Just a few.
• Good Samaritan Watch. Whenever a Talk 10(h) violation makes it into the news (i.e., slips past the mainstream-media watchdogs while one of them is distracted or dozing), I get a slew of emails congratulating me on the quality of my advice.
Here is the latest instance, a particularly nasty one. Thanks to all readers who alerted me to it.
https://t.co/cfFBlt6Z0k So much for helping anyone anymore. SaltySusan -Florida MAGA - Family, God & Integrity (@Susan77237285) May 23, 2021
•
India s diversity. Concerning my observations on the amazing diversity of India, a Jewish friend emailed in to tell me I don t know the half of it.
Did 4 per cent of Americans really drink bleach last year?
2 May, 2021 09:44 PM
6 minutes to read
According to the report, 4 per cent of the respondents stated that they had drunk or gargled diluted bleach in the past month. Photo / 123RF
According to the report, 4 per cent of the respondents stated that they had drunk or gargled diluted bleach in the past month. Photo / 123RF
Harvard Business Review
By: Rachel Ernstoff Early in the summer of 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report on unsafe coronavirus prevention practices in the US According to the report, 4 per cent of the
Let s talk about the grand
Slate Star Codex brouhaha.
A lot of people have already written about this. Here is the original
New Yorker essay from last June is probably the best “neutral” piece that has been written yet; If you do not know anything about
Slate Star Codex or why so many people are writing about it now, start there. Sebastian Benthall s commentary is also a very good middle ground analysis.[4]
I am sure there has been a great deal of debate on twitter as well. I have not read it and thus cannot link to it: I unfollowed everyone on Twitter except a handful of newspapers and thus dwell in blissful ignorance. Indeed, from the perspective of one slowly letting go of Twitter following this debate has been great fun. Linking to all those blogs and substacks feels like reliving a memory from an older, better internet.
Silicon Valley s safe space
Cade Metz, New York Times
Feb. 13, 2021
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FILE Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, in New York, Jan. 7, 2017. The blog Slate Star Codex, written by a Bay Area psychiatrist, became the epicenter of a community called the Rationalists and a window into the psyche of many tech leaders. Then it disappeared. (Andrew White/The New York Times)Andrew White/NYT
The website had a homely, almost slapdash design with a light blue banner and a strange name: Slate Star Codex.
It was nominally a blog, written by a Bay Area psychiatrist who called himself Scott Alexander (a near anagram of Slate Star Codex). It was also the epicenter of a community called the Rationalists, a group that aimed to reexamine the world through cold and careful thought.
Last night, it occurred to me that despite how disjointed it feels, the
New York Times piece does have a central thesis: namely, that rationalism is a “gateway drug” to dangerous beliefs. And that thesis is 100% correct insofar as
once you teach people that they can think for themselves about issues of consequence, some of them might think bad things. It’s just that many of us judge the benefit worth the risk!
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
Back in June,
New York Times technology reporter Cade Metz, who I’d previously known from his reporting on quantum computing, told me that he was writing a story about Scott Alexander, Slate Star Codex, and the rationalist community. Given my position as someone who