Author Archives: Darcey Riley

[This post is part of a series on social technologies.] In this post, I’ll introduce the concept of a social technology, by means of a couple of examples. The first comes from a post by Sarah Constantin about the social … Continue reading →

In this part of the internet, people often talk about social technologies. But I haven’t seen any overview posts that explain what a social technology is. So I’m going to try to write some. In this series of posts, I’ll … Continue reading →

I. You probably know the story of Oedipus. He was the son of Laius and Jocasta, the king and queen of Thebes. The oracle at Delphi foretold that he would kill his father and marry his mother, and it was … Continue reading →

A couple years ago, I was taking an outdoor class in West Virginia. I had brought a book to read, and I had put it down on a tree stump as I worked on my project. And while I wasn’t … Continue reading →

A couple years ago, I was browsing Facebook, and I stumbled across this quote from Marvin Minsky: Could Computers Be Creative? I plan to answer “no” by showing that there’s no such thing as “creativity” in the first place. I … Continue reading →

(This is not part of the Postrationality series. It’s just an isolated thought that I wanted to share.) In order to change someone’s mind, you don’t have to change their beliefs. You just have to change their associations. Let me … Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago, Scott Alexander posted a map of the rationalist community, and much to my delight, I’m on it! Specifically, I’ve been placed in the country of Postrationality, alongside Meaningness, Melting Asphalt, Ribbonfarm, and A Wizard’s Word. … Continue reading →

The universe is a chasm of inconceivable space, surrounding us dizzily from all directions. We are afraid of the distance between adjacent stars and we are afraid of the distance between adjacent atoms; any open space is a breeding ground … Continue reading →

I. Lately, the internet has been awash with new gender and sexual identities. On the gender side, the strict dichotomy of male and female has given way to a proliferation of possibilities, including agender, transgender and gender fluid; these categories … Continue reading →