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Noetik — On thinking well in a noisy world

• [audio] Pop Neuroscience is Just a Fancy Way of Saying 'Calm Down' — 4 Apr 2026
  Pop neuroscience theories are elaborate scaffolding around trivial advice. They’re attractive because they give us something to point at, make us feel scientific, and—crucially—make our problems someone else’s fault. The scaffolding is mostly harmless, but it hides the stuff that actually matters.
• [audio] Bias is Good — 21 Mar 2026
  Bias isn’t a flaw in human thinking—it’s a precision tool. The brain trades variance for consistency because the world is noisy. Stop trying to eliminate bias. Start identifying the beliefs that drive it.
• [marginalium] AI use and skill formation — 5 Feb 2026
• [article] Stupid Questions — 1 Jan 2026
  Nature is just nurture over time, and nurture is far more obviously in charge; nothing changes if free will <em>isn’t</em> real; and the same is true of consciousness. They’re just complicated debates with no real outcomes.
• [article] AI Hallucination is just Man-Guessing — 1 Nov 2025
  Human reasoning isn’t flawed, it’s a social tool we use in the wrong places. It’s about sharing and evaluating intuitive claims, not generating rational ones. AI is fundamentally this but crippled: without the grounded intuitions and social friction that makes it work.
• [marginalium] Against McAskillian Longtermism — 10 Jul 2025
• [marginalium] The Practical Inconsequence of the Free Will Debate — 7 Jul 2025
• [marginalium] Critiquing Utilitarianism — 2 Jul 2025
• [article] Moral Blindspots — 27 Jun 2025
  Most people think better ethical decision-making is just a matter of stopping to think before acting. But many moral judgements are intuitive, and then we rationalise them to ourselves. We have to train both intuition and reasoning, not rely on one to correct the other.
• [article] Beyond System 1 and System 2 — 13 Jun 2025
  System 1 vs System 2 is a useful shorthand, but our minds aren’t two-speed engines—they’re multi-process coalitions of specialised agents working in parallel and in series.
• [marginalium] Understanding Bayes — 6 Jun 2025
• [article] The Neuroscience Con — 6 Jun 2025
  The neuroscience confidence game trades content for cosmetic filler, making vacuous advice look smart.
• [marginalium] Pitfalls of AI for information gathering — 28 May 2025
• [marginalium] Can We Trust Social Science Yet? — 23 May 2025
• [marginalium] AI in the Military Classroom — 23 May 2025