Why are the far left and far right always authoritarian? Bad ideas only persist through the use of force, whereas good ideas persist through utility. This also explains why libertarians at their extremes have so little influence. Bad ideas without the use of force fail to

A midwit wants to be the smartest person in the room, whereas a genius prefers to be the dumbest person in the room. This difference explains why B people hire mostly C people, and A people hire mostly A people. Be careful who you allocate hiring decisions too, as over time the

There is nothing more indecisive than a group of people pleasers with different preferences.

Engineering is problem solving. Software is a useful toolkit. AI provides a more powerful set of tools. The best problem solvers will still be the best, regardless of the available tools.

Optimal selection pressure is the closest we can get to Maxwell's demon. It preferences the persistence of ordered things (low entropy) over random things (high entropy). Unfortunately we can't break the 2nd law by just cranking up the selection. Something always has to persist,

Truth and meritocracy are both ideals we can never truly reach, as we don't have perfect information. However the closer we get the better the outcome. The biggest mistake you can make is to underestimate the importance of each because you know they can't be perfectly achieved.

Your ability to understand reality accurately is determined by the accuracy of the information you consume. Your subjective sense of morality is built upon your aggregate understanding. Objective morality is the moral reference frame of someone with a 100% true understanding.

I think I understand why collectivists are attracted to moral relativism. What matters most to them is alignment with the group, not the group's alignment with reality. Collectivists often rely on the resources produced by others. If they align their morals with the group they

Free speech is critical because hearing all perspectives allows us to navigate closer to truth. Using the concept of free speech to defend the existence of echochambers undermines its entire purpose. That being said, echochambers should not be broken by censoring their

A long long time ago, one very brave and effectively altruistic amoeba stood up against those aiming to develop multi cellular life and proclaimed: "If anyone builds it, everyone dies!"

As the cost to send a message goes to 0, so does the signal to noise ratio. If I have a message I think someone would want to receive, I should be able to pay to get that message through. If they don't find the message useful, then at least they are compensated for their

Richard Sutton "I think pure RL is difficult or impossible because we can't define general purpose reward functions" Most cases of RL get stuck up on this, though there is a way around. There is a goal which all life shares, which is persistence. Any life without this goal ceased to exist a

The great attractor for all problem solvers is AI. There is no more alluring problem to solve than solving problem solving itself.