Talking with Bentham's Bulldog

A looong, somewhat rambling, and very fun conversation with

Bentham's Bulldog

—thanks to him for talking; topics covered include:

• The Deep State, particularly my old article, In Defense of the Deep State.

• Foreign intervention generally—recommended reading: Trump Is De-Stereotyping Republican Foreign Policy from

  Glenn
  ; and also maybe Military Strikes Are An Extremely Cheap Way To Help Foreigners from SlateStarCodex.

• Woke academia—from me: A Tour of Today's College Courses and Universities Should Teach That Which Is Good and True; from BB: The National Debate Tournament as a Case Study of College Woke Debate Insanity.

• My IB Diploma results—I got a 38, it’s fine, I’m happy with it, shut up.

• EthnoGuessr. Here is a link.

• AI risk—I need to do a full write-up of my thoughts about this at some point, but for now I’ll just recommend you pre-order the book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.

• Schools suck now—recommended reading: Scott Alexander’s What Happened To NAEP Scores? and my comment.

• BB can say words backwards.

• I can make my head do a sort of weird thing.

• Moral realism—I don’t have very well-formed ideas about this right now; BB does.

• Do I speak Hebrew? No, I do not.

  (אבל אני מבין קצת)

• Here is a cool video about category theory and color perception:

• Do owls eat their own shit? No, they do not.

• How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now

• Is

  Lyman Stone
  evil and crazy? I think probably not.

• BB on Mary’s Room; again, I am totally underinformed here.

• Norman Finkelstein, Destiny, and others debating about Israel stuff.

• Best in Show is very very good.