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Analects

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Love Is a Verb — On the mechanics of human connection

[audio] Men Aren't From Mars — 15 Nov 2025
Men and women engage in identical behaviours—complaining, offering solutions, needing validation, resisting criticism. The difference isn’t biological, it’s interpretive. We cast the same behaviour as reasonable for one gender and unreasonable for the other. Gray’s book is a perfect case study: emotionally troubled men are normalised while women’s ordinary needs are pathologised.
[marginalium] Love is about betterment — 24 Jun 2025
[marginalium] Romantic Friendships — 24 Jun 2025
[marginalium] Singleness and the Pandemic Dating Recession — 1 Mar 2025
[marginalium] The neuroscience of heartbreak — 27 Nov 2024
[marginalium] The Myth Of The Loneliness Epidemic — 27 Nov 2024
[marginalium] The Horizon Of Desire — 11 Oct 2024
[marginalium] A touching suicide pact? — 10 Aug 2024
[marginalium] On Turing's 1952 ChatGPT — 21 Jul 2024
[marginalium] One Friend In One Month — 19 Jul 2024
[marginalium] The adoption paradox — 12 Jul 2024
[article] Active listening is misleading — 11 Jan 2024
Active listening isn’t about ticking boxes in conversation; it’s about diving into emotions to transform surface-level chit-chat into deep, collaborative dialogue. Forget models, focus on feelings.
[marginalium] Why Do We Listen to Sad Songs — 1 Sep 2023
[marginalium] How zoom changes conversation — 2 Aug 2023
[marginalium] The reassuring fantasy of the baby advice industry — 25 Apr 2023

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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