The problem with the authenticity discourse is that it doesn't distinguish between character traits and values. So, who is the "real me": traits or values? I'd say it's more values than traits. People often want to change their traits. People never want to change their values.

To that Cluely guy: although attention/distribution are important, no company has ever been built on PR stunts alone. All great companies are built on brilliant ideas.

Many people ask, "Why protest Gaza when there are far worse things happening elsewhere in the world?" Well, they are, but Israel is the only democracy among those places and might actually be influenced by public pressure. In this sense, protests are a compliment.

Psychology is a very difficult science to study because you constantly have to grapple with the fact that whatever your moral beliefs are they are NOT the science of psychology. And it doesn't get any easier.

The more I study philosophy, the clearer it gets: the specific position—realism, utilitarianism, whatever—matters less than the depth of the argument. Mackie may be wrong about the error theory, but he’s a far better philosopher than most who think they’re right.

The biggest problem with human-AI alignment seems to be that humans themselves are not very well aligned. We can't expect AI to run in four conflicting directions at once and stay sane.

The biggest problem with Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning model is its one-dimensional order-chaos structure. Over the past 25 years many researchers demonstrated that the space of human values is at least two-dimensional: autonomy-security / mastery-relations.

Death gives life urgency and thus meaning is such an illogical argument. In the world without death, there will be no meaning in urgency.

Gender is not a spectrum. There are quite a few people who are both very masculine and very feminine. There are people who are neither. This isn’t really the same continuum, thus not a spectrum.

We have a gream many studies on neuroplasticity. Very few studies on neurostability though. Stability tremendously important!

https://t.co/KGir04ovCK

I've written about the rise and fall of the growth mindset on S*stack, the link is in the comments.

That sounds weirdly positive.

Most people who claim they “don’t get” contemporary art don’t get all the other art as well. It’s not like they enjoy Jaques-Louis David and that’s it. They understand what classical beauty is for, but they don’t really enjoy it. At most what they get is craft.

Yeah, let’s just all keep changing the definitions of intelligence. That will make things more clear.

Same with presentations. I was often asked how come I was so good when I really just spend an insane amount of time preparing. Cheating? Probably.

If the future is radically uncertain then why not choose the vision of the future that energizes you?

I wonder how much of the "sex recession" is just the population getting older

Many people argue that attributing part of success to luck or genes rather than putting it all on hard work undermines the value of effort. I disagree. It doesn't. What it does is prevent us from wildly over-rewarding minor differences in effort.

Cancel culture is a form of violence, btw https://t.co/dc5srMqGb9