Dispatches tagged as "steve pinker" on Dispatch from the Razor's Edge

steve pinker (7)

2022.12.21 : We Are Alone
Steve Pinker's Informed Argument Against Intelligent Extra-Terrestrial Life

The most common line of reasoning about extra-terrestrial life says it has to be there because there's so much universe - however low you calculate the probabilities of intelligent life arising, it's still a virtual certainty. However, this leads to the Fermi Paradox: If the universe must be teeming with intelligent life, Where is everyone?... (read more)

2018.03.12 : Create Your Own Meaning From Scratch

"We are species built on tribe; yet we live increasingly alone in societies so vast and populous our ancestors would not recognize them; we are a species built on religious ritual to appease our existential angst, and yet we now live in a world where every individual has to create her own meaning from scratch."... (read more)

2018.03.04 : The Gifts of Modernity
(Or "The World Is Not A Flaming Dumpster")
Yet More Excerpts from Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

This isn't a thorough survey of this book and its arguments, but it's a good sample. And, critically, I suggest Pinker brings some direly needed evidence-based analysis to our conversation about politics and the human condition - overshadowing even his prior book in telling the most important human story not nearly enough people know.... (read more)

2018.03.02 : A Billion People Out of Poverty
Excerpt from Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

News headline you won't see today: "NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN EXTREME POVERTY FELL BY 137,000 SINCE YESTERDAY." You also didn't see it each day for the last 25 years, on each day of which it was also true. ... (read more)

2014.02.22 : Beautiful, Alive, Urgent
Excerpts from Quack This Way, David Foster Wallace & Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing

You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers becomes a source of unbelievable joy. And I sometimes have a hard time understanding how people who don't have that in their lives make it through the day.... (read more)

2010.03.03 : Edification Wednesday
How the Mind (Still) Works – Plus:
Steven Pinker on Our Uniquely Peaceful Age

So I recently had occasion to re-read Steve Pinker's How the Mind Works. It is, I genuinely believe, the most important book of the 20th century.... (read more)

2005.11.07 : Stand-Up Pinker

So anyone who knows me well knows that Steven Pinker is one of my intellectual heroes.... (read more)

Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very long walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

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Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.


	Dispatches tagged as: steve pinker (7) 2022.12.21 : We Are Alone Steve Pinker's Informed Argument Against Intelligent Extra-Terrestrial Life The most common line of reasoning about extra-terrestrial life says it has to be there because there's so much universe - however low you calculate the probabilities of intelligent life arising, it's still a virtual certainty. However, this leads to the Fermi Paradox: If the universe must be teeming with intelligent life, Where is everyone?... (read more) 2018.03.12 : Create Your Own Meaning From Scratch "We are species built on tribe; yet we live increasingly alone in societies so vast and populous our ancestors would not recognize them; we are a species built on religious ritual to appease our existential angst, and yet we now live in a world where every individual has to create her own meaning from scratch."... (read more) 2018.03.04 : The Gifts of Modernity (Or "The World Is Not A Flaming Dumpster") Yet More Excerpts from Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress This isn't a thorough survey of this book and its arguments, but it's a good sample. And, critically, I suggest Pinker brings some direly needed evidence-based analysis to our conversation about politics and the human condition - overshadowing even his prior book in telling the most important human story not nearly enough people know.... (read more) 2018.03.02 : A Billion People Out of Poverty Excerpt from Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress News headline you won't see today: "NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN EXTREME POVERTY FELL BY 137,000 SINCE YESTERDAY." You also didn't see it each day for the last 25 years, on each day of which it was also true. ... (read more) 2014.02.22 : Beautiful, Alive, Urgent Excerpts from Quack This Way, David Foster Wallace & Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers becomes a source of unbelievable joy. And I sometimes have a hard time understanding how people who don't have that in their lives make it through the day.... (read more) 2010.03.03 : Edification Wednesday How the Mind (Still) Works – Plus: Steven Pinker on Our Uniquely Peaceful Age So I recently had occasion to re-read Steve Pinker's How the Mind Works. It is, I genuinely believe, the most important book of the 20th century.... (read more) 2005.11.07 : Stand-Up Pinker So anyone who knows me well knows that Steven Pinker is one of my intellectual heroes.... (read more)