Very slick technique.

This is exactly why I refuted Paul Graham’s “Good Writing” post. Zombie facts poison discourse.

A nice linguistic principle, even absent of the post’s content:

we don’t have much conscious awareness of a lot of the patterns in our own speech, let alone much insight into the reasons for them

There are two senses in which writing can be good: it can sound good, and the ideas can be right. […] I think writing that sounds good is more likely to be right.

This thought feels dangerous and is arguably wrong. He later says that this isn’t quite right, but it still feels like a bad (and arguably bit dishonest) thing to lead your essay with.

So it’s not quite right to say that better sounding writing is more likely to be true. Better sounding writing is more likely to be internally consistent. If the writer is honest, internal consistency and truth converge.

This is significantly better, but still reads as naïve. If anything, I feel like well-written stuff can make it really hard to challenge the assumptions of an argument, which in a way is its own hell. I think Graham is right to point out that clumsy writing reflects wrong ideas, and that getting rid of those errors can help you fix the ideas, but I feel like in some way, because of how the argument is framed, that this essay is self-refuting.

In this speech, I tell the story of Captain Richard de Crespigny and Qantas Flight 32, and draw from it a lesson about the power of reasons. I hope you enjoy the speech and find it stimulating.

This is a video lecture on chapter 17, titled “Values in a Scientific World”, of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book, ‘Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?’ The argument that this chapter considers is one that claims that if one follow’s Occam’s Razor, then one ought to reject the reality of objective moral facts or laws. This is an argument for moral skepticism, and Shafer-Landau offers several responses to it and in defense of moral objectivism. In the end, he claims that this use of occam’s razor defeats itself. This lecture is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

Occam’s razor applies only to descriptive facts, not normative ones.

This is a lecture about chapter 14 of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book ‘Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?’ This chapter is about the popular argument that starts from the claim that there is persistent disagreement about moral matters to the conclusion that there are no objective moral facts or laws. Shafer-Landau is able to turn this argument against moral skepticism itself. This is a pretty long video lecture, but I spend a lot of time modifying the argument, which should be helpful in learning how to deal with arguments themselves. This is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

This is a lecture about chapter 11 of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book ‘Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?’ It deals with Moral Skepticism, Moral Nihilism, Moral Subjectivism, Moral Relativism, as well as the global versions of all of these views, which are self-defeating. All of the uses of “Moral” are understood as equivalent to “Ethical”. This lecture is part of an introductory-level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

This is a short lecture video about a common argument that one often hears for the claim the truth of some claims are relative. The argument stems from the fact that different people have different perspectives and that those different perspectives are, in some sense, equal. All that is true, but it does not show the matters about which people have different perspectives are not factual matters regarding which some beliefs are simply truth and others simply false.

Some modern writings on the implications of “On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives” for the Kantian. You cannot lie, but the categorical imperative does not beget you yo give useful information or unnecessarily share your thoughts.

SKINNER: So, it’s no lies for the Kantian, but sometimes misleading truths are in order.

KLEMPNER: In a world where all our choices are determined by game theory (including the choice whether to tell the truth or tell a lie) something precious has been lost, the foundation of our ability to communicate with one another. That’s the point Kant is making.

Ever feel like the mathematics you’re learning doesn’t make any sense to you? Good. In a way, it would’ve been worse if you thought it did make sense.

Slime Molt Time Mold would be very interested in procedural rhetoric in order to help people learn cybernetics.

How to be taken seriously

The writer Ta-Nehisi Coates joins Ezra Klein on the show to discuss how the left should think about the work of politics and persuasion in this moment.

In which Ezra Klein partly redeems himself.

Excellent deconstruction of the book that birthed the self-help industry and the deeply insecure man who wrote it.

By ignoring the rhetoric and actions of the Turning Point USA founder, pundits and politicians are sanitizing his legacy.

No paywall: https://archive.is/20251003102345/https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/charlie-kirk-ezra-klein-tanehisi-coates

We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply.

The point is that the possibility of overreach is a price worth paying exactly because shame serves as a robustly liberal alternative to the political violence that Klein and company rightly abhor. It is, quite literally, the least one can do to ensure rules of social conduct that upheld minimal levels of dignity for all involved.

Great stuff.

The first psychology rebuttal I’ve ever read.

via: https://www.nature.com/articles/mp201723

The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in politics without fear of violence. To lose that is to risk losing everything.

In which I somehow lose all respect for Ezra Klein.

Don’t get distracted.

Adding a bit of systems rigor to the notion “why don’t you see it my way.”