"Public debate is how societies do their thinking. To keep our shared belief systems functional we must know how to disagree constructively, and exactly what goes wrong when we don't do so. Why and how do communication failures make public discourse incoherent, dysfunctional, and polarized?" Competitive Sensemaking: An Upgrade to Common Sense on Disagreement is … Continue reading Competitive Sensemaking is Live
2025: The Final Final Year
I really mean it this time. For the last few years, these yearly summaries are the only things I've published on this once-much-more-active blog. I'm writing my book Competitive Sensemaking, which I got a grant to write back in 2022. Optimistically it looked like I could've finished it in 2023, I definitely feel I should've … Continue reading 2025: The Final Final Year
After 2024: On the Cusp
Another year comes to an end. If you're reading this you might know that I'm currently writing a book. After a few years writing 100+ essays on this blog, some of them achieving some modest success, I received a grant from the Mercatus Institute at George Mason University in the middle of 2022. They were … Continue reading After 2024: On the Cusp
2023 Review: Book
Happy new 2024 everyone ๐ It feels weird to write a summary of 2023 since my archive contains exactly 0 posts from 2023. It looks like this place is a ghost town by now, never to come alive again. Maybe that's true, in that I'll probably move to Substack to keep writing when my book … Continue reading 2023 Review: Book
Catch-up ’22
I sum up the year and give an overview of the contents of the book I'm writing.
Why Utopia Fails
Building on two articles by Holden Karnoffsky, I argue that utopian fiction fails because it's trying to depict something impossible. Read more (5 min, 1700 words).
The Self Compass
Four classes of forces shape our selves, which do we think of as the most important? It varies, and if we miss this we have a hard time properly understanding what others are saying. Read more (11 min, 2800 words).
Language Erodes
Saying that "language evolves" is no enough to dismiss complaints about the misuse of words, since "language erodes" is just as valid, but without the suggestion of progress. Read more (9 min, 2300 words).
The Political Is Personal
People experience the nature of their wants, needs and desires very differently, and when they generalize the specifics of their own psychology onto everyone else it has a profound effect on their political beliefs. Read more (13 min, 3200 words).
It’s a Book!
In which I announce that I'm going to write a book. Read more (3 min, 700 words).
Everything Studies 
