Does Genius Exist?
Does genius exist? I would argue that it does, but not in the way our society imagines it. Our society holds the notion that people like Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, or Andrew Wiles are natural...
View ArticleThe Time I Ruined Programming
Part I: The Personal I remember the time I ruined programming. It was long enough ago (and I recovered) that I’m no longer embarrassed by the fact. Nearly all programmers have slowdowns and periods...
View ArticleFascism– and What I Learned By Struggling Against It
According to this article from Business Insider, Trump has become subdued. He’s not tweeting about “Rocket Man” or making racist comments on the Internet. This is the new standard. Let’s say that Trump...
View ArticleStartups Don’t Fail (Or Succeed) Well
I’ve said more than my piece about startups, and here I include billion-dollar ex-startups that IPO’d decades ago, and more generally I intend to speak about the Silicon Valley culture. These...
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Back
What a winter it’s been. Not the weather. That’s been mild. Too mild. I miss the Midwestern winter, with its perfect 23 °F (-5 °C) days and snow. No, what has happened over the past few months hasn’t...
View ArticleThe Talent Crash
Most of us assume when we talk about technology that, while jobs will be automated out of existence and technological unemployment will be an issue, it’ll most likely be someone else’s problem. At...
View ArticleTechnological Unemployment: Yes, It’s Our Problem Too
Software engineers and people who work for technology companies tend to think of technological unemployment as an issue that affects “other people”, but not us. We, the symbolic manipulators with...
View ArticleBig Reputation: the Mark of the Beast, Macho Subordinacy, and the Masculine...
I have a new theory, and a more sympathetic one, about the new American conservative movement, sometimes called “economic populism”, and what “Making America Great Again” was really, for many voters,...
View ArticleNine Selves and the Hero’s Journey
Staged models of human development occur throughout philosophy, psychology, and religion. Kierkegaard said we were aesthetic, then ethical, then religious. Piaget focused on a child’s cognitive...
View ArticleThe Green Pill: the Case for Doing the Right Thing; Why Feminism Is Good for...
Fifteen years ago, I got taken in by the male grievance cult and swallowed its nonsense whole: pickup artists, Chads, dual mating strategies… all that garbage, though we had different names for the...
View ArticleIncel: the Strange Identity That Became a Weapon Against Feminism
The incels are coming. Hide the socks. The word incel means different things to different people, which makes for dangerous discussions. On the surface, all it takes to qualify as an incel is to be...
View ArticleWhy 95 Percent of Software Engineers Lose Nothing By Unionizing
Should software engineers unionize? I can’t give a simple answer to this. There are advantages and disadvantages to enrolling in a collective bargaining arrangement. If the disadvantages didn’t exist,...
View ArticleTwo Updates
I’ve updated the rules document for Ambition. I detected, after running some simulations, some simplifications to scoring that can be made without materially affecting the game. Barring extreme and...
View ArticleWhy I’m not using a traditional publisher to launch Farisa’s Crossing.
As I write this sentence, it’s June 30, 2018– 300 days before I launch Farisa’s Crossing, on April 26, 2019. A few months ago, I decided to self publish the book. I realized that I wasn’t even going to...
View ArticleDon’t Be Like Ajay
There’s a lot of bad career advice out there, but the worst of it comes from people who’ve been successful at private-sector social climbing. Blind to their own privilege, and invested in the perverse...
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Computing From the Middle Out, Part 1: Why Turing Machines Matter
While you’re here: my novel, Farisa’s Crossing will come out on April 26, 2019. Computers have an undeserved reputation for being unpredictable, complicated beasts. I’m going to argue that, to the...
View ArticleBefore Supporting Capitalism, Be Sure If You’re An Actual Capitalist
I am, for the most part, a socialist. I do not believe the principles of rationality, equality, and liberty should be limited to national governments. Once employers get large– say, more than $25...
View ArticleHow To Destroy Everything
I don’t know you, but if you’re reading this manual, I can assume that you’re an immortal being of pure hatred. You view humans, the only sapient life form in your corner of the universe, with...
View ArticleAnother One…
Today started as a good day. I got up, as usual, at 3:30 in the morning. I continued my work on Farisa’s Crossing. Got a lot done. I’ve always had confidence in my writing itself, but recently I hit an...
View ArticleAmerican Fascism 1– What Is Fascism, and How Did It Get Here?
Part 1 Part 2 This series of essays shall cover one of the most depressing topics I’ve ever written about: fascism. The truth is, I’ve been writing and rewriting “the fascism essay” for almost two...
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