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Humans Aren't Special — On minds beyond the human

[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.
[marginalium] AI use and skill formation — 5 Feb 2026
[audio] Stupid Questions: Consciousness — 10 Jan 2026
The hard problem of consciousness is just a complicated debate with no real outcomes. It’s the behaviour that matters, not whether there’s ineffable qualia behind the curtain.
[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.
[audio] Stupid Questions: Nature/Nurture — 13 Dec 2025
Nature is just nurture over time, and nurture is far more obviously in charge. The debate is Malcolm Gladwell shit—superficially sexy but practically useless.
[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] The line between sleep and wake — 6 Jul 2025
[marginalium] God without god — 26 Jun 2025
[marginalium] AGI is far away — 10 Jun 2025
[marginalium] AI personality extraction from faces (pdf) — 9 Jun 2025
[marginalium] The speed of AI take-off — 8 Jun 2025
[marginalium] AI spiritual bliss attractor state (pdf) — 6 Jun 2025
[marginalium] Anthropic co-founder on AI — 23 May 2025
[marginalium] AI in the Military Classroom — 23 May 2025
[marginalium] LegoAI — 16 May 2025

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.

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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

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