Goodreads Giveaway, Slut Apologists, Curiosity

Links and recommendations

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From the archives:

If you want a functional society, you have to either pay the social cost of upholding norms, or pay the economic cost of what happens when there are none.

You Can’t Be Socially Liberal and Fiscally Conservative

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Links and recommendations:

• Here is a new Goodreads giveaway, where you can enter for a chance to win an advance print copy of my forthcoming book

• Why I Ran Away from Philosophy Because of Sam Bankman-Fried by Ted Gioia

  • This excellent essay is more about utilitarianism than philosophy per se.

  • The essay reminded me of a conversation I had with a psychology professor years ago, who quietly told me, “Rob, more and more I am coming to believe that utilitarianism is the morality of evil.”

  • I was once in a moral philosophy seminar in college and the professor asked how many of the students were utilitarians. Out of 16 students, 14 raised their hands.

• The Millionaire Slut Apologists by Patricia Patnode

• Suicide Rates Are up for Gen Z Across the Anglosphere, Especially for Girls by Zach Rausch and Jonathan Haidt

• Runaway consumerism explains the Fermi Paradox by Geoffrey Miller

• The Green New Deal (short story) by Zero HP Lovecraft

• The power law of crime by Ed West

• Follow me on Instagram here. The platform is less volatile and more chill than X/Twitter, so I post some spicier excerpts from my readings on my IG stories

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Three interesting findings:

1. Curiosity follows an inverted U-shaped curve. We are least curious when we have no idea about the answer to a question and also when we are entirely convinced that we know the answer. The place of maximum curiosity is when we think we have some idea but aren’t sure. (source: The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr). This is probably why we can still feel suspense when, for example, we know the outcome of a story but don’t know exactly how the character overcomes the obstacles that led to the conclusion.

2. In the U.S., roughly twice as many women are tattooed (39%) as men (21%). This holds true for the rates of both hidden (30% of women vs. 17% of men) and visible tattoos (9% of women vs. 4% of men). (source).

3. Are children a joy or a burden? On average, university education correlates with increased negative attitudes about children and decreased positive attitudes, whereas religiosity predicts increased positive attitudes about children and decreased negative ones. (source). Today, young adults are more educated and less religious than any previous era in history.