analects noun, pl

/ˈan.ə.lɛkts/

a collection of ideas, extracts, or teachings.

Accidental Civilisation

stuff On the accident of civilisation

show:

analects under the categories btrmt. believes in, as set out in the manifesto

analects organised according to the fundamental questions of philosophy

sequences of articles gathered around a more focused idea

  • ai and task fragmentation 4 Jun 2026 [marginalium] AI and task fragmentation. A while back I came across the time-horizon model of AI task automation. It was a somewhat reassuring piece for p...
  • space skepticism 30 May 2026 [marginalium] Space skepticism. Essentially, the idea that moving operations to space isn’t going to solve problems we face on earth. Not yet, anyway. Int...
  • the era of the business idiot 29 Apr 2026 [marginalium] The Era Of The Business Idiot. Good article on what I have variously called Malcolm Gladwell Shit or karstic traps. I’ll pull a few quotes f...
  • how to do soul-craft with state tools 6 Jun 2025 [marginalium] How To Do Soul-Craft With State Tools: We seem to be grieving literacy in public lately. Thoughtful essays keep appearing—in TheGuardian, T...
  • superstition in a godless state 30 May 2025 [marginalium] Superstition In A Godless State. On the rise of superstition in the notoriously anti-superstitious Chinese State. It’s hard not to see paral...
  • eurasian demonology 16 May 2025 [marginalium] On Eurasian Demonology. I wrote an article this week about a very expensive faux-neuroscience-based program that talks about your inner demo...
  • why have sentence lengths decreased? 1 May 2025 [marginalium] Why Have Sentence Lengths Decreased? Once, sentences were very long, now sentences are super short. The article explores a bunch of ideas, b...
  • social media and moore's law 1 May 2025 [marginalium] Social Media and Moore’s Law. From Tyler Cowan, who is confusing me recently, but I still like his predictions. I have a draft article that...
  • mortuary practice and grief 10 Apr 2025 [marginalium] Mortuary Practice And Grief In addition, researchers have shown that ritualization helps us to feel more in control of life events and they...
  • more lawless than you realise 10 Apr 2025 [marginalium] It’s more lawless out there than you realise: I have been told that the section on insurance in the tax code is so complex that fewer peopl...
  • why did korea split? 4 Apr 2025 [marginalium] The story of the creation of the two Korean states. It won’t surprise you, but I’d never thought about it before.
  • the economics of despair 28 Mar 2025 [marginalium] Article on the health cost of the current economic malaise. US-centric, so you’d have to modify by satisfaction when doing the hypothetical...
  • the managerial class has no future 21 Mar 2025 [marginalium] The Managerial Class Has No Future: The professional-managerial class (PMC) comprises highly educated professionals who work in fields like...
  • business metrics broke universities 21 Mar 2025 [marginalium] How business metrics broke universities. I hate the layout of this article, but suffer through. Interesting skim: Small departments were el...
  • handbags as a key to evolution 13 Mar 2025 [marginalium] Yale Review article asks ‘Was an accessory the secret to evolution?’ The value of the handbag was interesting. I myself have found myself ad...
  • self-domesticated ape 4 Mar 2025 [marginalium] We are the only self-domesticated animal: Although wolves were domesticated into dogs in several regions of the world around 15 to 40 thous...
  • singleness and the pandemic dating recession 1 Mar 2025 [marginalium] The Coronavirus pandemic in the US represented a fundamental challenge to casual dating and to romantic relationship formation. The How Coup...
  • how the system works 14 Feb 2025 [marginalium] Introducing “How the System Works,” a series on the hidden mechanisms that support modern life. As Mann points out, “No poets celebrate the...
  • fertility slowdown not due to higher female incomes 14 Feb 2025 [marginalium] The recent fertility slowdown in the U.S. is not primarily due to higher female incomes. If it’s not that women are getting better, is it be...
  • breakfast for eight billion 14 Feb 2025 [marginalium] Breakfast for Eight Billion. This is the first in the essay from Mann’s ‘how the system works’. I’ll save it again because it’s really fasci...

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