How Have My Political Views Changed Over Time?

I sometimes wonder if I'm too locked into my political ideology. I have been a libertarian of some sort basically as long as I've known what the word means, i.e. about seven years. However, in that time my views on various individual issues have changed; hopefully this means that the fear in my first sentence is not too accurate?

In any case, here is a set of notes I came up with when trying to work out how my views have changed. The four big driving forces between the changes have been:

-I became much less confident in the possibility of "moral truth", which (a) reduced my commitment to making everything fully consistent and (b) made me more sanguine about advancing political positions on aesthetic grounds. (This is quite possibly a negative development; that said, it made it easier to be honest about my real motivations for some policies, e.g. monarchism).

-aged 18, I was a committed Christian and so if I were to hold a belief about politics, either it had to be consistent with Biblical teachings or I had to twist my understanding of the Bible to fit my political leanings. (I remember being very upset when I read Exodus 3:22, which seemed like a blatant endorsement of theft). Between October 2013 and April 2014, I became convinced that Christianity is false.

-in Sixth Form and the first year of undergrad, I knew no other libertarians and the closest I could find to people who agreed with me were a couple of socially-liberal Tories; during the second-year of undergrad I got to know Sam Dumitriu, who eventually got me to start using Twitter, with the result that I quickly fell in with the #MCx crowd. We are all influenced by the people we talk to, partly because of honest intellectual influence but mostly because of a desire to fit in and look cool; hence my move to "neoliberalism" over "libertarianism".

-partly due to my loss of faith in deontological libertarian moral realism and partly due to people on Twitter - most obviously Sam Bowman and Ben Southwood - I became much more utilitarian. It's hard to date this exactly, but I particularly remember one afternoon of summer 2016 spent walking in County Kerry with my dad, when I concluded that either one took the Enlightenment seriously or one didn't' If one didn't, then what resulted was a tribalist, emotivist politics that was honest, if barbaric. If one took the Enlightenment seriously, then either one concluded that other people matter - in which case, why not go all the way to utilitarianism? - or only oneself matters, in which case ethical egoism results. Concepts like citizenship are attempts to maintain the visceral emotional appeal of pre-enlightenment politics in a post-Enlightenment context, but I think this attempt is ultimately dishonest. Emotional appeal ought to be abstracted as far as possible (which is not the same as removed!) from a political system based on reason. I've moved away from this somewhat since, but remain basically utilitarian.

With that overly long explanation out of the way, a list of fifteen ways in which my views have changed (still in note format but with some explanatory links added, I'm not going to tidy this up):

-used to consider anarchism to be the moral ideal towards which we should aim. Circa 2014 concluded that it was probably both viable and better than status quo, but minarchism to be preferred as a way of controlling negative externalities. Nowadays (since early 2017) suspect it may be unstable due to people's tribal instincts - though still would like to see it tried!

Given the supposition of a government:

1-used to advocate "liquid democracy". Now heavily opposed to anything approaching direct democracy, and would advocate for UK and other major liberal powers to be less democratic on the margin. Had a period of extreme scepticism of democracy due to Jason Brennan (circa early 2013-late 2016 or early 2017); now think it has important instrumental-expressive purposes in maintaining public order.

2-used to be uneasy about redistribution in principle, but would tolerate sufficientarianism. Now at peace with the principle of redistribution, though heavily concerned about *how* it is implemented. Partly due to Joseph Heath (ctrl-f "risk-pooling"), partly due to becoming more neoliberal/utilitarian, which is probably more due to the people I talk with than due to any particular argument. (Took a long time, but roughly late 2013-mid 2016)

3-used to be heavily opposed to military interventions. Now cautiously in favour, largely due to the influence of Mugwump. (still in flux)

4-used to be heavily concerned about tax rates. Still think they matter, but no longer consider them the highest priority. Always thought *how* we taxed matters, though have a more sophisticated understanding of taxation theory than I did back then. Used to advocate negative income tax; now prefer progressive consumption tax.

5-realised free trade is about much more than tariffs and quotas - free trade agreements serve a genuinely valuable purpose. Relatedly, was eurosceptic; switched to being pro-EU around late 2014, as a result of debate preceding the referendum became vastly more pro-EU. (Possibly also related to change in self-image due to living in Hungary for two years).

6-was unconcerned about fertility. Now consider it a top priority, mostly due to Nancy Folbre though partly due to combination of Parfit/Cowen on discounting the future with my own work opposing antinatalism. (early 2015-present)

7-used to assume that Austrian goldbuggery was sensible. (How embarrassing!) Have given up having strongly held views on monetary policy, though Scott Sumner is fairly persuasive. (change around early 2013 - mid 2015?)

8-as natural-rights libertarian, assumed there was a definite answer to whether or not intellectual property was valid, leaned towards not. Nowadays take a much more utilitarian view, thinking that in purely instrumental terms there should probably be some but less than we currently have.

9-was pro-open-borders. Now merely think we should have open borders for citizens of other liberal democracies, and higher but not unlimited immigration from less liberal countries. Didn't care about integration, seeing it as a service provided by host country to people who should be quite happy to reap the benefits of moving to a richer country; now see integration as an act of self-defence. (2016?)

10-thought we should tolerate more terrorism. Still think it's greatly overrated as a threat, but think that (a) preventing people from overreacting is intractable, and (b) costs of anti-terrorism much smaller than I thought back then.

11-struggled to find a reason to be monarchist while still being anarchist. Now I'm (a) less of a moral realist so happier to advocate political institutions on aesthetic grounds, (b) equipped with evidence that Habsburgs were good for Mitteleuropa.

12-was heavily opposed to existence of national debt. Now think morality of national debt dependent upon other institutions, in particular with how much we do to encourage fertility. (2015-early 2017, especially more recently with my work opposing anti-natalism: I came to think that we ought to subsidise procreation, but it seemed fair that the people benefitting by being born ought to bear the cost of subsidies)

13-felt reasonably comfortable with Conservative Party. Also thought UKIP were alright. Think Tories and Labour worse than they were back then, probably happier with Lib Dems than I was. (this probably more due to changes in the parties than changes in my own views, however)

14-thought strong governments (and consequently FPTP) were hugely important. Don't think I had any good reason for this belief. Now hold no strong opinions on this beyond "it depends". (Don't know when this changed, but probably not before 2011 AV+ referendum)

15-now advocate returning the Elgin Marbles. Felt awkward about this in much the same way as the monarchy insofar as I thought about it at all; this Ed West tweet convinced me that they ought, so long as Greece can look after them (which it admittedly might not be able to given the current economic situation), that they ought to be returned ASAP. (This is perhaps the only change in my views which happened in a single moment rather than over time).

My Experience of Race

Michael Story has yet another interesting question on Facebook:

Facebook pals, what's the most direct personal reason you have for your political beliefs? Not ideology, but experiences, wants, cares etc. 
Like I (probably wrongly, genetics etc) attribute my vague conservatism to living in the 3rd and 2nd worlds and seeing our 1st world political and social institutions from distance as immensely precious, fragile and in need of protection. My vague liberalism comes from being eccentric, highly open to other eccentric people and wanting us all to flourish.

Several of the responses deal with issues of race, which led me to think about my own experience of it. I'm as WASP as they come, but have known plenty of people of other races - both immigrants in the UK, and fellow students from around the world at CEU. It's hard to pinpoint any particular views I hold as a result of this, but it's also difficult to deny that my perceptions of race have been affected by what I have seen.

My primary school had a minority of immigrants, although it's long enough ago that I struggle to remember exactly what proportion of the school they were. I remember H (presumably Korean descent, I won't name this person for reasons which will soon be obvious), Nafees and Pardeep (Indian subcontinent), Reuel Clarke (Caribbean maybe?), David Edeke (going by surname, clearly African), Paige (if Mauritians count), Jason Inniss (African maybe?), and am fairly confident there were others who came and left before them. There was also Nikolai, who was half-German half-Russian and left for Germany when we were ten. Again this reliant upon a shaky memory, but I'd guess the school was on average working-to-lower-middle class; I, being upper-middle, was probably in hindsight one of the poshest people there. (I was also one of three people in my year, our of 27 who were there at the end, to go to a selective secondary school. It will not surprise you one bit to learn that the other two were Nafees and Pardeep).

Were the friendship groups in that group stratified by race? Can't really say by memory, since I don't really remember what they were outside my own (none of my most immediate friends were among those mentioned above, although I got along well enough with Nafees and Pardeep of course, and another friend, Jacob, was American if memory serves). I do remember that the most persistent victim of bullying was H. (I was what you'd call complicit in the bullying - pretty certain I never practiced any violence on him personally, but I was watching and laughing when various of my friends - and one guy in particular - would push him down the slope next to the playground. Certainly my behaviour then is something of which, in hindsight, I am deeply ashamed).

Then we move on to secondary school. I went to King Edward VI Camp Hill Grammar School for Boys, where white were definitely the largest ethnic group but more likely a plurality than a majority. We had lots of people from the Indian subcontinent, a notable contingent of Chinese descent, and the occasional person from various other races. At least within my year group, race was visible and was treated as a joke. When choosing sides for football, we would name one team - typically the one with the most blacks - "EDL". We had Racist Wednesdays, in which everyone would tell jokes about the other races (I remember that whites were mocked for our lack of athletic ability and Asians - "freshies", as in fresh-off-the-boat - for their accents) in a spirit of good fun. Less edgily, the combination of A-levels in Maths and three Sciences (possibly plus Further Maths) was referred to as "the Asian equation", although there were plenty of white guys taking it as well.

So race was visible, noted, and mocked. What of the friendship groups? Well, that's the thing - while absolutely everyone (so far as I could tell) had some friends of different races, and there definitely wasn't anything you could refer to as tension between the races, any given pair of people were considerably more likely to be friends if they were of the same race. Years 10 and 11 come to mind, when during form period we had a room with a fairly clear racial divide in seating patterns - Asians in the back left (aside from Nafees - a different Nafees from the one mentioned earlier, to be clear), whites and Immarni through the front and right, and Chinese all dispersed into other classes within the year group.

In contrast to my primary school, this was a very fine grammar school in which pretty much everyone had at least one parent in the civil service. It was what you would rightly expect to be a beacon of progressivism in the most Moldbuggian sense imaginable. And yet we still had this pattern of racial division.

Then I went off to the University of Manchester to study PPE. The PPE course itself was mostly, though by no means exclusively, white - but it was also noticeable how much the racial composition of different courses varied. Our economics lectures contained vast numbers of Chinese students, here for a degree, who you would never ever see outside the classroom. There were actually a couple of far-eastern students, Haydn (Hong Kong maybe? He's not on Facebook, which makes checking hard) and Shuen (Malay) on the edges of my immediate friendship group, and in first-year halls I had a couple of Chinese students as flatmates - one of whom left his room for lectures, to cook, and by the end of the year to play us at chess, and one who I saw perhaps twice in the whole year and who I don't think even went to lectures.

Philosophy, by contrast, was the whitest discipline imaginable. (That said, white did not just mean English - I met a surprisingly large number of Cackalack Americans on philosophy courses). Politics had plenty of minority students, but they were immigrants or progeny of immigrants rather than students from abroad. A more general note, and a very sad one for what it says, it that this was perhaps my first time with absolutely no peers of African descent. They'd been present at St. Mary's Primary School, they were unusual but just-about present at Camp Hill; the only people of that ethnicity I can remember from Manchester were a black-Jamaican medic who went to my church and the security guard at the on-campus Sainsbury's.

With the aforementioned caveat about lots of Chinese students with whom we didn't really interact, I had a reasonably racially mixed friendship group. Among my ten or so closest friends on the course were Naz Nahar (Bangladeshi descent, though we joked that it was spray-on tan), Rachel So (Cantonese descent, though her Cantonese was about the level of my Hungarian) and Jawdat Nassour (from Lebanon, although after graduation he made his immigration permanent; I don't know what Haydn did, and Shuen is currently at grad school in New York City).

Outside of the course, my friends were rather whiter. I did kayaking, a hobby in which I can't ever remember seeing a single non-white comrade; I went to church, which had black families but few black students (although in first year I was friends with a visiting Singaporean student). Giving What We Can: Manchester was very diverse within Europe, being led by a guy of Romanian descent and having as one of the most active members a Portugese student, but was ultimately as white as the rest of philosophy.

So then, on to CEU. CEU is a highly international university, with students from all around the globe. Earlier today I cooked alongside a Pakistani (?) woman, while some far-eastern-European girls nattered in the background and sighed over my use of a cheese grater (yes, really). We also have two Americans, a Canadian, a Swede, two Iranians, a Portugese-French-Swiss, an Assyrian who grew up in Georgia, a Hungarian, several Ukrainians, an Italian, and many more besides on the floor. Go up a floor and you'll find my good friend Bhavya from India; up another floor and you'll meet my lunch-companion for tomorrow, Ethelred (Hong Kong), his girlfriend Laura (Romania), the girl who I wish was my girlfriend, Ágnes (AKA Nesi, Hungary), and a whole bunch of others.

These people, by doing to a graduate school and travelling internationally to get there, are strongly selected both for openness to other countries and for intelligence. In short, for progressivism. And yet there are strong ethic lines of friendship. The Balkans kind of form a conglomeration around use of the Serbo-Croatian language, there's a pan-African group, Russians and Russian-speakers get together to smoke, etc. That's not the only thing - courses and academic interests are also pretty important - but it's an undeniable tendency.

So we have a variety of contexts in which you have highly progressive populations with racial divides, and these racial divides are replicated in friendship patterns. This need not mean any kind of prejudice, in fact I think it's primarily driven by shared cultural (and in particular linguistic) background - CEU is rather more polarised than Camp Hill, where we all had the same first language, and a fair few of my friends from UK minorities - Rachel So, for example, or Dwayne Spiteri (a guy of Jamaican descent who joined Camp Hill for Sixth Form) - were very "white" members of those minorities. I don't think the far-Eastern-European women who were enjoying my cheese-grating are from the same country - one is Armenian, one is some kind of Turkic, and no idea on the third - but they were enjoying the use of a common tongue other than English (and are on occasion joined by one of the Ukrainians).

This was originally intended as an answer to Michael Story's question, but it's far too long for that and doesn't easily lead into any particular belief I hold. But it does effect the kind of racial harmony that I think it is realistic to hope for. A world in which all were truly colour-blind would be wonderful. But ultimately, I don't think even the elites of global society believe in the ideal strongly enough to practice it.


(Incidentally, a context I haven't yet mentioned: online. #MCx is mostly but not exclusively white, most of the people I've come to know through online libertarianism are white continental Europeans; I don't know how different this is from the base rate of young neoliberal or conservative people from the UK. At Freedom Week 2015, which wasn't online but was how I came to know various people who I now know mostly through the web, there was one Asian Muslim guy who was very much at the Toryish end of the people there; Young Liberal Society is mostly white, although if Elrica can use her mixed race as a defence against accusations of prejudice then so can the rest of us in this case.)

Desert Island Discs

The BBC Radio 4 program Desert Island Discs features a different famous guest. The guest is asked to imagine that they will be stranded upon a desert island and must choose what they will have with them. In particular, they are asked to pick:

• eight pieces of music
• a book. (They receive the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare in addition to whichever book they choose).
• One luxury item of no use for escaping the island.

I do not anticipate being invited to the program any time soon - for one thing, my life hasn't been at all interesting enough yet - but have worked out a list of what I would choose were I in this position. It is not entirely complete - several of the choices are merely a choice from two or three different pieces - and is of course subject to change, but here (in no particular order) is my rough list.

Gaol Ise Gaol I/Lisnagun Jig (The Eilidhs) or Llongau Caenarfon (trad.) 

I want at least one folksy tune, and these are both lovely songs. Gaol Ise Goal I also has the distinction of being the only piece on here that I first heard live, at IVFDF 2014 in Edinburgh, so there's a personal-interest angle on that one.

Something from West Side Story (Leonard Berstein & Stephen Sondheim). I don't know what, because there are so many incredible songs from which to choose: Something's Coming, Maria, Tonight, America, One Hand One Heart, Tonight (reprise), I Feel Pretty, Gee! Officer Krupke!, I Have a Love... For the sake of having something here, I'll choose one which came out well in the original film.

Appalachian Spring (Aaron Copland). I would expect to be allowed the entire ballet, but if I'm not then I would go specifically for the fourth section, which contains what is in my opinion the single greatest moment in all of classical music. In the video below, the suite starts at about 2:05, while the moment I love so much is at 16:05 (although to appreciate it you need to listen to the thirty seconds or so leading up to it).

Incidentally, the seventh section (an adaptation of Simple Gifts, a Quaker song known to generations of pupils of Anglican schools as Lord of the Dance) is something I detested a few years back, thinking it overwrought and pretentious. I still think that it doesn't work on its own, but now that I listen to it as the climax of a half-hour ballet rather than as an isolated piece overplayed by Classic FM, I have very much come to appreciate it.

White Blank Page (Mumford & Sons) or The Sea and the Sky or I was an Oak Tree (Jonathan Byrd)
This choice allows me to combine folksiness with modernity - twice the signalling!

Symphony no. 6 "Pastoral" (Ludwig van Beethoven) or Symphony no. 9 "From the New World" (Antonin Dvorak)
Two of my favourite long pieces of classical music. Other alternatives would have included a number of works by Elgar (Cello Concerto, Enigma Variations), Tchaikovsky (Violin Concerto, Swan Lake), and probably a whole bunch of other things.
The Pastoral Symphony is just such a happy piece, a such a joy to listen to! The New World Symphony, on the other hand, can in no way be described as happy, but has some wonderful tunes. For example, the first movement conjures for me mental images of early settlers arriving in the New World during a sea storm and looking at the villages of the Iroquois. This is completely anachronistic given that Dvorak was writing several centuries after this, but then again he was a terrible ethnomusicologist so perhaps it is what he had in mind.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel (is the Light of an Oncoming Train) (Half Man Half Biscuit)
I thought I ought perhaps to include something by a slightly out-of-date band. Both of the possible bands, HMHB and the Rolling Stones, are still active, so I just went for my favourite song by one of the two.

Varen or Wedding-Day at Troldhaugen (Edvard Grieg) or Bailero (Joseph Cantaloube)
Varen is a lovely song, while I am determined to fit Wedding-Day at Troldhaugen into my own wedding somehow. (See also). I have no idea what Bailero is about, but it is the most soothing song I have ever encountered.

Mary's Room (Claude-Michel Schoenberg & Scott Alexander)
Les Miserables has nice music, but that's not really why I'm including this. It's more because the Effective Altruism/ Less Wrong community is so fun to be part of, and this song would give me a connection to that (however tenuous). If someone did a well-produced version of Philosopher Kripke then I would be tempted to take that to fill both this slot and the West Side Story slot.

Be Thou My Vision (trad.)
I may not really believe the Bible any more, but you can't tell the story of my life without mentioning the church. This is my favourite hymn, so in it goes. An alternative would be When I Survey The Wondrous Cross.

The book would be Rationality: from AI to Zombies, which taught me how to think; the luxury item would have to be a piano.

Tribalism in Action

I don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but I support Aston Villa FC. I am also very fond of my home city of Birmingham. Earlier I was reading this article about our new managerial appointment and was surprised the feel a flash of disgust at reading the word "Birmingham" - the context being "The Birmingham club are third from bottom on 22 points...".

The explanation as to why I felt this flash of disgust is obvious - with football primed in my mind, when reading the word Birmingham I thought not of the canals and parks which I spent so much time perambulating when I am back home, but of Birmingham City FC - Villa's rivals.

There isn't any greater point to this post, it's just interesting to observe that the same word can have both positive and negative connotations to the same person, dependent upon the way in which the word is primed.

My philosophical views

Having an hour to spare and nothing better to do, I've decided to write down my current answers to the questions on the PhilPapers survey of philosophers' views. First, a couple of notes and caveats:

• At first, I wasn't going to look at any (potentially new-to-me) arguments for the positions while doing this. However, upon reflection it seems strange to reject a chance to be motivated to learn.
• One of the options on the original survey was "insufficiently familiar with the area." This really ought to be my default answer - I am, after all, a mere undergraduate student - but where would be the fun in that. Instead, for any given issue you should assume that I am probably not as familiar with the issue as I ought to be.

A Priori knowledge: yes or no?

Umm... lean no, maybe? I lean towards the view that logic, maths etc are constructed rather than discovered, and given that they are supposed to be the paradigm cases of a priori knowledge, I guess that places me in the No category.

Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?

Is this asking whether I believe that there are no abstract objects, or which of these positions I lean towards on a greater number of subjects? I'm not willing to completely rule out abstract objects (fictional objects in particular strike me as things which might exist but be abstract) but I don't believe in the existence of numbers, of propositions, or of many of the other abstract objects which have been postulated to exist. Put me down as leaning towards nominalism.

Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?

I have actually put serious effort into trying to work out why anyone might think that aesthetic value is objective, and the closest I've seen to an argument is SEP's mention of the fact that "people tend to agree about which things are beautiful." Sigh. Accept subjective.

Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?

I don't believe in it, the only question is whether I go down as Lean No or Accept No. Quine was very convincing... go on, put me down as Accept No.

Epistemic justification: Internalism or Externalism?

I can never remember which is which. Assuming I correctly understand the issue, one of them is the view that knowledge-seeking has intrinsic value, the other is that we should seek knowledge because it is useful to us. Yudkowsky put this very nicely in the Sequences, saying that seeking knowledge out of curiosity has a certain purity to it, but the advantage of seeking knowledge because it is useful is that it creates an external criterion by which to measure our success. Accept whichever one it is which says we should seek knowledge because it is useful.

External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-sceptical realism?

Accept non-sceptical realism. You can't achieve absolute certainty that you aren't being deceived by a demon, but (a) there is no reason to believe you are either and (b) in any case, suppose you were. You don't know anything about what the demon wants, so there's no particular reason to change the way you act.

Free-will: compatabilism, libertarianism, or no free will?

I'm fairly well convinced that if determinism is true, then (a) people cannot act differently than they do but (b) they are still morally responsible for their actions. I believe this makes me a compatibilist, although it strikes me as a bit weird that this is counted as believing in free will rather than denying that free will is necessary for moral responsibility.

God: theism or atheism?

Damn, no option for deism. Lean deism if that's acceptable, otherwise I place higher probability mass in atheism than in any of the "revealed religions".

Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?

Given that I deny a priori knowledge, it would be rather odd if I were to say rationalism. (At least, it appears that way; perhaps this is one of the many things on which I shall come to be corrected.) Accept empiricism.

Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?

No familiarity with the subject area.

Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?

Accept Humean.

Logic: classical or non-classical?

This is an interesting one. As said above, I lean towards the view that logics are constructed rather than discovered, and that different logics may be appropriate for different purposes. The philosophical justification for intuitionistic logic is something I find very appealing, so let's say Lean non-classical.

Mental content: internalism or externalism?

No familiarity with the subject area.

Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?

I lean towards constructivism. I believe this makes me a moral realist, although that's a bit weird since I started working out my metaethics by explicitly assuming there were no genuine moral facts floating around.

Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?

Is the question "Which is it more fruitful for us to assume as a default?" or "Which do I beliee is actually true?" Accept naturalism on the first, lean non-naturalism on the second.

Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?

Next to no familiarity with the subject area.

Moral judgement: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?

I looked at this at some point, but I can't remember much of what it was about.

Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?

Is this related to the amoralist's challenge? I've been thinking about that for ages, and still don't have a satisfactory answer despite reformulating my metaethics at least partially in an attempt to produce an answer to this question.

Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?

Accept one box. Although even if I were the type of person who would two-box, would I go around telling people that?

Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?

Virtue ethics, subject to deontological constraints, and with the choice of virtues justified on pluralist-consequentialist grounds. Yes, really.

Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?

When I studied this in first year, it seemed like a slam-dunk for sense-datum theory. However, given that (a) that was before I had read The Sequences, (b) I can't even remember what the first two of these were or if they were even mentioned, and (c) I have rejected almost every other view I picked up on that course (belief in the a priori, epistemological foundationalism, free-will libertarianism, near-universal scepticism... I must just about hold to a sensitivity condition regarding knowledge, so not quite everything), I'm inclined to take that past belief with rather a lot of salt.

Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?

I don't hold to a biological view, but I' not greatly satisfied by the leading psychological accounts (though if I had to choose one, I would go with Schechtman's). I don't even know what the further-fact view is, and looking at the relevant SEP and Wikipedia articles suggests that either I'm misunderstanding the question, or that there is something odd about it. I was reading section 3 of Reasons and Persons, but my Kindle has gone missing.

Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?

Accept libertarianism. Have you read my blog?

Proper names: Fregean, or Millian?

I prefer the Millian view, and I believe that Nathan Salmon's discussion of "guises" solves most of the problems for it; that said, I need to do more reading, so put me down as merely leaning Millian.

Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?

Scientific realism. Because, you know. Duh.

Teletransporter (new material): survival or death?

Can I suggest the answer is somewhat subjective? Personally I would regard it as survival, but I'm very open towards difference of intuitions and I think that the disagreement is more to do with people having different values than to do with some (or all) people being wrong about an actual fact in the world.

Time: A-theory or B-theory?

B-theory is the one which holds all times to be equally real, and suggests that we move through time rather than time itself moving, right? Accept that one.

Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?) 

switch or don't switch?

I would lean towards switching. I'm not entirely comfortable with it, but David Friedman's variation on Fat Man (in which both the Fat Man and yourself are required to does a fair job of convincing me that we should probably be willing not only to turn the trolley, but to push the fat man in its way.

Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?

I read The Simple Truth and it sounded sensible. Then again, I haven't done a great deal of engagement with the views other than correspondence - certainly I could not explain what they are - so I'll have to just say I have insufficient engagement with the subject area.

Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?

Again, especially insufficiently familiar, but leaning towards one of the not-metaphysically-possible positions.

Procrastination

I suffer from extreme procrastination. It's a serious problem, I'll realise at half-past nine in the evening that I need to go for a run and then shower, all before I get round to cooking and eating tea. When I finally get around to cooking, I'll be working in darkness because I didn't change the lightbulbs in the kitchen when one or three of them had blown. (To be fair my housemates should take some of the rap for that, but then again they're both so tiny as to be unable to touch the ceiling, even when standing on a chair, so I'd be needed anyway). I'll put this off further by writing a blog post about my procrastination, and get distracted half-way through writing the post by listening to We Know Better. Intersperse a few games of online chess, conversations with at least one flatmate, and probably half a dozen other distractions. Washing up will be put off to the next day due to the aforementioned lighting problems.

PS. The internet needs a Beginner's Guide to Buying Lightbulbs. Like, really basic. Different shapes, sizes, wattages, etc and other basic considerations and how to work them out from the package-less lightbulb sitting next to you on the settee. Also, which shops to buy them from, how much you should expect to pay, and other considerations which may seem obvious once you know how to buy them.

Selfies

Currently there's a trend going around Facebook for girls posting selfies without make-up. There are more than enough photos of me on Facebook, but for the record here is a photo, taken just now, of me without any make-up on.

For contrast, here is a picture of me with make-up, taken at my flatmate's birthday party a few weeks ago.

My take on a "Things to do Before you Die" list, part I

The list is taken from here.

1. Fall in love at first sight
2. Fall in love at the first glance

Personally I'd rather fall in love with someone for their personality than for their looks. Still, to each their own and all that.

3. Visit all continents.
4. Visit a pyramid.
5. Visit Walt Disney World.

I'm not particularly interested in any of these per se. I suppose the pyramids would be interesting, but it would necessitate a journey to Egypt and I can't think what else I'd do there. See the sphinx, see the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and then what? I also have no particular desire to visit Oceania or either of the poles, and I'm quite content to enjoy Disney films without needing to go to a Disney theme park.

6. Take a Zeppelin ride
7. Take a hot air balloon ride.

The Zeppelin ride sounds like the kind of thing one would do purely in order to be able to say that one had done it. I can't imagine it's tremendously different to most other forms of air-flight. A hot-air balloon could be quite fun, however, providing you were doing it over a nice landscape.

8. Go to a drive-in movie theater.

What's wrong with just a normal cinema?

9. Ride a horse on my own.

I'm guessing that having ridden a donkey along a beach (Blackpool maybe?) doesn't count. This goes along with the hot-air balloon idea into the "This could be fun, but I could die perfectly happily without having done it." category.

10. Tongue kissing a woman I don't know out of the blue

I've done this. It wasn't very interesting if I'm honest.

11. Make a full-length film with complete artistic freedom.
12. Write a book.
13. Get a book published.
14. Record a music album.
15. Perform my own songs on-stage.

Making a full-length film would take a couple of years at the very least. Also, if you want other people's help then you're either going to need lots of money, or you'll need to allow them substantial control over the project. I've tried to write a book twice, and didn't get very far either time. Making it professionally publishable would take even more effort, and I don't think self-publishing on the internet counts. I do like the idea of recording and performing my own songs for a public audience, though.

16. Have my own website.

Does a blog count?

17. See at least 10,000 full-length films.

I suppose that across an entire lifetime this works out at a film every three days, which is reasonable. That said, I can generally find better things to do with my time.

18. Go on a blind date.

I don't get the point of this nowadays. If you are looking for a long-term partner, you target your dating towards people with whom you would be compatible, through the use of dating websites. If you are looking for casual sex, you go on Tinder. Blind dates just throw that advantage away.

19. Run nude through a public place.

I can sort of understand the fun of this one. But I've already tried crossdressing, which is close enough and I really don't feel the need to go any further.

20. Test drive a sports car.
21. Drive a humvee.
22. Be hypnotized.

No interest in any of these, but I can understand why someone would be interested in at least the first two.

23. Learn a martial art.
24. Learn to play guitar and piano.
25. Juggle 5 balls at a time.

I've done some basic martial arts, and I think I'd rather just learn to use a gun. I can already play piano and sort-of play guitar. Juggling might be interesting, but there are almost certainly other things which are more impressive, less common, and more interesting.

26. Make love on an ocean beach.
27. Make love in the sea.
28. Make love in the middle of a street.
29. Get road head.

The first three of these must surely be very uncomfortable. I understand the voyeuristic-naughtynaughty-whatever sex appeal of the places, but it's not like any of them are original. Road head might be fun for the recipient, but it would be one hell of a distraction from the road and it can't be the most comfortable position for the person giving oral sex. I assume you're not crouching by the pedals - that would, among other things, be stupidly dangerous - so presumably you're leaning across from the front passenger seat, taking care to avoid the gearstick, and that position can't be good for your back.

30. Send a message in a bottle.
31. Shower in a waterfall.

With regard to the first one, what's stopping you? Just get a bottle with a lid, come up with a message, and next time you're at sea throw the bottle into the ocean. Showering in a waterfall does sound genuinely fun, providing the weather is warm.

32. Throw an evening party.

I've done this. Perhaps he means something more than just umpteen students turning up at a house or flat, getting drunk and possibly heading to a club, but in any case this hardly seems like something out of the ordinary.

33. Sleep a night in a snow fort I built.

I've slept rough twice (once for charity, once because I was stranded) and I'd really prefer a nice comfortable bed, thank you very much.

34. Fly a kite (again).
35. Swim across a large lake, unassisted.
36. Be able to locate 10 constellations in the sky.
37. Flatten coins on a train track.

I really don't see the point of the last one, but otherwise these seem like small, achievable things that are at least worth trying.

38. Live in my own apartment.

Better suggestion: Earn enough to be able to afford to live in my own apartment. Although even then I'm not certain I'd want to, it's nice having people around who you can talk to.

39. Ride a mechanical bull.
40. Ride a rollercoaster (again).

No interest in the first. If I were at a theme park then I would go on a rollercoaster again, but I don't see this happening until I have kids. Speaking of which:

41. Attend a human birth.

I'd want to be there for my own childrens' births. Otherwise, I can think of better ways of spending my time.

42. Visit an asylum.
43. Write a letter to the editor.
44. Write a letter to the editor that hasn't to do with yourself

Scratch that first, the internet will do fine. And letters to the editors of print media are being rendered obselete by online media and comments sections. Perhaps replace these with "Have a top-rated comment on an article at a major site discussing a major issue."

45. Sleep with a person I love
46. Have a kissing marathon with someone I love.

Replace "a person I love" with "my wife" and you're on.

47. Make my own choreography of a dance.
48. Dance it on-stage.

I've done the first and would like the second, although perhaps on-stage should be replaced with "at an actual ceilidh".

49. Achieve spiritual freedom.

What does this even mean?

50. Reach a mountain top (a high mountain).

Define "high". I've climbed several mountains, the highest of which was probably Snowdon. I suppose climbing one of the really high mountains (i.e. several thousand metres) might be fun and would be pretty satisfying, but if it took significant amounts of money and time then I could probably find better things to do with both.

51. having sexual intercourse for the first time.
52. Really love somebody
53. Fall in love again and again.
54. have sexual intercourse with a man.
55. Make somebody fall in love with me.
56. Have a woman say that she loves me

Having sex only once in your life doesn't really sound any better than dying a virgin in my opinion. Certainly, I'd rather die a virgin having made a decision to abstain from sex than have a series of meaningless one-night stands and ultimately fail to achieve romantic fulfilment. Falling in love sounds nice, provided it is a) reciprocated and b) with the kind of person with whom I would want to fall in love. If I had looser sexual mores, then perhaps I would be interested in seeing what it's like to have sex with another man. Falling in love for the sake of falling in love seems remarkably shallow, though. I'm also concerned about this "make somebody fall in love with me". As much as it would be a pleasant ego-boost if someone were to fall in love with me, there are really only two possible endings there: either the two of us end up romantically attached, in which case this description seems severely lacking in detail, or the other person ends up being emotionally hurt to some extent. I don't want them hurt, and the idea that I am somehow "making" them fall in love with me makes it sound like I've leading them on.

57. Be exactly where you want to be, with whom you want to be, how you want it to be, etc. at least once in my life.
58. Be exactly where you want to be, with whom you want to be, how you want it to be, etc. at least once in my life, and knowing everything is all right.
59. Feeling one with the universe, and knowing life is great.

These seem to vague to be of any use. How exactly would you plan to accomplish these?

60. Talking to a director I admire

Replace director with musical performer, author, philosopher, economist, composer, etc...

61. Reciting my own poems before a public audience

If I were any good at writing poetry, then yes this would be a worthwhile achievement. Unfortunately, the only way I can see this happening is through some kind of "ordinary people's poetry reading day" thing in which the victims audience would have to sit through hour after unending hour of utter dross.

62. Going on a long road trip with friends and enough money, without a specific destination.

I could do this, provided we had planned the trip so as to have plenty of interesting places we could visit. Meandering through northern Italy and southern France yes, wandering aimlessly around the Australian outback no.

63. Run in competition for at least 10km.

I've run 5km in competition twice before, does that count? (Bear in mind I was about 9 at the time). And actually, I'm running a 10k race in May so this is a Thing To Do which will soon be under my belt.

64. Having sexual intercourse with two women at one time.

My suspicion is that diminishing marginal returns set in pretty quickly with regard to sex partners. I only have one penis, after all.

65. Run my own household.

If this means "raise a family" then my response is DUH. Of course I want to raise children. If it means "run a house by myself" then my response is AARGH THE INEFFICIENCY.

66. Play tennis in a competition.

Specifically tennis? I've played in numerous chess and football tournaments, so do they count? That said, I have entertained the idea of taking up tennis at some point, it's a fun sport and I am merely mediocre at it (as opposed to remedial).

67. Being in love with somebody who actually loves me, and knowing it, and living it.

Haven't we already had this?

68. Spontaneously sing a "personal" song for somebody I love.

How spontaneous do you want? I've written music for specific people, and I suppose this would work as a Valentine's Day type thing. That said, I wouldn't put it as something to do before I die.

69. Work on a filmset by someone I admire in one of the lowest jobs, without the people knowing it.
70. Have some of my film-articles published.

Again, I have little interest in films.

71. Discover the meaning of life.

You seem to assume that there is one and that it is discoverable by human reason. Also, if you were serious about this then you'd presumably devote your life to philosophical study instead of spending 20,000 hours watching films.

72. Watch films I love more often with people I love.

This is enjoyable, but in general I would tend to see this as a "neither of us is busy, let's have a relaxing evening" kind of thing rather than a lifetime-highlight kind of thing.

73. Lose the fear of death.
74. Look forward to my own death.
75. Risk my life (more often).

I've done the first. It's not difficult. On the other hand, I would rather put it off and achieve more on earth before I do actually die, and cultivating a habit of risking one's life is just stupid. Perhaps a better idea would be "be willing to risk or sacrifice my life for a good cause."

76. Develop a greater awareness of my body.
77. Train to get an athletic figure (with a six pack).

I'm quite happy with my body as it is, thank you very much. I could go to the gym, or I could improve my mind. Even better, I could go on a run while listening to an audiobook or podcast and so improve both my mind and body.

78. Be more honest.

I would definitely be interested in trying out Radical Honesty. Whether or not it would be a good idea is another question entirely.

79. Shave my head because of a spiritual need.

No. I like my hair, and shaving it will not make me the slightest bit more spiritual. Fool!

80. Tell people I Love them, when I feel like it.

I wish I could do this. Unfortunately, telling people you love them isn't very British and this is the memeplex into which I happen to have been born.

81. Attend a concert by Prince.
82. Attend a concert by Aimee Mann.
83. Attend a concert by Jude.
84. Attend a concert by Julie Delpy.

Change the artists. Unfortunately Johnny Cash died more than a decade ago; I've already seen Half Man Half Biscuit; Muse are hideously expensive to see live...

85. Go to a concert of an artist you love, with someone you love.

Entails finding a romantic partner. This is something of a failure mode for me with regard to this list.

86. Work independently in something I love and be able to live from it.

Next best: become a professor of philosophy!

87. Go hitch-hiking into the unknown with only a backpack, and little money (and maybe a friend).

I don't know about "the unknown". I'm not going hiking in the jungles of South America, and while I intend to go backpacking across Europe at some point I wouldn't really call that "the unknown".

88. See my first big love again (and talk to her).

Entails finding and losing a romantic partner. Even more of a failure mode.

89. Have my own laptop.

What do you think I'm typing this on?

90. Make my own movie.

Haven't we already had this one?

To be continued... possibly.

How Teenage Boys Respond to Incentives

Back when I went to school, I used to take in a packed lunch each day. The previous evening my dad would make lunches for himself, me, my brother, and sometimes my mother (she worked part-time, and would typically work from home one or two days each week). I would take the lunch in, consume it, and take my lunchbox home. My dad would wash it that evening, along with all the plates, pans and cutlery that needed washing.

I wasn't always very good at putting my lunchbox for washing - often I would take it out of my rucksack, put it on my bedroom floor, and take it down a day or three later. This annoyed my mum, because we didn't have an infinite supply of lunchboxes and if there were two or three in my room at any one time, this reduced the number available to be used for holding people's lunches. Hence, if I brought a lunchbox down late, I would get in trouble.

I didn't like getting in trouble, and so like any sensible homo economicus I acted so as to avoid getting into trouble. That is to say, if a lunchbox had been in my room for a couple of days, it was there to stay. Gradually a pile of perhaps a dozen lunchboxes built up underneath my desk, gathering mould. I don't know how long that pile was there, but I'm fairly confident the answer is in years.

Eventually, my dad started asking me for my lunchbox when he started washing up if he didn't have it. Plus, I started juggling slightly - I would return a two-day-old box in preference to the box from that day, an return an extra box at the weekend. The pile stopped growing, it just got mouldier.

One night before the bin collection, I got up in the middle of the night, filled a black bin-bag with some of the lunchboxes and put it to be taken away. For some reason I didn't do this a second time; instead, I kept a bin-bag of six mouldy lunchboxes in the shelf portion of my loft-bed.

It came to be that some work needed to be done in the attic, and the easiest way into the attic was through a trapdoor which was about three feet above my bed. At this point I somehow managed to mention the lunchboxes, and put the bag for the dustbin-men to collect, thus putting a lid on the whole affair.

There are two lessons to be learned from this. Firstly, that there really isn't much that teenage boys will dismiss as too disgusting. Secondly, be careful when you set incentives for other people: they are liable to react in unpredictable ways which may be far worse than the problem the incentives are supposed to fix.

Metablogging

I am attempting to plan, experiment with and just generally optimise a lot of things in my life. This is largely due to the influence of Less Wrong. One particular piece I was reading earlier:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an "A".

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

 Accordingly, I intend to attempt to post here more often but to do less editing - just straight up aim to get the words out and to get the writing practice. My guess is that this will result in a short and medium term decline in quality and a long-term improvement. We'll see (at least in so far as quality is empirically measurable).

Introducing the Café

The Café de la Régence was a famous watering hole for philosophers and chess-players of the 18th and 19th Century. My attempts to research its history have turned up varying accounts of the dates of its founding; however, it seems clear that at some point between 1670 and 1720 it was opened as a coffee house at the Place-du-Palais-Royal. Around about 1852, it was forced to move due to the Emperor Louis-Napoleon's renovation of the city of Paris, and by 1855 it was settled on the Rue Saint-Honoré. The chess there entered something of a decline, and when Paul Morphy visited in 1858 he soundly defeated all of the top players. As of 1998, there was still a café there, but under a different name; the chess-room apparently closed during World War One.

This blog hopes to recreate something of the café during its heyday: a mixture of philosophy, chess, and other highbrow pursuits. It is intended as something of a conversation, so if anyone other than myself wishes to write for this blog (based on my previous experience of blogging, I would be lucky to get regular commenters, let alone co-writers, but one can always hope) then providing an article is competently written and does not go out of its way to cause offence, I would be very happy to have it on here.

"Highbrow" should not be confused with "important". I intend to write about whatever interests me, and about which I can express a reasonably educated opinion. I may link to things I see elsewhere that are of interest, but that is not the purpose of this blog.

With all that out of the way, I hope to write an interesting and long-running blog. All comments are welcome (unless you're a spambot) and I promise not to reject your views without hearing you out. After all, my own are weird enough.