on decoupling, charity, bad faith motives and complex disagreements. Read more (17 min, 5800 words).
A Disagreement About Disagreement
Tag: public debate
Postscript to a Podcast
Some reflections, comments and elaborations on my appearance on the Intellectual Explorers Club Podcast. Read more (9 min, 3200 words).
A Meta-Meditation
I wrote a spontaneous piece on the tensions between cultural/intellectual accessibility and ambition that under later scrutiny wasn't quite up to snuff. Instead of publishing something sub par or discard it I used it as a jumping off point for discussing the nature of creative work, writing and thinking in general. Read more (13 min, 4200 words).
Decoupling Revisited
I pick up the "hit" concept "decoupling" from my article about Sam Harris and Ezra Klein and develop it further. There are five different ways to describe it, four categories of disagreement that builds on it, three factors that determine whether someone does it or not in a given case, two ways to handle dangerours ideas, and one new ideology needed to save political egalitarianism when the importance of biology becomes undeniable. Read more (22 min, 5500 words).
A Deep Dive into the Harris-Klein Controversy
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)
Argument Sniping
Like how an interesting brainteaser can make someone temporarily obsessed, just seeing or hearing a short statement can sometimes cause you to spend hours arguing against it in your mind.Read more (700 words)
Erisology
A new word that means ”the study of disagreement”. I think such a field is needed and has a lot of potential. Read more (2800 words)
