On the Is/Ought Problem

A simplified version of this appears in Neal Stephenson’s book Anathem as an adage that the inhabitants of that fictitious world know as “Diax’s Rake”, which goes “Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true.” In business, a similar idea is put forward more generally, “past results are not indicative of future performance.” In our world, the postulate that you can’t get an is from an ought or vice versa is known by a different name: “Hume’s Guillotine.”

The World Builder's Bookshelf, Part 1

Now, I’ve had a lot of thoughts on genre fiction in the past, and this list is going to be more useful for people interested in writing a secondary world story, with a particular (but not exclusive) eye towards fantasy fiction. As a result of a number of factors, there are going to be several works that I often make use of in my political thoughts, but this list isn’t primarily or solely focused on that.

Edgar's Book Round-Up, July 2023

We’re still going monthly, lads

On Monomania: The High Strange Moment in the 21st Century

When I was a kid, I loved science fiction and this included alien abduction and UFO stories. I don’t think I really believed, even then. For a while, I even claimed to have seen one, though this was a lie. In this way, perhaps I better embodied the X-Files slogan “I want to believe” than the characters — I wanted to believe, but I simply didn’t.

On Broken Games (Ludo-Analysis, Part 3)

If we accept that it’s possible for a game to be not fun, the next obvious question is simple: if it is not fun, is there perhaps some other reason for playing it?