Josh
How Surprised Would You Be?
(Follow-up to How Surprised and How Upset?) (Cross-posted here.) It can be useful to try to gauge how surprised you would be by some...
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Recent Posts
Josh
- Nov 7, 2021
- 6 min
Being Moral in a Broken World
Despite what the numerous Kant jokes would lead you to believe, deontology is persuasive. It was my favorite normative philosophy when I...
Josh
- Oct 31, 2021
- 3 min
The Dragon and the Fear
Once upon a time, the prosperous kingdom of Kingdomia sprawled out over a vast countryside. The people were happy. Their Queen was...
Josh
- Oct 19, 2021
- 2 min
A Quote by Schrödinger
Erwin Schrödinger, one of the fathers of modern physics as we know it, was an eminently brilliant man and a clever scientist. The...
Josh
- Aug 18, 2021
- 8 min
Worse Than Random
We all want to know what’s right, and to remove from our minds whatever is wrong. You might think that “wrong” is the worst thing to be,...
Josh
- Jun 13, 2021
- 7 min
Sympathy for the Devil
(Content warning: the worst things in the world, including murder, rape, genocide, and people who do these things on purpose with smiles...
Josh
- May 17, 2021
- 7 min
Murder-Ghandi and Conspiracy-Bob
(Or, "Bad Idea Radiation") Scott Alexander tells the parable of Murder-Ghandi, who starts out as regular Pacifist-Ghandi, thinks war is...
Josh
- Apr 21, 2021
- 1 min
Prisoner's Di(alogue)lemma
Every conversation is a Prisoner's Dilemma scenario. "Cooperate" is to treat your conversation partner as acting in good faith, seeking...
Josh
- Mar 28, 2021
- 7 min
Meritocracy Can't Be Bad (Contra Yglesias)
Meritocracy is under fire. Michael Sandel wrote a whole book about why it's bad. Freddy DeBoer, Daniel Markovits, and Helen Andrews all...
Josh
- Mar 21, 2021
- 3 min
How Surprised and How Upset
I’ve been playing a little game for the last few years, which I call “How Surprised and How Upset.” The game begins with me asking the...
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