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[changelog]

Changelog: July 10, 2025

10 Jul 2025


This week I sent a draft paper out for review. It’s a rather longwinded sketch of how I think we could approach ethics. It’s 45 pages or so long, but it was a lot of fun to write. I suspect most people will not want quite that level of detail though, so I made an AI podcast and a semi-AI explainer. People seem to quite like the AI summary stuff. You can find it all here.

However, the whole experience has made me realise that I’ve been pretty annoyed this last year. Since June, I’ve written an article a week, and most of them are shit.

I used to write an article a month, and I used to write them basically just for me—working an idea out for myself—and so it’s no surprise that I usually quite liked those articles.

But many people reasonably complained that they were impenetrable and infrequent. So I committed to an article a week instead, and I’d try to bridge the gap—try to write articles that were a little for me and a little for everyone else.

The result is that, for the most part, they do neither. Lots of strange fragmentary ‘series’ style posts, and unfinished and incomplete thinking. All useless to me, but also not very penetrable to others.

Then I wrote this 45-page paper, and I was obsessed with it. And I love it. And I don’t care that no one will read it.

So I’m going back to that, I think. Writing articles that are me being thoughtful for me. BUT. I will look to producing new forms of content for others, because I like teaching too. Rather than do two things badly, I will do both things well.

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More about Dorian Minors' project btrmt.

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):