Wanted: Cynic Textbooks
People have a variety of motives for their actions. Actions vary in how verbal or symbolic they are, and motives vary in how explicit, conscious, and proximate to action they are. Motives also vary in...
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When Myths Meet Tech
A standard story: In the bad old days, police gave lip service to law, but actually often looked the other way, issued street justice, planted evidence, or lied under oath, all to implement their own...
View ArticleDifference Wisdom
Seek serenity to accept what you cannot change, courage to change what you can, and wisdom to know the difference. Imagine that you were thinking of buying or building a house. Now consider various...
View ArticleHail Survivalists
Two recent articles on survivalists: “From the outside, Jerry Erwin’s home … is a nondescript house … But tucked away out of sight in his backyard are the signs of his preparations for doomsday, a...
View ArticleCynicism Is Near And Far
People seem to find it easier to be idealistic about social institutions and practices in which they are not greatly involved. It seems easier for non-soldiers to be idealistic about the military, for...
View ArticleLife Is Good
At Sunday’s meetup, some folks expressed surprise that I seemed nicer, softer, and less cynical in person, relative to my writings. I do often take “cynical” positions, in the sense of assigning low...
View ArticleFairy Tales Were Cynical
A recent New Yorker article on fairy tales fascinated me (quotes below). Apparently the fairy tales once “told at rural firesides” were for adults, full of sex and violence, and cynical – they did not...
View ArticleWriters Focus On Topic Or Audience?
Writers must attend both to their topic, and to their audience. They must learn things both about the topics on which they write, and about the people who will evaluate their writings. But to which of...
View ArticleWho Wants Standards?
Most of us live in worlds of conversation, like books or blogs or chats, where we tend to give many others the benefit of the doubt that they are mostly talking “in good faith.” We don’t just talk to...
View ArticleHow Idealists Aid Cheaters
Humans have long used norms to great advantage to coordinate behavior. Each norm requires or prohibits certain behavior in certain situations, and the norm system requires that others who notice norm...
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