I can make a promise.
I can make a plan.
I can make a difference.
I can take a stand.
I can make an effort.
If I only understand.
That I, I can make a change.
This is a post of updates. Historically, I haven’t ever removed a post from this blog. I felt it was important that, even if I no longer endorsed something, there was a historical record of my beliefs and how they changed which I could chart through time.
However this blog is now entering its fourth year, and I have changed quite a lot as a person in those four years. During that time, this blog has accumulated a lot of things which I no longer think are correct or helpful or necessarily even healthy advice to give people, and so I want to review everything. This post will serve as that review.
Afterward, I’ll be removing anything significantly de-endorsed from the sidebar and about sections. This post will retain links to all those essays, nothing will be deleted. De-endorsed posts will have headers indicating their status and sections I don’t agree with will be marked in red. I will eventually end up reposting some older essays with edits if it would make sense to do so. There may be a lag time of a few weeks before everything is updated, so refer to this post if you aren’t sure if something is endorsed or not.
This list is not quite entirely chronological, but for the most part, it is.
The Plurality series – This is by far the biggest update, and it’s also one that I want to dedicate some additional writing to once I finish with my current projects. Since developing the idea of true no-self, and understanding of keeping my identity small, my perspectives on how to do plurality has changed significantly. Keeping my identity small is probably one of the most important pieces of mental tech I’ve developed over the last year.
As I said in the death series, identity is a power fantasy, it can’t actually help you very much. Without this understanding, someone doing tulpamancy is often just making an uncontrolled mess of their head. I do still think tulpamancy and the sort of mental manipulations found within can be helpful and produce power and agency but only when done from a place of no-self and keeping your identity small.
It’s very easy to let identity become the thing that plurality is constructed around, which is a fast track to dysfunction. The plurality series is going to stay on the sidebar for now, until I have time to rewrite all of it, but it should be understood that doing plurality without keeping your identity small is an extremely bad idea.
Yes, This is a Hill Worth Dying On – This post is basically an argument for classical liberalism and freedom of speech. I still vaguely agree with parts of it, but with some huge caveats that deserve a post of their own to explain and without which I can’t endorse it. In short, there actually are people trying to betray the commons and if your moral/ethical/legal system doesn’t know how to deal with that because it’s trying too hard to see the good in everyone, you will end up fucking your society and getting your country taken over by fascists.
Announcing EntropyCon 12017 – Still Endorsed.
The Story of Our Life – Probably the cringiest description of my past that I could have created, I don’t really endorse it as a good description of my past anymore. I was writing from a place of having a ton of baggage, but the actual events are accurate enough. If you decide to read it, my apologies in advance for coming across as a whiny emo.
The Origin Sequence – I still endorse the goals of the Origin Project, even if the actual outcome was not what I wanted. I still use the precepts as my primary moral/ethical code and overall I think the project is still a good thing, it just failed in execution. See Eris in Retrograde for more details.
Why Do you Hate Elua – I bet I felt really clever when I was writing this. This is in a sense the beginnings of my pivot away from thinking Yes, This is a Hill Worth Dying On, was a correct perspective on liberalism. It’s also not very good. It and a lot of my other political positions definitely could use substantial updates. No longer endorsed.
This is For Real – Trying to talk about social reality before reading Improv and Becker. This is honestly still one of my favorite posts and I think I did a rather good job on the tone, but I wrote it before I really knew what I was talking about and the content is sort of light on the ground. Weakly endorsed but it could be better.
A Castle Made of Castles – A framework for discussing frameworks. A bit silly, a bit reductive, describes things as magic that I would not want to describe as magic anymore. Not the worst thing ever, but not particularly endorsed either, there are better frameworks for discussing frameworks.
Basic Lens Model Theory – Another framework for discussing frameworks. This is basically a classification system for frameworks and belief systems, I still use this on occasion and I moderately endorse it as a framing, but there are probably better ones out there.
Objects In Thoughtspace Are Closer Than They Appear – A system for classifying egregores. I consider this a very useful framing device when discussing egregores and vigorously endorse this post.
Against in Defense of Unreliability – A response post to Ozy’s In Defense of Unreliability, post. I was a bit aggressive in my tone in this essay, but I still endorse the content and think that advocating norms of unreliability is dangerous and bad for the community.
The Silence Hidden in the Sound – I definitely still strongly endorse this post, but I have more things to say about gender and sex which I haven’t gotten to yet. I’ve updated in the direction of loosely identifying as nonbinary or genderfluid, but I still stand by the contents of this post.
Eris in Retrograde – Postmortem of the Origin Project, Endorsed.
The Internet Hate Machine – A commentary on cancel culture, Endorsed.
That Which May Yet Save Us – This continues my pivot away from pure classical liberalism that started with Why Do You Hate Elua and advocates for kindness towards one’s enemies even when fighting them. This is not to say “never fight” but “be kind even when striking down your opponent.” This post is definitely still endorsed, but eventually, I will rewrite it, Why Do You Hate Elua, and Yes, This is a Hill Worth Dying On to better describe my actual political positions on these things.
The State of the Stateless – This was honestly just kind of a fun time waste post to write that talks about how I feel being a pink-haired city dweller who rides the bus and how the culture of anime has bled into real life. Somewhat endorsed but it’s mostly just me musing on things, should not be taken seriously.
The Nature of the Soul – This is the beginning of my updating process on plurality and psychology, and this post attempts to synthesize all the various people talking about self and motivation and identity. Endorsed, but should be followed up with my other more recent posts that answer the questions I pose in it.
On Communities – Dichotomy posting. An ad-hoc analysis of community dynamics and ways that groups can organize. A rather reductive framing that I don’t particularly stand by even if all the elements that I identify seem real. No longer endorsed.
Hemisphere Theory, Much More Than You Wanted to Know – My analysis of Ziz and Gwen’s Hemisphere Theory. While I endorse my analysis, it should be understood that the post is describing someone else’s beliefs, not my own.
Two Visions – My 2019 Secular Solstice Speech. Endorsed.
Vaporize – My explorations of self, identity, and insight using acid. Endorsed.
One Hundred Billion Children’s Sky – Introduction to the Death Series, endorsed.
Doors and Corners – Ernest Becker’s theory that the fear of mortality underlies all of human psychology. Mostly Endorsed but my positions on some of these things have evolved as I’ve read The Worm in the Core which was written fairly recently by some disciples of Becker. I will probably write more about the fear of death in the future.
Empire of the Dead – My descriptions of immortality projects new and old based off of Becker and extrapolating outwards from it. Endorsed with the same caveat that applies to Doors and Corners.
The Room Eats You – Explorations of social reality and how social reality interfaces with our fear of death. I’m not super happy with this post even though I agree with the contents of it. I didn’t really say a lot of the things in it as well as I should, and I should probably research social reality a lot more before trying to write about it again so I don’t have to keep citing Ziz. Endorsed but unhappily.
The Ends of Identity – How my perspective on identity has changed over time to get me to where I am now. Endorsed.
You Have Not Read the Sequences – On avoiding conspiracy theories and truth detection, the beginnings of my exploration of traditional and modern rationality. Endorsed.
Jan Bloch’s Impossible War – Exploring World War One and the dawn of X-risk. Endorsed but needs a few corrections.
Time Binders – Exploring Korzybski and the creation of General Semantics, endorsed.
This update post will be updated as endorsements change over time.
You can make it different,
You can make it right!
You can make it better,
We don’t have to fight!
You can make an effort,
Starting with tonight,
Cause you, you can make a change
Hivewired 