According to the Wikipedia page on religion, there are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide. And according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, there are an estimated 45,000 distinct denominations of Christianity alone. Of course, to fully understand these numbers, we have to ask a couple of…

This is a commentary on a Huffington Post article entitled 11 Things White People Need To Realize About Race, by Emma Gray and Jessica Samakow. The article was last updated in July of 2015, but I just discovered it a few days ago via a friend’s Facebook post. I decided…

Pretend you’re out on a clear evening, not too long after sunset. It’s a waxing gibbous moon — almost full. If someone asks you to point at the moon, you’ll of course be able to easily. Since it’s a waxing gibbous, you’ll be pointing Eastward and up. And if you…

All peer groups are arbitrary, and all advantage is unearned. — If Mike Tyson, a heavyweight, were to fight Floyd Mayweather, a featherweight, we might say it was an unfair fight because Mike Tyson is so much bigger. And similarly, if we found someone who has the same weight as Mike Tyson, but who had no training in boxing, we might…

A philosophy for the modern world Calling all thoughtful people! If you value: Happiness over suffering. Public evidence over prophecy and sacred documents. Pragmatic solutions over self-righteous punishments. And if you believe: Happiness is literally the meaning of life. There is no evil other than suffering itself. Free will is a myth, and a vector for biased judgements. You may be a pragmatic forgiver.

Can we stop acting like it's a trick question? EDIT: If you only read one article about gender definitions, read this one: https://medium.com/@cde.zhenya/simple-non-circular-non-transphobic-definitions-of-gender-c1e288d49cd5. It provides, I think, better definitions, and a more eloquent conversation than this article. Thanks to K.M. Noble for the link and the comment. I’ve seen some…

If you follow the field of AI, you’ve probably heard about the Google engineer who claimed that one of Google’s latest AIs, called “LaMDA”, was sentient. The Washington Post published a story about it, titled ‘The Google engineer who thinks the company’s AI has come to life’. …

Hi Von, I tend to agree with many of Elliot's main conclusions, but I often disagree with how he talks to people, such as how he responded to you here. I do think the segment you highlighted (about America being ugly, etc) is accurate within a certain framing, but I…

I think we tend to underestimate how hard it can be for a person to troubleshoot what they're doing wrong in relationships if they've never had even one successful one to draw upon. Everybody muddles through their sex life a bit, but most of us eventually get enough opportunities (i.e…