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On the Nature of Things — On metaphysics

• [article] There are no levels — 1 May 2026
  Ideas that stick are shaped to be interesting, not true. Some of these are weaponised; snuck by our faculties of reason. AI uses them in spades. I call them karstica—superficially pretty, but hiding sinkholes. If you don’t learn to detect it, the thinking gets done for you.
• [audio] Overengineering calming down — 4 Apr 2026
  Pop neuroscience is just “calm down” in a lab coat. The theories are scaffolding around trivial advice, attractive because they make your problems someone else’s fault, and the scaffolding hides what actually matters.
• [audio] Atavism Isn't the Answer — 7 Feb 2026
  Seed oils, raw milk, cold plunges, tradwives—one template runs them all: name a modern ill, invent an ancestral past, sell the return as cure. It’s built on a fantasy we can’t verify.
• [article] Gesticism — 26 Jan 2026
  Lots of things are happening, but anything <em>can</em> matter, and whatever gives meaning will eventually demand sacrifice. The agony of attention. I’m not going to spend more time trying to reduce the core idea than that.
• [marginalium] Gnosticism in Blood Meridian — 26 Jan 2026
• [audio] Stupid Questions: Consciousness — 10 Jan 2026
  The hard problem of consciousness isn’t a problem. It’s a beautiful argument with no stakes. Behaviour is what matters, not the ghost 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: Free Will — 27 Dec 2025
  Whether free will is real changes precisely nothing. The world’s too complex for the answer to bite, and behaviour bends the same way no matter which side wins.
• [audio] Stupid Questions: Nature/Nurture — 13 Dec 2025
  Nature is just nurture given time, and nurture is obviously the one in charge. The whole debate is Gladwell bait: superficially sexy, practically useless.
• [marginalium] The Practical Inconsequence of the Free Will Debate — 7 Jul 2025
• [marginalium] God without god — 26 Jun 2025
• [marginalium] Nature is Nurture — 18 Jun 2025
• [marginalium] Life’s Ancient Bottleneck — 6 Jun 2025
• [marginalium] AI spiritual bliss attractor state (pdf) — 6 Jun 2025
• [marginalium] Does Testosterone Effect Economic Preferences? — 30 May 2025