speak_plainly

It is an over simplification but Rousseau does paint this picture of humanity's natural goodness corrupted by society, or what the author calls circumstance. This idea is a cornerstone of the Discourse on Inequality and Émile.

Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men (1755) - “Nothing is more gentle than man in his primitive state… he is restrained by natural pity from doing harm to others.”

Émile, or On Education (1762) - “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man.”

Confessions (1782–89) - “I have displayed myself as I was, vile and despicable when I was so, good, generous, sublime when I was so; I have unveiled my interior being.”

For Rousseau, humans possess innate moral sentiment, society corrupts through things like comparison, and the good life is maintained by being true to one's natural self.

I also think the focus of this little essay is about contrasting two modern identities, the expressive self and the performative and productive self, and isn't steeped in moral psychology. Bringing Aristotle into this is wholly anachronistic and misses the point.

There was a time when the algorithm was truly amazing and the recommendations were smart, spot-on, and mostly high quality. I don't know what happened but you have to search now for decent content.

The recommendations part of YouTube just seems to give me old content or will show me things I've already watched. Despite it feeling almost user-hostile, I still use Youtube,

Don't let AI tell you how to vote.

Vote a priori.

Sentiment deceives, data misleads, and experience is fallible.

The rational candidate reveals himself only to those aligned with reason and the Good.

Humans have a tendency to embed their cognition in the world, this is probably one of our greatest strengths as a species.

AI allows for you to offload a lot of cognitive effort, allowing you to free up your mind, but the only catch is that AI can be politicized and more confident than accurate.

If AI companies can focus on improving accuracy on facts and make their AI more philosophically grounded on the rest, it would allow people to free up their minds for their immediate real lives.

Don't mistake thinking for intelligence.

It feels like a handful of billionaires and politicians recently decided that the world’s problems aren’t rooted in them or the systems that elevated them. Since the system worked for them, it must be sound; the problem must be everyone else. Their solution seems to be more control, more oversight, and a few technocratic tweaks. And if we just let them keep steering society, utopia is right around the corner.

The real question is whether 1 + 1 = 2 is true independent of us recognizing it. If the answer is no, then math really is just a system of ideas, and you’ve slipped into psychologism, where truth depends on minds.

But take one thing and then another: you have two things. That’s true whether or not anyone notices. Some mathematics is a human system of ideas, but some of it isn’t. Arithmetic reflects real patterns in the world. Logic, too, is not merely invention, it formalizes cause and effect. Numbers, in the Pythagorean sense, aren’t just marks on paper or symbols of order; they are the order inherent in reality, the ratios and structures through which the world exists at all.

At bottom, this debate is about the logos: what makes the universe intelligible at all, and why it isn’t simply chaos. When people say “math is real,” they mean it in the Platonic sense, not that numbers are rocks, but that they belong to the intelligible structure underlying reality.

God enters the picture not as a bolt-on explanation, but as the consequence of taking mathematical order seriously. If numbers and geometry are woven into reality itself, then the question isn’t whether math is real, it’s why the universe is structured so that it can be read mathematically at all. Call that intelligible ground the logos, or call it God; either way, it’s not an extra mystery but the recognition that reason and order are built into the world.

Calling math “just useful” misses the point. Why is the universe so cooperative with our inventions in the first place? The deeper issue is the logos: that the world is intelligible rather than chaos. That’s what people mean when they say math is real, not that numbers are physical things, but that the order they reveal is woven into reality itself.

Canadian tech job postings on Indeed plunged after a post-pandemic boom and have been quite weak since mid-2023. As of early August 2025, they were down 19% from their early-2020 levels, though the decline has been somewhat milder than in several other advanced economies, including the US and UK.

Steve was aiming at creating “a single piece of glass you can use to read email on the toilet.”

Obviously that goal was achieved but the direction the iPad went in was different than its minimalist and cheap original trajectory.

Adding a stylus and all the ‘Pro’ stuff confused what the iPad originally was, and now it’s more closely aligned with a new form-factor MacBook with a limited OS.

Maybe Steve would have gone a different way, but perhaps all computing devices are destined for the same convergent evolution … a kind of carcinization of form factors and purposes.

Banning pornography alone hasn’t moved the needle on fertility in China. However, in places like Tianmen, where broader pro-natalist strategies were implemented, including porn bans, there’s evidence those multi-pronged efforts had measurable impact.

What’s less clear is the claim that pornography is inherently harmful to children’s development or wellbeing, the research is mixed at best. And the justification that age-gating websites and apps is purely about safety remains deeply unconvincing.

So then either this effort is misguided, a hollow gesture for optics, or a small piece of a broader agenda that hasn’t been made explicit. It just seems to me that this is creating a lot of chaos for a hollow gesture.

“It’s for your own good” is always a laughable argument.

The state doesn’t regulate these things to protect people, it does so to manage risk to itself. Porn, guns, gambling, tobacco, alcohol, etc., are tolerated so long as they are contained, taxable, and politically useful.

Regulating porn is this system likely trying to move the needle on declining birth rates. You can look to a host of pro-natalist efforts in China as the likely inspiration.

And without a doubt, overreach by governments will continue.

Related: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/valve-confirms-cr...

Disagreement about facts is not new and you're assuming too much about how truth operates in public discourse.

Obviously, facts matter but disagreement is rarely about facts themselves. What counts as 'fact' is often embedded in a web of assumptions, models, and values. A lot of what passes as fact are merely claims dressed up as indisputable but often laden with interpretation, ideology, or selective framing.

To say there's 'no productive discussion' unless facts are agreed upon is to misunderstand how knowledge and consensus actually work. History shows that productive discourse often begins in spite of disagreement over facts. Scientific progress, legal systems, and democratic deliberation rely not on perfect consensus but on procedures that tolerate disagreement and test claims over time.

Labeling something as 'misinformation' may feel like asserting the truth, but epistemologically it's simple a kind of speech act... one that can shut down inquiry rather than promote it. It assumes a finality that's likely not justified, and worse, it can become a tool of political expedience. This is especially dangerous when wielded by institutions that are pursuing their own interests, are fallible, or are compromised.

The path to truth is not paved with censorship and labeling. It's built through dialogue, humility, and robust mechanisms for testing competing claims. Dissent is not the enemy of truth, it's often the precondition.

The core of the problem lies not in facts failing to persuade, but in our obsession with trying to change minds.

We've developed systems to facilitate this. Parliamentary debate, for instance, was meant to force parties to justify their positions through public reasons, not private convictions. Religious institutions, too, have long shaped minds with varying degrees of success.

But attempts to reshape humanity, especially on a grand scale, have consistently produced devastating and unintended consequences.

We now live in an age where political expedience trumps truth; what matters is not whether something is right, but whether it plays well. The public is expected to absorb politicized half-truths while being shielded from the real issues....because complexity isn’t expedient. The current obsession with labeling ideas as “misinformation” or “disinformation” is a desperate, often incoherent attempt to control discourse, and it breeds more cynicism than clarity.

In the end, good ideas tend to survive, but not on any schedule we can manage. Trying to micromanage thought or the flow of information is not only futile, it’s unworthy of the very rationality we claim to protect.

The cynic in me thinks that destinations/countries are going to have to pay an influencer tax and have a strong social media policy that works to direct/redirect and educate potential tourists. Japan needs to start spreading tourism a bit more evenly across the country. They could probably work with hotels to use pricing to even out visitors. But you’re right, this is a huge problem that goes well beyond Japan.

I just got back from Japan, and even though it wasn’t peak season, the effects of overtourism were immediately apparent.

The main driver seems to be social media, obviously not unique to Japan but is really blatant. Tourists were chasing selfies and videos at iconic locations they’d seen online, rarely venturing beyond those well-known spots. This creates heavy congestion and puts strain on specific neighborhoods and landmarks. In the West, TikTok appears to be the biggest influence; among Chinese tourists, the app Xiaohongshu (Rednote) by plays a similar role. The result is a tourism culture shaped less by genuine interest or curiosity and more by curated photo ops.

Japan faces unique challenges in managing the surge in tourism. Despite the modern and cosmopolitan feel of its cities, the culture remains markedly different: socially conservative and culturally illiberal. Xenophobia and racial bias are not uncommon, and nationalist political voices have increasingly framed tourists as scapegoats for a range of domestic issues. At the same time, the country lacks sufficient infrastructure to support the growing number of visitors. In Kyoto, for example, the city’s bus system is frequently overwhelmed…you could almost argue that separate systems for locals and tourists are needed.

Many tourists also appear unprepared, I admittedly was completely unprepared for the weather. Japan is not an easy place to navigate culturally, and some visitors behave with surprising ignorance or entitlement, especially at temples and shrines. There’s a tendency to treat the country like a kind of Disneyland, an exoticized backdrop for social media content, rather than a living culture with its own rules, rhythms, and expectations. This contributes to growing resentment, particularly in a society where individuals are often viewed in terms of the groups they represent. One tourist’s behavior can easily become a reflection on all.

There’s no easy solution. But it’s clear that both travelers and destinations need to rethink their relationship. Tourism should be approached with more awareness, humility, and a willingness to engage with complexity, not just consume it.

I’m just going to throw out some wild speculation: perhaps this is a negotiating threat used when playing hardball on expenses with the two or three corporations that are contracted to reverse engineer non-human technologies.

This is a midwit-level take on Plato.

Arguments:

Plato is responsible for a dualistic model of mind and matter that hampers our thinking today.

Plato had an unrealistic ideal of what knowledge is.

Plato had weird methodological assumptions.

There are real criticisms you could make about Plato and his work, but this misses the mark by miles.

Given our limited success in understanding the communication of non-human species (despite sharing evolutionary ancestry) our chances of meaningfully communicating with an alien species are likely near zero, unless they take the lead in bridging the gap.

We often assume that language, a distinctly human trait, is a prerequisite for intelligence or success, but it may be unique to us. Even on our own planet, no other species demonstrates the capacity for language.

Architectural brief: Roman Basilica museum

1. Please include round arches.

2. Brick.

Be thankful that not everything turns out the way you want it to...it means you're not trapped by the limits of your own vision. And recognize that the future is just imagination. Stay open to the possibilities..the universe is not closing in on you, it's opening pathways you've yet to see.

One thing that helps is to be charitable.

Ideas in general are difficult to express and people struggle with conveying them separately from their private ideas, personal experiences, and personal reasons for believing what they believe.

If you want to be a good interlocutor, you have to deeply absorb what the other person is thinking and sometimes even help them develop their understanding with the hope that others can do the same for you. We are all toddlers at times.

If you look at Frege’s original logical notation, all logical operators (apart from negation) reduce to conditional (‘if–then’) statements. Perhaps mathematics mirrors the cause-and-effect structure of reality, similar to Hume’s idea of causation as empirical regularity. Numbers could then be understood as convenient fictional tools, while logical operators capture something genuinely real about how the world itself works. I'm no mathematician, but it's just a thought.

Imagine if they had read something like Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming.

Instead of creating a digital whip for shallow (or even outright harmful) managers, they could have developed a QA tool grounded in real, deep thinking—one that respects proven principles of manufacturing.

There’s still time to course-correct, and embracing some of the foundational literature on the topic could make the difference.

It’s revealing that the authors have fashioned Scientific Materialism into a straw man, misrepresenting both materialism and the philosophical foundations of science. Their portrayal suggests either a fundamental misunderstanding or a deception. They frame quantum mechanics as if it dismantles the very notion of material reality, when in fact it merely challenges classical intuitions about how that reality operates.

While quantum mechanics introduces concepts such as nonlocality and indeterminacy, it does not abolish causality or the objective structure of reality. On the contrary, it is grounded in a rigorous mathematical framework that remains predictive, testable, and deeply embedded within the scientific enterprise. The attempt to paint quantum physics as something wholly alien to material reality ignores the fact that it extends, rather than overturns, the physical sciences. And this is just an issue with their premises–it doesn’t even begin to address their misuse of quantum mechanics.

Beyond their misrepresentation of materialism, this argument falls into a familiar epistemic trap–one that has persisted since Descartes’ animal spirits: the problem of interaction. If one claims that quantum mechanics points to a realm beyond the material world, they must provide a coherent, testable account of how this realm interacts with observable phenomena. Without that, these claims remain speculative, and any experiments purportedly supporting them are meaningless.

Here’s a critical examination of Bergson worth reading: https://ia803207.us.archive.org/31/items/jstor-27900381/2790...

This is an example of ellipsis, a common feature in informal English and news headlines.

It's also an example of pragmatics, specifically a conversational implicature, where the omission is forcing the reader to rely on the context of the sentence to fill in the blank or derive the meaning.

So while you are correct about the grammar, language use is often more complicated in practice.

I’ve had great success with ChatGPT 4 writing some simple Python scripts and it has really helped speed up my workflow and helped me address issues as they cropped up. I did have trouble when I tried to get it to integrate and combine all these scripts into one larger one but I’m sure with some work I could get things working. Perhaps there are issues with the code (and I’m a certain kind of user) but I really just care about the output and having this assistance has been a godsend for me.

Add this to the list of issues:

“macOS Sonoma 14.4 Bug 'Destroys Saved Versions in iCloud Drive'”

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/19/sonoma-bug-destroys-sav...

Time in this context is just an arbitrary measurement. Like extrapolating the calendar back to the Big Bang which is when space/time began, another way to think about time.

From what I’ve heard, it’s a terminological issue. Asking if the government is hiding products of inter-dimensional entities might yield a different answer. You have to use some very narrow or exact terminology.