How do I know if I'm dreaming?
I’ve been interested in lucid dreaming since high school, with just enough success to say that my efforts haven’t been a complete waste of time. I have a...
Prioritizing your objectives is better than grazing past them accidentally
A silly argument: The goal of this activity/institution is to achieve X. It doesn’t really achieve X, but it does achieve Y, which is even better! If...
My Carlin-esque list of pet peeves
Not that I’m remotely as funny as George Carlin, or that this list is funny at all. But he had many complaints and grievances, and today I would also like to...
Not being awkward is NP-hard
This meme got me thinking: That feeling when you’re smart enough to know how awkward you are, but not smart enough to know how not to be awkward The reason...
Some little things I do to make life easier
In the spirit of You Can Just Do Things, here are some things I Just Do. Some of them are weird; others are normal, but frequently overlooked. Edited...
Kid me was bad at Magic: The Gathering
I played a lot of MTG from age 9 to 14 or so. I picked up the game again recently and I was immediately better at the game than my 14-year old self. I don’t...
Gaming keyboards are not good for gaming
Nearly all gaming keyboards use the conventional typewriter-inspired keyboard shape. That is not a good shape for typing or gaming or frankly anything else....
Belief in expert mistakes
A few years ago, there was some publicity around a Navy fighter pilot who claimed to have seen an unidentified object that couldn’t possibly be explained...
TV is better when you trust the writers
This post contains spoilers for the first episode of Pluribus. Pluribus is the new show brought to you by the same team who made Breaking Bad and Better Call...
I like reborrowed words
A reborrowed word is a loan word that goes from language A to language B and then back to language A. I think they’re neat. A classic example is pidgin. A...
Wartime ethics is weird
http://mdickens.me/2025/11/28/wartime_ethics/ The ethical principles that most people hold—and hold most strongly—go completely out the window when it comes...
Wartime ethics is weird
The ethical principles that most people hold—and hold most strongly—go completely out the window when it comes to war. Normal time: Killing is bad. In fact...
Alignment Bootstrapping Is Dangerous
http://mdickens.me/2025/11/27/alignment_bootstrapping_is_dangerous/ AI companies want to bootstrap weakly-superhuman AI to align superintelligent AI. I don’t...
Alignment Bootstrapping Is Dangerous
AI companies want to bootstrap weakly-superhuman AI to align superintelligent AI. I don’t expect them to succeed. I could give various arguments for why...
Magic: The Gathering Arena decklists for people on a budget
I’ve been playing a lot of MTG Arena lately, but I refuse to spend any money on it, which means I can’t craft many rare cards. When I look up meta decklists,...
How to Fix Quidditch
Inspired by this post by Tomás Bjartur, which is an allegory; but I’m not writing an allegory, I’m writing about the rules of Quidditch. The rules of...
I don't like having goals
Sometimes I’m talking about lifting weights and someone asks me, “What’s your goal weight?” I don’t understand why I would have a goal weight. Say I want to...
Some Curiosity Stoppers I've Heard
A curiosity stopper is an answer to a question that gets you to stop asking questions, but doesn’t resolve the mystery. There are some curiosity stoppers...
Where I Am Donating in 2025
Dear email readers: This post will probably not fit in your email because it’s too long. You can read the whole thing online:...
Where I Am Donating in 2025
Last year I gave my reasoning on cause prioritization and did shallow reviews of some relevant orgs. I’m doing it again this year. Cross-posted to the...