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Analects

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[article] Stress and Creativity — 28 Mar 2025
Stress promotes bias—stereotypical thinking and behaving. Less stress promotes cognitive flexibility—an openness to new ways of thinking and behaving. Neither is better than the other. It’s about the situation you deploy them in.
[marginalium] The Economics Of Despair — 28 Mar 2025
[marginalium] Are the kids better at all — 28 Mar 2025
[marginalium] The woke right — 21 Mar 2025
[marginalium] Humans evolved from two populations — 21 Mar 2025
[article] Bias vs Noise pt. I: Bias vs Bias — 21 Mar 2025
The behavioural economists treat bias as an error. But the brain isn’t an economist. It’s more like a statistician, using bias as a trade-off. Bias ignores noise to see something more clearly, though of course, sometimes the noise shouldn’t be ignored.
[marginalium] The Managerial Class Has No Future — 21 Mar 2025
[marginalium] We are running out of eggs — 21 Mar 2025
[marginalium] A Brief History Of Accelerationism — 21 Mar 2025
[marginalium] Business metrics broke universities — 21 Mar 2025
[marginalium] AI suffers cognitive dissonance too — 21 Mar 2025
[article] AI is never human-like — 14 Mar 2025
AI has human-like output, but a very different environment and different <em>values</em> for than environment, and until all three align, they will never <em>actually</em> be human-like.
[marginalium] People With Parents With Money — 13 Mar 2025
[marginalium] Asking the right questions — 13 Mar 2025
[marginalium] How The Mormons Conquered America — 13 Mar 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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