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On (Un)happiness — On the things that decorate the heart

• [marginalium] Gnosticism in Blood Meridian — 26 Jan 2026
• [audio] Mundane Cults — 29 Nov 2025
  We’ve been taught that cults are dark and scary things. But we have been fooled. The cult is a prominent building block of modern community. If you’re not in one, you’re probably doing something wrong. The question is, is the cult you’re in a cult you chose?
• [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.
• [audio] Stress is Good — 1 Nov 2025
  Stress isn’t poorly calibrated to modern life. It’s the energising force that allows us to perform. Optimal performance requires optimal stress. The difference between eustress and distress isn’t biological—it’s psychological. Controllability matters more than the stressor itself.
• [marginalium] Digital Personhood — 1 Jul 2025
• [marginalium] Are intelligentsia less happy — 26 Jun 2025
• [marginalium] The Personal and Private Nature of Smartphones — 25 Jun 2025
• [marginalium] Romantic Friendships — 24 Jun 2025
• [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] AI personality extraction from faces (pdf) — 9 Jun 2025
• [marginalium] Preferring skilled migration enhances xenophobia — 7 Jun 2025
• [marginalium] The way of code — 30 May 2025
• [article] Positive Intelligence pt.III — 30 May 2025
  This might be the most comprehensive example of the neuroscience confidence game I’ve ever written about. That and a heavy dose of self-indulgence. Neuroscientific self-help, not so much.
• [marginalium] Can We Trust Social Science Yet? — 23 May 2025
• [article] Positive Intelligence pt.II — 23 May 2025
  Chamine’s ‘Positivity Quotient’ is based on nothing beyond ‘being happier is better than being sad’, and unless they appeal to you, there’s no reason to pick his ‘ten saboteurs’ over any of the other inner-critics out there.