There are many secular versions of mealtime prayers for when you want to express gratitude but don't believe in any gods. I'm not satisfied with what they choose to thank. Read more (12 min, 3100 words).
Thank The Machine
Tag: technology
Leftovers from Last Time
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
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).
My Week in the Real World
I spent a week without a smartphone, prompting nostalgia about how things used to be done in the past and thoughts about smartphone addiction and what it does to our relationship with reality. Read more (12 min, 2900 words)
Problems and Challenges
How the way consultants use words like ”problem” and ”key” makes them different from engineers and artists. Read more (1300 words)
Everything Studies 