The Wayward Axolotl

Responding to critics is an important part of rational thought and persuasion. Criticism is a way to test ideas. If an idea passes many tests, we develop confidence in it. Conversely, if an idea is held off-limits to criticism, we suspect it of being wrong. There are two requirements for substantive criticism: The critic must identify a specific claim or assumption in the content that the critic disagrees with. If it is a claim, then the critic should provide the quote where it is asserted. If it is an assumption, the critic should show where the author relies on it. The critic must present a rational argument against the claim or assumption. Disagreement without argument is not substantive criticism. If criticism satisfies those two requirements, it is a test of the content. It could still be wrong, but at least it has the right form. If it doesn’t satisfy those requirements, it is not a test of the content. There can be valid criticism that is not su...

Economists and other social theorists often take the concept of utility for granted. In theory, utility is a measure of value. I will denote the utility of X to Y as U(X, Y) or simply U(X) if Y is clear in the context. For a single individual, we can think of utility as a mathematical function that maps objects or outcomes to points on the continuum. This mapping is called a “utility function”. (In this context, “function” has its mathematical meaning, not its ordinary meaning.) To think about society, we might want to define utility for a group, not just a single individual. Collective utility is typically defined as the sum of individual utility over the collective. This assumes that utility is defined on the same scale for everyone. The concept of utility is used to model individual and social decision-making. It is used in game theory to define benefits and costs. It is often used in moral philosophy to define the “goodness” of actions and outcomes. In a utilitarian m...

In this essay, I will debunk the concept of market capitalization. But first, let’s consider something else: the mass of a pile of bricks. Suppose that I have a pile of identical bricks. I want to know the total mass of the bricks for some reason. So, I measure the mass of one brick on a scale. The mass of one brick is M. I then count the bricks. The number of bricks is N. I then caculate the total mass of the bricks as M × N. M × N is meaningful. There are N units of size M, so N × M represents the total size of the units together.. The meaning of M × N is “the total mass of the bricks”. It is not just “M × N”. Note that I could use another method to get the same quantity. I could put each brick on a scale, measure its mass, and add up all of those numbers. If I had a really big scale, I could put all the bricks on the scale together, and measure the total mass directly. The meaning is not the method. The meaning is what the number represents. Now, let’s consider...

In comments on the essay The Case Against Moral Realism , I challenged someone (Stephen Lindsay) to define good and evil, or in other words, to define moral value. In response, he wrote a defense of belief in objective morality: Three Perspectives on Objective Morality . In the essay, he gives a definition of moral rightness and wrongness: • Right (in the moral sense) - behaviors, ideas, philosophies, etc., that are thought to overall positively impact individuals and society. Wrong is the opposite. There can exist behaviors, ideas, and philosophies that are neither right nor wrong. However, this definition does not actually define moral value. It does not explain what moral goodness and badness (or rightness and wrongness) are. It presupposes moral value. To call something “good” or “bad”, in a moral sense, is not a description. Moral value is normative. To call something “good” (in a moral sense) means that it ought to be, and that we should try to create...

The death of George Floyd in May 2020 caused a widespread moral panic about racism and policing, which was commonly called the “Black Lives Matter” movement (BLM). Many local governments, especially in large cities, responded by reducing police activity in various ways. See George Floyd and the Madness of Crowds . In this essay, I will assess the effects of the BLM movement on mortality in the US. As expected by some of us, there was a big increase in the homicide rate in 2020. Cause-of-death data are from the CDC . Note that most Hispanics are classified as “White” in the data. G7 homicide rates are from the World Bank . As you can see, there was a large increase in the homicide rate immediately after the George Floyd incident. The increase was highest in the black population, who are the majority of homicide victims and offenders, despite being roughly 13% of the population. The chart above shows the same data, in stacked format, so that you can see the tot...

You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle. — Eckhart Tolle Humanism is the religion of the modern West, but it is not recognized as a religion. Few people explicitly identify as “humanist”. However, almost everyone in the West is an implicit humanist, even those who identify as Christians. Humanism is the dominant worldview, and it defines the frame of public discourse. To be clear, I’m not talking about humanism as defined explicitly by people who call themselves “humanists”. Explicit humanism is a more “autistic” version of the implicit humanism that emerged during the 20th century in the West. I am talking about the latter: the worldview of the modern West. Humanism is post-Christian. It emerged from Christianity, and it retains much of the moral and mythical structure of Christianity, but witho...

Imagine that you are sitting at a table. Two pills and a glass of water are in front of you. One pill is a deadly dose of an opioid drug. If you take it, you will die. Earlier that day, you took a different pill, which had a strange effect. It affects the emotions in a way that causes suicidal desires. It inverts the natural fear of death, so that death becomes appealing. Now, because you took the pill, you desperately want to die. Why did you take it? Curiosity. You didn’t believe that it would actually work, but you wanted to see what would happen. Also, you knew that there was an antidote. You thought that you would just take the pill, see what it felt like, and then quickly take the antidote. No harm done. “YOLO” you said, and then swallowed it. Now, you are itching to take the suicide pill on the table in front of you, and end your life. But there is another pill on the table. It is the antidote to the pill that you took earlier. If you take it, then you will no ...

Moral realism is an explicit version of the ordinary view of morality. It has the following assumptions: Good and evil are objectively real. We have the ability to recognize good and evil. We have an objective moral obligation to do good and not do evil. We also have an objective moral right to not have evil done to us. Most people are internally motivated to do good and not do evil. Society depends on morality to exist. The social order is created by human goodness, and it is destroyed by evil. There are many problems with moral realism, including: What are good and evil? Why should we do good, not evil? Why do moral judgments vary between individuals, cultures and societies? Why can’t moral disagreements be resolved rationally? Why is morality ad hoc? Why is evil pervasive? Let’s consider each of these problems in detail. What are good and evil? Moral realism presupposes good and evil....