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Analects

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Filter by anthology: All · Betterment · Gratification · Connection · Somatic Architecture · Spiritual Architecture · Thought Architecture · Wealth Architecture · Digital Architecture · Collective Architecture

[marginalium] The World's Most Expensive Eating Disorder — 8 Jan 2025
[marginalium] Predictions on the subscription economy — 3 Jan 2025
[article] When groups go bad — 3 Jan 2025
Without more tasteful social behaviours to sample from, we’re liable to attach very strongly to the behaviours of our group. Add a hostile environment, normalised physical and emotional violence, and a lack of mental and physical resources, and you have the ingredients for atrocity.
[marginalium] Technological innovations have made complaining easier — 3 Jan 2025
[marginalium] How to like everything more — 3 Jan 2025
[marginalium] Why did humanity take so long to get started — 3 Jan 2025
[marginalium] Encyclopaedia Brittania is a profitable AI company — 3 Jan 2025
[marginalium] The Rise Of Big Potato — 3 Jan 2025
[article] Useful groups are biased groups — 27 Dec 2024
The strength of our attraction to a group is a function of how different a group is from other groups in ways that we feel like we are, or like we want to be. Our participation in the group depends on how we see it benefitting us, and see us benefitting the group. The stronger both are, the stronger our biases to stay engaged.
[marginalium] Fitbit heart-rate when wife asked for a divorce — 27 Dec 2024
[marginalium] Academic writing is getting harder to read — 27 Dec 2024
[marginalium] How to judge AI performance. — 27 Dec 2024
[marginalium] How class became aesthetic — 27 Dec 2024
[marginalium] Teachers apparently unable to catch AI papers — 27 Dec 2024
[marginalium] London Underground Mosquito — 26 Dec 2024

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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