Should you pay off debt or invest the money instead? To answer this it's useful to think of debt as the opposite of a risk-free investment, and to put a number on the risk.
The third part of an extensive interview with Dr. Geoffrey Miller covers jealousy, polyamory, marriage, and mating.
The second part of an extensive interview with Dr. Geoffrey Miller covers troublesome research and troublesome ideology in psychology.
The first part of an extensive interview with Dr. Geoffrey Miller covers effective altruism, AI, and rationality.
Monty Hall isn't just a curious probability puzzle. It's a widely applicable demonstration of Bayesian thinking and rationality.
My first essay for Quillette builds on "The Context is Conflict" to explore the clash between decouplers and contextualizers, why everyone is a hypocrite, who's whose outgroup, how tribalism makes smart people less rational, and what the Intellectual Dark Web can learn about overcoming bias.
An overview of Putanumonit for new readers.
Some people think that there's always group conflict, some people don't. When the former meets the latter, there's group conflict.
Should we believe what is useful to believe over what it true? I attack this question from various angles: wrong "wrongness", murder-Gandhiism, the Gorilla Channel, and fake glasses.
[Caution: experimental].
Should I keep trying one diet after another or just accept my figure as it is? I let the voices in my head hash it out.
A guest post offering a window into the world of transactional dating.
Should secular liberals try to get in the head of a conservative philosopher of religion? Yes, if it's all in the pursuit of truth.
A review of Galileo's Middle Finger: a flawed book, a fascinating memoir, and an important manual on defense against the Dark Arts.
Antinatalism isn't just bad philosophy, it's partly based on bad economics. I argue that having kids isn't just good for the kids, it makes the whole world better off.
The Super Bowl Prop Gambling Game for people who don't know anything about football. 20% more degenerate gambling, 50% less saturated fat, 100% money back guarantee!
The nerd you beat up on in high school is already a crypto-millionaire, so what are you waiting for?
Take some advice from Trump and Nick Foles - if you're an underdog you should assume that you're lucky.
Annihilation and Three-Body Problem are two novels that focus on scientist characters, but give radically different answers to "what makes a scientist?" One fictional scientist made me frustrated, and the other changed my life.
The new tax plan appears to make deducting charitable donations harder, but that just means that effective altruists get to have more fun gaming the code. I offer five schemes to get tax benefits from your donations, just remember that I'm not actually a tax lawyer.
