Monthly Archives: September 2014

I’m sometimes sarcastic, but I’m trying to give it up altogether. It’s bad to be sarcastic because civility over disagreements is a good idea, and sarcasm is uncivil. But there’s another reason to avoid it. There are mistaken arguments that sound vaguely persuasive when cloaked in sarcasm whose flaws would be obvious if you triedContinue reading “Never be sarcastic”

I often hold back from posting first because I’m very unsure whether what I’m saying is right, and secondly because I wonder whether someone else has already said it, and better, and I’d find it if I did more thorough reading. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s much better to err on theContinue reading “Unoriginal and wrong posts ahead”

In a small Universe, an early Great Filter is unlikely, simply because we’re evidence against it. Suppose the Filter is early; how severe must it be for us to observe what we observe? By “severe” I mean: what proportion of worlds must it stop? Our existence is evidence towards an upper bound on the severity ofContinue reading “The size of the Universe and the Great Filter”