Astral Codex Ten Podcast
[I haven’t independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can’t guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this.]
info_outline Contra DeBoer On Temporal CopernicanismAstral Codex Ten Podcast
Freddie deBoer He argues we shouldn’t expect a singularity, apocalypse, or any other crazy event in our lifetimes. Discussing celebrity transhumanist Yuval Harari, he writes: What I want to say to people like Yuval Harari is this. The modern human species is about 250,000 years old, give or take 50,000 years depending on who you ask. Let’s hope that it keeps going for awhile - we’ll be conservative and say 50,000 more years of human life. So let’s just throw out 300,000 years as the span of human existence, even though it could easily be 500,000 or a million or more. Harari's...
info_outline Your Book Review: The Pale KingAstral Codex Ten Podcast
[This is one of the finalists in the 2024 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I’ll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you’ve read them all, I’ll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked] For the longest time, I avoided reading The Pale King. It wasn’t the style—in places thick with the author’s characteristic footnotes, sentences that run for pages, and spasms of dense technical language. Nor was it the subject matter—the book is set at an IRS Center and tussles with...
info_outline Highlights From The Comments On "Sorry You Feel That Way"Astral Codex Ten Podcast
[Original post .] Aeon : The main complaint about this expression is that it’s “not a real apology,” and that’s true, it isn’t. The error is in thinking it is therefore a fake apology. But it isn’t, because “I’m sorry” is not a statement of contrition, it’s a statement of sorrow. Somehow everyone has gotten confused into thinking an apology is the only correct use for that phrase despite the plain meaning of the words. This is the comment that best expresses what I wished I’d said at the beginning.
info_outline Interview Day At Thiel CapitalAstral Codex Ten Podcast
You look up from your massive mahogany desk. “Tom, right? Thank you for coming…hmm…I see you’re applying for the role of Vice-President Of Sinister Plots. Your resume looks very impressive - I didn’t even know any of the masterminds behind the Kennedy assassination were still alive.” “That’s what we want you to think,” says Tom. “Of course. Then just one question for you. What’s something you believe, that very few people agree with you on?” “I think we’re in a simulation.” “Hm, yes, that was very shocking and heterodox back in 2012. But here at Thiel Capital...
info_outline Your Book Review: The History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in EuropeAstral Codex Ten Podcast
Finalist #11 in the Book Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2024 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I’ll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you’ve read them all, I’ll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked] 1. The Supernatural is Dead April, 1861 was a cruel month. The American Civil War had just started, and across the Atlantic, high in a remote valley in the western Alps, in the old market town of Morzines, another war was raging, this one pitting...
info_outline In Defense Of "I'm Sorry You Feel That Way"Astral Codex Ten Podcast
And its cousin, "I'm sorry if you're offended" . They say it’s a fake apology that only gets used to dismiss others’ concerns. Well, I’m sorry they feel that way. People sometimes get sad or offended by appropriate/correct/reasonable actions: Maybe one of your family members makes an unreasonable demand (“Please lend me lots of money to subsidize my drug addiction”), you say no, and they say they feel like you don’t love them. Maybe you speak out against a genocidal aggressive war. Someone complains that their family member died fighting in that war. They accuse you of...
info_outline Your Book Review: The Complete Rhyming Dictionary and Poet's Craft Book (1936 Edition)Astral Codex Ten Podcast
Finalist #10 in the Book Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2024 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I’ll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you’ve read them all, I’ll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked] I. Suppose you were a newcomer to English literature, and having heard of this artistic device called ‘poetry’, wondered what it was all about and where it came from. You might start by looking up some examples of poetry from each...
info_outline The Compounding LoopholeAstral Codex Ten Podcast
Now that we’ve gone over , let’s get back to the economics. , we asked - how will the economy handle a $12,000/year drug that everyone wants? Now we have an answer: the compounding loophole.
info_outline Lukianoff And Defining Cancel CultureAstral Codex Ten Podcast
In , I said that part of opposing cancel culture is to rigorously define it. Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE, . His definition, first mentioned in his book , is: Cancel Culture is the uptick, beginning around 2014 and accelerating in 2017 and after, of campaigns to get people fired, disinvited, deplatformed, or otherwise punished for speech that is — or would be — protected by First Amendment standards, and the climate of fear and conformity that has resulted from this uptick. When I talk about wanting to “rigorously define it”, I don’t just mean the kind of definition you would...
info_outline[This is one of the finalists in the 2024 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I’ll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you’ve read them all, I’ll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked]
Content warning: body horror, existential devastation, suicide. This book is an infohazard that will permanently alter your view of paraplegia.
The Death of a Newly-Paraplegic Philosopher
For me, paraplegia and life itself are not compatible. This is not life, it is something else.
In May of 2006, philosophy student Clayton Schwartz embarks on a Pan-American motorcycle trip for the summer before law school. He is 30 years old and in peak physical condition.
He makes it as far south as Acapulco in Mexico before crashing into a donkey that had wandered into the road.
The impact crushes his spinal cord at the T5 vertebra, rendering him paralyzed from the nipples down.
On Sunday, February 24, 2008, he commits suicide.
In the year and a half in between, he writes Two Arms and a Head, his combination memoir and suicide note.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-two-arms-and-a-head