analectnoun
a fragment or passage selected from a literary work;

Analects

Filter by type: All · Articles · Audio · Marginalia

Filter by anthology: All · Betterment · Gratification · Connection · Somatic Architecture · Spiritual Architecture · Thought Architecture · Wealth Architecture · Digital Architecture · Collective Architecture

Everything Is Ideology — On the patterns you didn't choose

[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.
[audio] Atavism Isn't the Answer — 7 Feb 2026
The return-to-nature movement bundles legitimate health concerns with pseudoscience using a single template: identify a modern problem, construct an ancestral narrative, sell the return as the cure. It rests on two contradictory assumptions—that we know what ancestral life was like, and that humans are simultaneously robust and fragile.
[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.
[marginalium] Is culture socially costly — 30 Jun 2025
[marginalium] The Personal and Private Nature of Smartphones — 25 Jun 2025
[marginalium] Caligula as an anti-ideology — 19 Jun 2025
[marginalium] Why Individuals Avoid Information — 17 Jun 2025
[marginalium] Politics and spirituality are entangled — 16 Jun 2025
[marginalium] Preferring skilled migration enhances xenophobia — 7 Jun 2025
[marginalium] What Is Centrism? — 6 Jun 2025
[marginalium] The Era Of The Business Idiot — 23 May 2025
[marginalium] The universe as black hole reproduction — 8 May 2025
[marginalium] Social Media and Moore's Law — 1 May 2025
[marginalium] Metaphors shape minds — 1 May 2025
[article] There is no authentic self — 11 Apr 2025
There’s no hidden version of you. If anything, we are a collection of bits and pieces that we weave together from the stories we learn from others. You don’t need to find an authentic <em>self</em>, you need to find a story you can weave that makes you happy.

btrmt. (text-only version)

The full site with interactive features is available at btr.mt.

btrmt. (betterment) examines ideologies worth choosing. Created by Dorian Minors—Cambridge PhD in cognitive neuroscience, Associate Professor at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Core philosophy: humans are animals first, with automatic patterns shaped for us, not by us. Better to examine and choose.

Core concepts. Animals First: automatic patterns of thought and action, but our greatest capacity is nurture. Half Awake: deadened by systems that narrow rather than expand potential. Karstica: unexamined ideologies (hidden sinkholes beneath). Credenda: belief systems we should choose deliberately.

The manifesto. Cynosure (focus): betterment, gratification, connection. Architecture (support): inner (somatic, spiritual, thought) and outer (digital, collective, wealth).

Mission. Not answers but examination. Break academic gatekeeping. Make sciences of mind accessible. Question rather than prescribe.

Writing style. Scholarly without jargon barriers. Philosophical yet practical—grounded in neuroscience and lived experience. Reflective, discovery-oriented. Literary references and metaphor. Critical of systems that narrow human potential. Rejects "humans are flawed"—we're half awake, not broken.

Copyright. BTRMT LIMITED (England/Wales no. 13755561) 2026. Dorian Minors 2026.

Optional

About Dorian Minors. Started btrmt. in 2013 to share sciences of mind with people who weren't studying them. Background: six years Australian Defence Force (Platoon Commander, Infantry); Gates Cambridge Scholar; PhD cognitive neuroscience, University of Cambridge (2018-2024); currently Associate Professor, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Research interests: neural basis of intelligent behaviour, decision intelligence, ritual formation/breakdown, ethical leadership, wellbeing.

External projects (links also available via Analects):

Lectures: Podcasts exploring ideologies

Neurotypica: Brain science guide for non-scientists

Black Cortex: Leadership consulting

Analects

btrmt. (text-only version)

Resources

Optional