Posts

The Rule of Two

Jul 20, 2022 · 2 min read · Prattle Philosophy Epistemology

I have a personal rule concerning arguments. I accept only two. I've made this a tight habit. If anyone protests (as they have) that they didn't put forward their strongest argument at the start, then I say this indicates a waste of time even more. Why put forward bad reasons, if you have good ones? This saves time, …

The Eaterateri vs Buzzfeed

Jun 29, 2022 · 2 min read · Prattle Philosophy

A group of Victorian gentlemen called the 'Eaterateri' wandered various Scottish restaurants, trying all they could. The now well-known Adam Smith and David Hume regularly talked in the group about their ideas. I don't know if Hume felt bold enough to speak about Atheism, but Adam Smith may well have developed those …

On Political Optimism

Jun 27, 2022 · 3 min read · Politics

Any time I hear a patronizing sneer towards hopeful political thinking, I imagine just how insane representative democracy must have sounded when it first reached circulation. Oh young one! So you think you have a fun idea to bring down the king. God himself has ordained that he rule, but you disagree. And instead of a …

In Defence of Crypto Currencies

Jun 25, 2022 · 2 min read · Prattle

People rightly irritated by NFTs often lump Bitcoin et al. into the mix, and some of the complaints go too far. The Use Case A friend owed me €100, and wanted to send that money to me online. The traditional banks demanded: Looking up the IBAN About €15 processing (possibly more for Scotland to Serbia, I never looked …

Linux vs the MSP

Jun 22, 2022 · 2 min read · Memoirs Linux

I was working on the tech-support frontdesk from my flat when my girlfriend-at-the-time asked how to watch films on Linux. I was maybe 30 minutes into some bullshit ticket, and probably watching a crappy web-interface load. [ 00:00 seconds ] I turned to her, stared for a moment, and thought 'popcorntime'. This program …

I Read It on the Internet

Jun 20, 2022 · 1 min read · Prattle

I feel like we all need to stop using 'Did you read that on the internet?', in such a derogatory way. The internet contains just about all writing at this point. It contains academic journals, books, and intelligent discussions by professionals, often on Reddit. Snarky comments about Reddit also apply - the space …

There's No Such Thing as a Rodent

Jun 20, 2022 · 4 min read · Language Philosophy

Fun fact: There's no such thing as a fish. This 'QI'-style factum results from the notion that fish do not all belong to the same genus (or 'family', or 'phylum', or some other Biological category). If we take one genetic branch of fish as the real fish, then we miss out a lot of animals which everyone calls 'fish'. …

I Will Prove vim is Easy

Jun 16, 2022 · 2 min read · Prattle Linux Memoirs

It's literally three commands: i to insert text Escape to not insert text ZZ to save and exit An old girlfriend once asked me if she could write a website. This came out of the blue - she had no experience with computers beyond installing Sims. "Is it easy?", she asked. I said "yes", then showed her: 1 2<BODY> 3 <H1> …

You are a Utility Monster

Jun 7, 2022 · 3 min read · Philosophy Utilitarianism

Robert Nozick created his 'utility monster' thought-experiment to show a fatal flaw in Utilitarianism. Utilitarian theory is embarrassed by the possibility of utility monsters who get enormously greater sums of utility from any sacrifice of others than these others lose...the theory seems to require that we all be …

Comparisons are Fine

May 27, 2022 · 3 min read · Prattle

I've seen a meme trending hard of late. Not a 'funny picture' meme, but an idea: 'Don't compare your thing to another, just show us your thing. Don't say why it's better than the other thing, just tell us what it does'. This advice might work in some limited way to stop bad writing, but then we may as well just stop …