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Ironically, those who say that the non-West hates the West because of the West’s foreign interventions are correct, but not in the way that they typically mean it. Static societies were always fated to hate the West, whether or not the West intervened militarily—merely creating television shows and selling blue jeans would have been enough to put static institutions on the defensive. So, no, Hamas, Putin, Khamenei, and the rest do not hate us because we “slaughtered their families” or “interfered in their territory” or otherwise “aggressed against them”. George W. Bush was nearly correct when he said that “they hate us for our freedom”—they are hostile to us because our freedom and other progress-fostering institutions mark the extinction of their progress-suppressing way of life unless they do something about it. And they may succeed unless we counteract them.

Read: https://conjectureinstitute.org/courses/civilization/Civilization%20Module%202.pdf

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Maxime’s combination of conversational tone, awareness of when technical details require elaborating on, and emphasis on explanation all come together to make Maxime’s miniature books invaluable for anyone interested in Zcash and Many-Worlds quantum theory.

Our Spotlight Article series highlights our Fellows’ history, contributions, interests, and ideas.

More to come.

Read or listen to the web version of our article about Maxime and his work here.

Between her work on the BMV experiment to probe gravity's quantum side in the laboratory and her current investigation into quantum theory’s role in cosmology, Conjecture Institute Fellow Antonia Weber's young career as a physicist has already taken her across nearly the entire energy spectrum of quantum gravity.

Read: https://conjectureinstitute.org/articles/fellow-spotlight/antonia-weber

The road to artificial intelligence (AGI) is not paved in increasingly efficient algorithms, more computing power, or radical improvements to the best large language models. Armed with our best theory of how knowledge is created, Conjecture Institute Fellow Carlos De la Guardia has honed in on universality, problem-solving, and explanatory knowledge as three key pillars to building an AGI.

Read here: https://conjectureinstitute.org/articles/fellow-spotlight/carlos-de-la-guardia

In a world full of headlines touting ‘the latest theory of everything’, the most valuable unturned stone might be the theories we have had for a century. We just need the courage to do as Sam Kuypers does and take them seriously.

Read the Spotlight Article about Conjecture Institute Fellow Sam Kuypers: https://conjectureinstitute.org/articles/fellow-spotlight/sam-kuypers

Conjecture Institute Fellow Dimitri Vallein is building an alternative to Hollywood with optimistic science fiction stories, immersive technology, and a philosophy of progress.

Read the article here: https://conjectureinstitute.org/articles/fellow-spotlight/dimitri-vallein

Conjecture Institute Fellow Paul Raymond-Robichaud proved that the universe can be local and real after all—vindicating Einstein’s dream and unsettling a century of quantum orthodoxy.

Our Spotlight Article series highlights our Fellows’ history, contributions, interests, and ideas.

More to come.

Read or listen to the web version of our article about Paul and his work here.

Jaber is a Fellow of Conjecture Institute. A computer science graduate and educational Youtuber focused on science and philosophy communication, Jaber's videos and interviews are dedicated to promoting Enlightenment values, progress, optimism in Deutsch's sense, the open/dynamic society and a Critical Rationalist attitude. His is one of the only Arabic-speaking channels that offers deep dives into the Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch and Popperian epistemology in general.

In explaining the regularities of an economy, of the conditions under which wealth can and cannot grow, we may begin with the fact that man acts purposefully—that is, he employs some scarce means to achieve some desired ends. This is typically called the action axiom, but I prefer to call it the action conjecture. As with many apparently simple principles in science and philosophy, the action conjecture and its logical consequences will take us very far in our journey to explain how wealth is created, how resources are allocated, and how individuals coordinate their idiosyncratic means and ends between each other and with their future selves.

Written version: https://conjectureinstitute.org/courses/economics/Economics%20Module%200.pdf

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