Gutter Philosophy

Not Content With the Content

Chill Culture, Gutter Philosophy

I think I finally understand content warnings now. They aren’t effective at what they’re actually supposed to do. Studies show that pretty clearly.

Therefore, why they exist is, like many human things, for the purpose of signaling. Content and trigger warnings are used to convey that you are courteous enough to be concerned with the viewer’s sensitivities about something. They also communicate that you are embedded enough in a particular culture to know what its triggers and concerns in fact are.

Thus, they are used both for courtesy and to express status (these two are always closely related) and make a lot more sense to me from that sociological angle.

Claims and Games

Chill Gutter Philosophy, Politics

Trump’s or Harris’s chance of winning the presidency is 100% or 0%. The percentage that you’re actually measuring in a one-off contest that is not repeatable is the confidence in your model. So if you say, “Trump has a 55% chance of winning,” you’re really making a claim that you think your model has a 55% chance of being correct in that direction. These are two different things!

Yes, I know it’s pedantic, but in a single unique event what you’re confident about and what your actual claim is matters.

Treat

Chill Gutter Philosophy, Tech

For most people, the internet was a mistake. And smartphones were a huge mistake. Not for all — but for most. But absent a nuclear war, there is no going back, no returning to what was extant before. We must adapt and make the best of the mess.

The internet should’ve remained as it was back in 1999-2001 or so. Smart techie type people only, with very little spillover into the wider world. No dating apps and not overrun by ads and large corporations. Smartphones should probably not exist at all. Too cognitively hazardous.

Wee Frill

Chill Gutter Philosophy

Just because a defined (and definable) series of events led to an action, does not mean that free will was not exercised or not present. It also doesn’t mean that free will was present. In this universe at the macro level at least, it tends to be causative agents all the way back. That says nothing about free will, but rather that time exists.

I believe this all stems from is a problem with our definition and understanding of “free will,” rather than telling us anything about will qua will at all, free or otherwise. The common definition of “free will” is “can do anything at any time.” But not even Superman1 can do that. For all his power, he is still constrained by his physical location, his past decisions, his still-limited attention span, the fact that he does not possess infinite intelligence, or that he might get tangled in his cape, etc.

There is no complete definition of free will, but the colloquial understanding of that it is just some ill-defined ability to make any decision or to take any action at any time seems to be more limiting than the alternative to me. I don’t have a complete answer, either, though I am quite sure the colloquial understanding of this all is very wrong. If I had to attempt to pin myself down on this intellectually, I’d say that I am Compatibilist, though I don’t quite hew to any of the existing Compatibilist positions. I have my own thing going there. But it’d take far too long to write about and would in fact be quite a bit more involved than the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on that topic itself.

So, another time then.

  1. Yes, the dual meaning with Nietzsche is deliberate.