Reading
On books, reading, and writers.
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Why We Die: Venki Ramakrishnan on the science of longevity
In Why We Die, Venki Ramakrishnan looks at longevity, and whether there may be a way to extend it. I’ve talked with Ramakrishnan a few…
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God On Their Side: Wrong but powerful beliefs
Suppose that we face some horrific, terrible enemy, another Hitler or something really, really bad, and here’s two different armies that we could use to…
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Shaman: Kim Stanley Robinson’s paleolithic novel
Nothing remains of the millions of brilliant men and women who lived before we invented writing. A few cave paintings and some carved figurines are…
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Finite and Infinite Games
In this little book, James P. Carse argues that evil is the termination of possibilities, or as he calls it, of infinite play. Evil is…
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Collider Bias
This is also known as Berkson’s paradox. It arises when there is ascertainment bias in the study design. Here’s an example from Carl T. Bergstrom…
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The Humanities are Avoiding AI
Few people working in the humanities have extensively tested the latest large language models, and most people base their opinions on what they have heard…
Nehaveigur 