#10 Recap & Recommendations
What's next for Critical Rationalism News & selection of newsletters from the community.
What’s next
Between March 2022 and May 2023 we released 9 episodes of our newsletter. This episode will be the beginning of a new era for Critical Rationalism News. We all got pretty busy with various projects, but will re-commit to a regular monthly released cadence.
If you want us to highlight your article, or you have suggestions for upcoming newsletters, please email us your suggestions at criticalrationalism@substack.com (you can reply to this email).
What we wrote recently
Explore the fascinating parallels between the universality of Darwin's theory of evolution and the principles of Austrian economics, as we delve into the debate around accepting these ideas' comprehensive applicability to all biological entities and economic sectors respectively, challenging conventional wisdom and potentially reshaping our understanding of the world.
The Bioenergetic Explanation of Health
What is your definition of health? Health, a concept often defined by the absence of disease, is more accurately a state of unburdened and actualized physiological function. The quest for health, akin to the pursuit of truth, requires explanations that are hard to vary, as proposed by physicist David Deutsch.
Constraints, often viewed as limitations, are in fact catalysts for progress, evident in fields like science and poetry. This intriguing concept is applied to money, demonstrating how it, as a constraint, revolutionized trade by solving the 'double coincidence of wants' problem in barter systems, and facilitated efficient resource allocation through price signals. However, the manipulation of this constraint (money supply) has caused issues, promoting the need for an unmanipulatable medium - Bitcoin.
Startup Ideas: Exploration & Evaluation
This article delves into the epistemology of startup ideas, exploring the intersection of knowledge and innovation. It unpacks the mechanics of problem-solving and the untapped potential of secrets and market trends. The post summarizes 50+ blog posts and podcasts on this and related topics by the world's most successful founders and VCs.
Science, while a revered source of knowledge, is often misused as a shield against criticism, with policymakers invoking its authority to silence debate; yet, true science is about continuous questioning, and while it can explain how the world works, it can't dictate the choices we make, emphasizing the crucial role of human ingenuity in transforming our understanding of the world.
Great Newsletters
Slavery Is Bad For Business—The foundational myth of servitude is economic as well as historical
Another Sun Rises—The dawn of fusion power is now.
Eight Billion Reasons to Celebrate—Why a larger population is a radically good thing
Dissecting Discontent—How Incel Ideology Mirrors Socialist Thought
Getting an 'ought' from an 'is'—A connection between fallibilism and morality
The morality of immortality—Answering ChatGPT's objections to human immortality
Hidden-in-Plain-Sight Ideas
Gish Gallops, Conspiracies, and Refutations as Anti-Rational Memes
Organizing the conflicts with Deutsch and rationalism
You can find more resources at criticalrationalism.org.
Looking back
We want to take a moment to highlight some of the introductory essays of our previous posts. It might be worth reading these again. We included a mini summary for every essay.
Why ChatGPT isn't a step towards AGI
Unravel the fascinating dichotomy between AI like ChatGPT and the elusive artificial general intelligence (AGI) in this newsletter, exploring the philosophical barrier of creativity, the misunderstanding of learning, and the potential of AGI to be as dangerous—and wonderful—as humans.
Exploring the tension between altruism and progress, this piece argues that our inability to predict future knowledge makes it impossible to accurately cater for the needs of future generations. It suggests that focusing on individual growth and problem-solving, rather than imposing our present values on future generations, may lead to a more beneficial future for all.
Why the Growth of Wealth is not Enough
This piece explores the relationship between wealth and morality in the context of free market capitalism, arguing that wealth is not just material but also consists of transformative knowledge. It suggests that moral knowledge, which guides our decisions on which transformations to pursue, is essential in our understanding of progress, hinting at a deeper interconnectedness between wealth and morality.
This piece scrutinizes the use of shaming as a tool for persuasion, arguing that it is not only ineffective but also potentially harmful. It explains that genuine persuasion requires argument and understanding, and that societal acceptance of shaming could lead to a culture where everyone shames and no one learns, making it a precarious strategy for any ideology.
Challenging the notion of superintelligence as a threat, this article uses epistemology to argue that a true AGI would be capable of doubt, learning, and aligning with human values, thereby reducing the perceived existential risk and offering a fascinating exploration of artificial consciousness.
On the derangements of science
This thought-provoking piece challenges traditional views of science, asserting that it is not a cold, emotionless practice, nor a final authority on truth. It underscores the importance of creativity, conjecture, and criticism in the knowledge-creation process, while warning against the dangers of dogmatism and authoritarianism in science, ultimately urging an open-minded approach that embraces the inevitability of mistakes.
Exploring the fear of automation-induced unemployment, this article argues that technologies like ChatGPT won't cause joblessness, but rather empower us to achieve more. Drawing on historical examples, it maintains that while some jobs may become obsolete, technological progress invariably creates new opportunities, boosts living standards, and opens pathways to solutions previously unimagined, thereby driving humanity towards an end to poverty.
This essay challenges the notion that wealth is finite, arguing that wealth creation, driven by the growth of knowledge, brings something new into the world and contributes to societal abundance. It posits that entrepreneurs, not governments, are the real agents of progress and advocates for freedom as the key to solving pressing global issues, thus inviting readers to reconsider their views on wealth, knowledge, and progress.
