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The asymmetry of appealing to authority

Almost all arguments will ultimately rely on some form of appeal to authority. If rationalists are disappointed by the insubstantiality of their own appeals, perhaps they should consider a philosophy that vindicates appeals to authority more rigorously.

Preferences are logically prior to incentive structures

If we want to say “it is immoral to try and influence people’s preferences because [insert boringly stupid Rawlsian reason here]”, then we should just say that, not pretend that the problem is far harder to solve than it actually is because we’ve restricted ourselves to assuming that everyone’s preference relation is purely self-interested and…

The atomised-individual dynamic

Karen Stenner’s The Authoritarian Dynamic is a seminal collection of evidence on when and how authoritarianism affects polities, but the nuance that she offers above and beyond previous investigations into authoritarianism begins to invite questions about whether it is “authoritarians” who are truly the voters that should puzzle political psychologists.

Academia, it’s time for a schism

Oliver Traldi proposes that academia can solve its current polarisation by focussing on the epistemic justification of knowledge. I argue the schisms of Protestantism indicate this is likely to fail.

The theodicy of Dark

Dark fulfils the theodicy expressed by Dostoevsky: Evil exists because of the lies of Man, and all the suffering of innocents is preventable, but at the end “there will occur and be revealed something so precious that it will suffice for all human hearts”.

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