Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Matt Yglesias Considered As The Nietzschean Superman Aug 22, 2024

Show notes

I. Bentham's Bulldog

Blogger "Bentham's Bulldog" recently wrote Shut Up About Slave Morality.

Nietzsche's concept of "slave morality" (he writes) is just a dysphemism for the usual morality where you're not bad and cruel. Right-wing edgelords use "rejection of slave morality" as a justification for badness and cruelty:

When people object to slave morality, they are just objecting to morality. They are objecting to the notion that you should care about others and doing the right thing, even when doing so doesn't materially benefit you. Now, one can consistently object to those things, but it doesn't make them any sort of Nostradamus. It makes them morally deficient, and also generally philosophically confused.

The tedious whinging about slave morality is just a way to pass off not caring about morality or taking moral arguments seriously as some sort of sophisticated and cynical myth-busting. But it's not that in the slightest. No one is duped by slave morality, no one buys into it because of some sort of deep-seated ignorance. Those who follow it do so because of a combination of social pressure and a genuine desire to help out others. That is, in fact, not in any way weak but a noble impulse from which all good actions spring.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/matt-yglesias-considered-as-the-nietzschean

Your Book Review: Real Raw News Aug 13, 2024

Show notes

[This is one of the finalists in the 2024 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you've read them all, I'll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked]

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-real-raw-news

Links for July 2024 Aug 13, 2024

Show notes

[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can't guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this.]

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/links-for-july-2024

Some Practical Considerations Before Descending Into An Orgy Of Vengeance Aug 13, 2024

Show notes

The "LibsOfTikTok" Twitter account found a random Home Depot employee who said she wished the Trump assassin hadn't missed. Her followers mass-called Home Depot and got the employee fired.

Moral of the story: despite everything, there's apparently still a norm against assassinating politicians. But some on the right interpreted this as meaning something more. A sudden vibe shift, or impending Trump victory, has handed conservatives the levers of cancel culture! This sparked a right-wing blogosphere debate: should they be magnanimous in victory, or descend into an orgy of vengeance?

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/some-practical-considerations-before

Your Book Review: How Language Began Aug 13, 2024

Show notes

Finalist #5 in the Book Review Contest

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-how-language-began

Highlights From The Comments On Mentally Ill Homeless People Aug 10, 2024

Show notes

[Original post here]

Table Of Contents

1: Responses To Broad Categories Of Objections 2: Responses To Specific Comments 3: Comments By People Who Have Relevant Experiences 4: Closing Thoughts

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-mentally

Consciousness As Recursive Reflections Aug 02, 2024

Show notes

A guest post by Daniel Böttger

[Editor's note: I accept guest posts from certain people, especially past Book Review Contest winners. Daniel Böttger, who wrote last year's review of On The Marble Cliffs, has finally taken me up on this and submitted this essay. I don't necessarily agree with or endorse all guest posts, and I'm still collecting my thoughts (ha!) on this one.]

Nobody knows for sure how subjective experiences relate to objective physics. That is the main reason why there are serious claims that not everything is physics. It has been called "the most important problem in the biological sciences", "the last frontier of brain science", and "as important as anything that can possibly exist" as well as "core to" all value and ethics.

So, let's solve that in a blog post.

Your Book Review: The Family That Couldn't Sleep Aug 02, 2024

Show notes

"You wake up screaming, frightened by memories,

You're plagued by nightmares, do we haunt all of your dreams?"

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-the-family-that

Lifeboat Games And Backscratchers Clubs Aug 02, 2024

Show notes

Ten people are stuck on a lifeboat after their ship sank. It will be weeks before anyone finds them, and they're out of food.

They've heard this story before, so they decide to turn to cannibalism sooner rather than later. They agree to draw lots to determine the victim. Just as the first person is reaching for the lots, Albert shouts out "WAIT LET'S ALL KILL AND EAT BOB!"

They agree to do this instead of drawing lots. This is obvious, right? For nine out of ten people, it's a better deal. For nine out of ten people, it brings their chance of death from 1/10 to 0. Bob's against it, of course, but he's outvoted. The nine others overpower Bob and eat him.

Something about this surprises me.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/lifeboat-games-and-backscratchers

Details That You Should Include In Your Article On How We Should Do Something About Mentally Ill Homeless People Jul 27, 2024

Show notes

Suppose that you, an ordinary person, open your door and start choking on yellow smoke. You call up your representative and say "there should be less pollution".

A technical expert might hear "there should be less pollution" and have dozens of questions. Do you just want to do common-sense things, like lower the detection threshold for hexamethyldecawhatever? Or do you want to ban tetraethylpentawhatever, which is vital for the baby formula food chain and would cause millions of babies to die if you banned it?

Any pollution legislation must be made of specific policies. In some sense, it's impossible to be "for" or "against" the broad concept of "reducing pollution". Everyone would be against a bill that devastated the baby formula supply chain for no benefit. And everyone would support a magical bill that cleaned the skies with no extra hardship on industry. In between, there are just a million different tradeoffs; some are good, others bad. So (the technocrat concludes), it's incoherent to support "reducing pollution". You can only support (or oppose) particular plans.

And yet ordinary people should be able to say "I want to stop choking on yellow smoke every time I go outside" without having to learn the difference between hexamethyldecawhatever and tetraethylpentawhatever.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/details-that-you-should-include-in