Posts categorized under: commentary

Agreeing With Stalin in Ways That Exhibit Generally Rationalist Principles

It was not the sight of Mitchum that made him sit still in horror. It was the realization that there was no one he could call to expose this thing and stop it—no superior anywhere on the line, from Colorado to Omaha to New York. They were in on …

If Clarity Seems Like Death to Them

"—but if one hundred thousand [normies] can turn up, to show their support for the [rationalist] community, why can't you?"

I said wearily, "Because every time I hear the word community, I know I'm being manipulated. If there is such a thing as the [rationalist] community, I'm certainly not a …

Beyond the Binary

Do not at the outset of your career make the all too common error of mistaking names for things. Names are only conventional signs for identifying things. Things are the reality that counts. If a thing is despised, either because of ignorance or because it is despicable, you will not …

A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning

If you are silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it.

—Zora Neale Hurston

Recapping my Whole Dumb Story so far—in a previous post, "Sexual Dimorphism in Yudkowsky's Sequences, in Relation to My Gender Problems", I told the part about how I've "always" (since puberty …

Blanchard's Dangerous Idea and the Plight of the Lucid Crossdreamer

I'm beginning to wonder if he's constructed an entire system of moral philosophy around the effects of the loyalty mod—a prospect that makes me distinctly uneasy. It would hardly be the first time a victim of mental illness has responded to their affliction that way—but it would certainly …

I'm Dropping the Pseudonym From This Blog

Don't think.
If you think, then don't speak.
If you think and speak, then don't write.
If you think, speak, and write, then don't sign.
If you think, speak, write, and sign, then don't be surprised.

—Soviet proverb

When I decided I wanted to write about autogynephilia in late 2016 …

I Don't Do Policy

Something about my writing that tends to confuse people, that I need to clarify briefly: people keep expecting me to come out with some sort of policy prescription, whereas I see myself as trying to describe what's actually going on in the world without being delusional about how much control …

Amulet

After some recent Twitter and Discord discussions, I'm still amazed at how well my "only Nixon could go to China" effect continues to hold up: everyone is respectfully sympathetic to the poor self-hating trans woman even when her whole bit is specifically about explaining why that frame is delusional. (When …