"Public debate is how societies do their thinking. To keep our shared belief systems functional we must know how to disagree constructively, and exactly what goes wrong when we don't do so. Why and how do communication failures make public discourse incoherent, dysfunctional, and polarized?" Competitive Sensemaking: An Upgrade to Common Sense on Disagreement is … Continue reading Competitive Sensemaking is Live
Tag: science
2025: The Final Final Year
I really mean it this time. For the last few years, these yearly summaries are the only things I've published on this once-much-more-active blog. I'm writing my book Competitive Sensemaking, which I got a grant to write back in 2022. Optimistically it looked like I could've finished it in 2023, I definitely feel I should've … Continue reading 2025: The Final Final Year
7 Unworkable Projects
I discuss seven overly ambitious projects I idly fantasize about being able to complete. Read more(20 min, 4900 words).
The Woke-up Call: A Review of Cynical Theories
A long review, with further musings, of "Cynical Theories". Read more (30 min, 7600 words).
Rereading Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate
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).
The Prince and the Figurehead
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).
In Favor of Sometimes Sounding Like a Robot
If we want to sound friendly and appealing when presenting thoughts about human behavior we should avoid analytical, distancing language. But what if the value of an analytical and distancing perspective is part of what you want to communicate? Read more (11 min, 3500 words).
The More the Merrier
I use pretty pictures to illustrate how we can use many partially overlapping belief systems to get a better image of reality than any one model can offer. Read more (4 min, 1100 words).
Facing the Elephant
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).
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).
Everything Studies 