There was a satanic ritual abuse scare in my neighborhood back in the ’80s

Back in 1984, in Rogers Park, Chicago, there existed (and still exists today) a Jewish preschool on Touhy Avenue, the street where I currently live. It happened that a woman was picking her four-year-old daughter from school, and as they were walking through the hall, a janitor tried to tickle the little girl, and the … Read more

Rationality: From AI to Zombies – Machine Intelligence Research Institute

Weighing in at more than 1,800 pages, it is quite possibly the most complete tome available on how to improve your mind, make better decisions, and understand why people, including yourself, do what they do. I cannot recommend it more strongly. Pay-what-you-want version includes DRM-free epub, mobi, and PDF versions. Also available on Amazon for … Read more

“What I Learned in 40 Years of Doing Intelligence Analysis for US Foreign Policymakers” (PDF)

So here’s an interesting thing, particularly for my friends in the journalism universe. It’s an article from a former high-level CIA officer about how to produce high-quality intelligence analysis. It’s a really good read, though, for anyone who produces (or consumes) intelligence of any kind, including news. One of the best things — the notion … Read more

The nice thing about the “Rule of Law” framing for an argument …

… is that it’s a really easy way to get people to ignore thinking about the ramifications and consequences of the particular situation, focusing their attention instead on the general opprobrium for the principle of order. The mind gets caught thinking about whether laws, in theory, are good on the whole, and forget to think … Read more

Yudkowsky – A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation

This came my way because of a thread on Less Wrong about recommended reading for new rationalists.  Eliezer Yudkowski is a very bright fellow, and this little quote comes from somewhat mathematical lesson on what constitutes a “technical explanation,” as opposed to a verbal explanation. “Remember Spock from Star Trek? Spock often says something along … Read more