robot friends

wherein Santi Ruiz of the Free Beacon and I discuss becoming a journalist, and best practices for speaking with journalists (if you must); internal media wars; how think tanks are like Han imperial courts; and how marriage is one of the most important things one can undertake in life.

if you have a story and (after all of the usual caveats) want to speak with a principled journalist, or if you're single and interested in dating men in the DC area, please ping Santi directly.

wherein @danlistensto and i discuss buddhism and its traditions; the conflict between the dionysian, apollonian, and hermetic; heresy and why it's good actually; saints as a type of guy; and why rationalists should become mystics.

plug for Evolving Ground, a community of contemporary Vajrayana practice :)

wherein @IvyAstrix details the history of the rise and fall of clubhouse and its multifarious denizens, and leaves us considering the problem of finding a haven for the grey tribe

ivy writes at highvy.substack.com and speaks on clubhouse as @ivy, and since you're reading this as text you know that ive had time to proofread it and not f*ck it up

wherein @EggProphet, @whomademecrispy, and I discuss novel linguistic weapon technology, narrative coherence, and vibing and politicking; and end by casually dropping the name of the best living philosopher

wherein @chaosprime and I (with cameos from @wildbuddhini!)discuss immobility from excessive certainty; cast about for a sociological framing of Types of Guy with mixed success; and discuss how people learn ethics in the ruins of a culture. 

very sadly we were cut short by technical problems but we got most of our episode back from the void.

wherein @shlevy exposits about objectivism, and responds to pressing questions about its relationship to fictional characters and apocryphal presidents; considers how a Randian treats agape; and pivots to how we might evaluate qualia using the scientific method

wherein @sgodofsk and I have a bull session on china, institutional design and constraints, trends in naval warfare, and visits from the Good Idea Fairy

wherein @politicalmath and i discuss the institutional response to covid and the general state of american institutions, and bemoan recent issues in journalism; and wherein we stumble upon a novel response to issues in Legacy Journalism

wherein I talk with QC (@QiaochuYuan) about his experience turning down Cade Metz's request for an interview for a hit piece on Scott Alexander and Rationalism; go on a nicotine withdrawal-fueled rant about legacy journalism; and let QC speak his piece without filtering or editing

link to the nyt hit piece at archive.is in case you want to read along

wherein the magnificent @sagar__dubey gives westerners a primer on the recent rise of Indians on the Internet and in schools and enterprise, talks about his own journey through South America and New York to Helsinki, and inspires me to hope even more fervently that America gets its shit together