Totally by chance I decided to read this post, first thing in the morning (in other words, also first thing in 2025).
I must say that despite the rather negative or snarky comments here I have found more depth in this text than what I expected to find. Went to read a couple of other texts from this young engineer, and it filled me with some optimism for the year to come.
I don't agree. You know recently I read this post critiquing my article saying how I have so many followers and it's probably because of my clickbait titles. No, that's just who I am. I don't think popularity changes writers that much. Humans tend to write about the same things over and over. So when you initially follow someone it feels new but after a while it gets predictable. Plus there's probably a bit of nostalgia in there too.
yeah I'm worried it could be me getting bored instead of the writers getting boring, but nobody could look at the writing in The Black Swan vs Skin in the Game and not be able to tell the huge difference in fluency, coherence, and beauty.
I like this article. I got several interesting ideas to think about now, for example
>In order to do good work, scientists must retain a separate status hierarchy where prestige flows to the most innovative ideas, not the most popular ones. In order to defend this separate status hierarchy
I also liked contrasting 4chan with 1-to-1 correspondence
> writers who for a time seemed to be The Writer In the World Most In Touch With The Truth - Noam Chomsky, Sam Harris, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Curtis Yarvin, and Jordan Peterson.
Curtis Yarvin, IIRC in that same avatar of Moldbug, has actively advocated for the morality of slavery. There is no point in reasoning with that, there is literally only war.
Which is kind of a shame, because the top-level article does have some interesting ideas. I hope the author is just young and undiscerning and doesn't actually support the kind of things Yarvin stands for. But also, being a monster doesn't stop anyone from having the occasional interesting idea, so who knows.
While “write to the single smartest person you know who cares a lot about your topic of interest” is a good advice, if you publish what you write this approach requires a healthy-to-unhealthy degree of sociopathy that becomes less common or tenable with age, by my subjective estimation.
If you publish something, you by definition intend people you do not know, the wider public, to read it (if you really wanted to share your thought with that one person, publishing is not required).
Choosing to do something that affects someone else while being unaffected by how they react is not normal and indicates sociopathy.
People paying attention to how they affect others, how others react, and changing as a result of their feedback is basically how society exists. Most people are wired for this. People who are not wired for this… There is nothing stopping them from hurting someone for personal benefit, for example.
Readit News
I must say that despite the rather negative or snarky comments here I have found more depth in this text than what I expected to find. Went to read a couple of other texts from this young engineer, and it filled me with some optimism for the year to come.
>In order to do good work, scientists must retain a separate status hierarchy where prestige flows to the most innovative ideas, not the most popular ones. In order to defend this separate status hierarchy
I also liked contrasting 4chan with 1-to-1 correspondence
Curtis Yarvin? Excuse me?
Really thoughtful comment, that shows us the core of your objection: nothing.
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/09/how-dawkins...
Which is kind of a shame, because the top-level article does have some interesting ideas. I hope the author is just young and undiscerning and doesn't actually support the kind of things Yarvin stands for. But also, being a monster doesn't stop anyone from having the occasional interesting idea, so who knows.
Choosing to do something that affects someone else while being unaffected by how they react is not normal and indicates sociopathy.
People paying attention to how they affect others, how others react, and changing as a result of their feedback is basically how society exists. Most people are wired for this. People who are not wired for this… There is nothing stopping them from hurting someone for personal benefit, for example.
Dead Comment