William M. Briggs

Dear Quacks & Experts: Your Loss Function Is Not Our Loss Function

Note to the colleague who wrote me. I lost your email! You asked excellent questions about the post Classical Statistics Has Outlived Its Usefulness: Here’s The Fix, which I meant…

Philosophy

Is A Material Bearer of Consciousness Intelligible? Part 2 — Guest Post by The Cranky Professor

See Part I here. In this essay, I will summarize and expound more on the “divisible parts problem” in materialism and why the concept of the soul (or ‘mental substance’)…

Statistics

Mask – Model – Medication – Mass Hysteria — Coronavirus Update LIII

MASS HYSTERIA There is already a paper on people going nuts: COVID-19 and the Political Economy of Mass Hysteria by Bagus et al. Abstract (with added paragraphifications by me): In…

Philosophy Statistics

Why (Scott Alexander’s) Bayesian Rationality Fails

Scott Alexander, late of Slate Star Codex, and New York Times doxee, is the subject of Curtis Yarvin nee Moldbug's latest. Rather, Alexander's (and Moldbug's? see postscript) Bayesian rationality is.…

SAMT

Summary Against Modern Thought: The Son Of God

Previous post. We begin with the metaphors, Son and Father. THAT THERE IS GENERATION, PATERNITY, AND SONSHIP IN THE DIVINITY 1 Let us take the beginning of our study from…

Culture

The Big Slide: A Short History of the Decline and Fall of the USA — Guest Post by Uncle Mike

The American Experiment peaked in the two decades following WWII and has been in decline ever since. Here's the story in a nutshell. When World War II ended, the USA…

Statistics

Lindell Comes Up Short In His Absolute Proof

Mike Lindell, like Time magazine, questioned 2020's election results. Lindell says the election was shifted from Trump to Biden, which he decried. Time used the brand new euphemism fortified to…

Statistics

Diversity Is Our Weakness: Families, Spies & Colleges Edition

Update I'm in Twitter jail again! HAHAHAHA. Supposed to be released 7 PM tonight, if I behave myself. HAHAHAHAHAHA! What our elders wisely called the clash of cultures has under…

Chad Jessup on Capital Punishment Deters Crime More Than The Death PenaltyMay 11, 2026
How about three strikes, and you're dead, which of course would only be for the very violent criminals. Why warehouse…
shawn marshall on Capital Punishment Deters Crime More Than The Death PenaltyMay 11, 2026
General Pyotr Wrangel in his bokk "Always with Honor" immediately stopped the predation by his own troo[s upon peasants by…
McChuck on Capital Punishment Deters Crime More Than The Death PenaltyMay 11, 2026
I firmly support the concept of "three strikes and you're out" as it applies to capital punishment for a series…
McChuck on Capital Punishment Deters Crime More Than The Death PenaltyMay 11, 2026
Capital punishment may or may not (although it almost certainly does) reduce criminality in the general sense. But it undeniably…
dadgervais on Richard Dawkins, The Big Muscles Fallacy & AI PachinkoMay 8, 2026
As I (computer engineer, retired) have always maintained: people who believe in mechanical inteligence suffer from "Clever Hans Syndrome". A…

William M. Briggs

Capital Punishment Deters Crime More Than The Death Penalty

How Experts Use “Calamities” to Find Official Victims & Gain Power

Richard Dawkins, The Big Muscles Fallacy & AI Pachinko

Class 88: The Most Neglected Concept: Skill

The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising Answer

UFO Reports About To Blast Off!

Class 87: Calibration & Conformal Prediction: Examples

Noticing Differences Between Races Does Not Pay

What Are The Chances Of All These Scientists Dying, Killed, Or Going Missing?

Class 86: Calibration & Conformal Prediction: Theory

How A Miracle Turns Mundane

Contest Winner Announced!

Trump’s Last Stand: Mea Culpa, Redux — Guest Post by Ianto Watt

Class 85: Proper Scores of Model Goodness

Proof!

Justice Ketanji Roars

Iran Has Caught Covid: A Reason For The War

Class 84: Most Important Measure of Model Goodness

There Is No Solution To Crashing Fertility: Good Times Made Soft Men

Did The Pope Really Say Health Is A “Right”?

All Models Only Say What They Are Told To Say, And AI Is A Model

Capital Punishment Deters Crime More Than The Death Penalty

How Experts Use “Calamities” to Find Official Victims & Gain Power

Dear Quacks & Experts: Your Loss Function Is Not Our Loss Function

Is A Material Bearer of Consciousness Intelligible? Part 2 — Guest Post by The Cranky Professor

Mask – Model – Medication – Mass Hysteria — Coronavirus Update LIII

Why (Scott Alexander’s) Bayesian Rationality Fails

Summary Against Modern Thought: The Son Of God

The Big Slide: A Short History of the Decline and Fall of the USA — Guest Post by Uncle Mike

Lindell Comes Up Short In His Absolute Proof

Diversity Is Our Weakness: Families, Spies & Colleges Edition

There Is No Culture Without Inequality: Stove 1

Impose Your Beliefs Before They Impose Theirs

Telekinesis: Ideas In Our Reenchantment & Rectification

The Physics Of Blessings: Ideas In Our Reenchantment & Rectification