Every major author who has influenced me has "his own totalising and self-consistent worldview/philosophy". This list includes Paul Graham, Isaac Asimov, Joel Spolsky, Brett McKay, Shakyamuni, Chuck Palahniuk, Bryan Caplan, qntm, and, of course, Eliezer Yudkowsky, among many others.

I tend to write obliquely. This can make for good pedagogy, but also makes it easy to hide muddled thinking. In this post, I'll attempt to lay out my own worldview and philosophy.

If you have one too, then it's a good exercise to put it into words. What are your most important Litanies? What are your _n_ noble truths? Here's mine.

The Problem

Evolution is not random. Evolution is an optimizer, which means that it can, from a certain point of view, be seen to have intentions. Evolution's optimization target is "inclusive genetic fitness". "Inclusive genetic fitness" and "good" are different things. In other words [...]

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.