Explanations for the curious
Lulie Tanett doxed me by giving private photographs of me, taken by her, to Dennis Hackethal, the bully who plagiarized me and threatened to sue me then blogged tens of thousands of words attacking me . Hackethal doxed me by publishing some of those photos on his website and social media while calling me a dangerous cult leader. I don't share my photo online for privacy reasons, which Tanett and…
Richard Hamming: You and Your Research is a 1986 talk about how to do "great" research in the sense of getting fame, promotions and prizes. This corresponds some with doing great research but also has differences. The talk isn't about the differences, but it does say that you have to sell your discovery in order to get credit. Just having a great discovery isn't enough. I have now come down to a…
These are generic questions people could consider before discussing a topic in a philosophical way, especially controversial topics. They can make discussion more rational or organized. They can help people recognize their ignorance and weaknesses better, and encourage people to approach thinking in better ways. You could ask yourself these questions, ask others, or both. These questions are only…
It's hard to get high quality debate. I don't think this is a personal problem about me. I don't think I'm being gatekept for not having a PhD. People can be dismissive over missing credentials, but that's a sign they aren't rational and wouldn't be good debate opponents. I don't think having the credentials would actually get me good debates. I don't see many intellectuals having great debates…
I changed my mind about some things. These examples are illustrative of potential weaknesses of focusing on error correction and critical discussion like Karl Popper advised. I don't think the weaknesses are inherent or unavoidable. They're practical issues that don't require different epistemology principles to address. They're just ways you can go wrong if you don't know enough. The errors…
In 2020, my blog, curi.us, was DDoSed for the first time around 45 hours after I sent Dennis Hackethal an email he didn't like. DDoSing is a crime involving breaking websites by sending malicious information to them over the internet. Based on the timing, I suspected that the DDoS was retaliation for my upcoming blog post about Hackethal's book plagiarizing me . I'd emailed Hackethal a draft. I…
I write a lot. There are many good approaches to writing. My method is not the one right answer, but it has advantages. I started primarily by writing argumentative discussion emails and internet forum posts. I averaged over 10 per day for my first 10 years. Most posts were short (under 200 words). Longer posts were usually a series of short, fairly independent sections (each section being a reply…
In 2020, I accused Dennis Hackethal of plagiarizing me (and plagiarizing David Deutsch) in his book A Window on Intelligence: The Philosophy of People, Software, and Evolution – and Its Implications (2020). I tried to resolve the matter with him by email even though he published the book without giving me any advance warning. Regarding a part I said plagiarized me, he responded: "it looks like you…
KPop Demon Hunters (KDH, 2025) is Netflix's most watched original film with over 300,000,000 views. It's got great animation, colorful visuals, music, singing, dancing, and sword fights with demons. Despite the violence, it generally tries to be family-friendly, wholesome and suitable for children. It's rated PG, which approximately means suitable for most 10 year olds to watch alone or for many 6…
In Disciplined Minds , Jeff Schmidt presents a concept called "assignable curiosity". It means that authorities can tell people what to be curious about, e.g. telling a scientist what topics to research or not. Their curiosity follows assignments instead of being natural. People paying for creative, intellectual work (governments, corporations) often want it to serve them and be directed at the…
After threatening to sue me and writing five blog posts about me , Dennis Hackethal published another blog post, some long blog comments (some could be posts but he put them in the comment section) and multiple videos attacking me. It's over 10,000 more words and 1.5 hours of video. He also sent me eight rude tweets in a row even though I'm blocking him on Twitter (he used a second account to get…
Dennis Hackethal created a website, Veritula, based on my philosophy, Critical Fallibilism (CF). He explains and uses CF ideas but, instead of crediting the ideas to me or CF, he credits them (without evidence or citations) to Karl Popper's philosophy, Critical Rationalism . This is quintuply problematic: He's using my ideas without giving me credit. He's implicitly accusing me of plagiarizing…
Dennis Hackethal created a website, Veritula, based on my Critical Fallibilism (CF) philosophy, where he writes frequently about CF ideas. But he didn't credit me for my ideas . Instead, he falsely attributed my ideas to Karl Popper , which denies me credit, implies that I plagiarized Popper, confuses people about Popper's views and implies that other people, like Popperian author David Deutsch,…
This article is inspired by Brian Moon's article The Poverty of Memes (2025) (read on Medium or as a PDF ). Moon's article criticizes David Deutsch's meme theory (found in The Beginning of Infinity (BoI) (2011)) for being refuted in advance by Karl Popper's critiques in The Poverty of Historicism (PoH) (1944). Due to Moon's article, I've reviewed PoH and compared it with BoI. Moon has also…
I first posted this on the Progress Forum but the forum has low activity and I got no responses. Hi, I'm a philosopher specializing in epistemology and rationality. I learned about Karl Popper's Critical Rationalism from my mentor David Deutsch and I helped with his book The Beginning of Infinity . That gives a sense of the general point of view I'm coming from. I have two main things to suggest…
I haven't read Aaron Stupple's book, The Sovereign Child: How a Forgotten Philosophy Can Liberate Kids and Their Parents , because he and others aren't open to debate and criticism. (If any fan of the book wants to debate me, email me at curi@curi.us Also if any fan of the book posts a rational debate policy , please let me know.) A book about Taking Children Seriously (TCS) does interest me as…
The Boyfriend's Introduction to Feminism by Gideon W. Stone is a free ebook . It's a quick read: it has a funny, conversational writing style and it's around 100 pages. The author is a man and the book is aimed particularly at young men. I wanted to share comments, including criticism. As usual, I like critical analysis and believe critical thinking is important to learning and to humanity's…
When people don't agree about how to cooperate, coordinate or get along, they may try problem solving . If problem solving fails or someone declines to try problem solving, then typically they should leave each other alone on that issue. If the issue is big enough, there are multiple disputes, or someone wants to, then they can leave each other alone entirely. If there are obligations involved,…
My former mentor David Deutsch taught me an idea that victims of injustices should be made whole by the person or group who wronged them. If someone violates the non-aggression principle, they should pay for all the harm they caused so that no one innocent is worse off than before. Victims should be restored to their original condition before they were victimized. You can consider "If someone…
Taking Children Seriously (TCS) is a parenting philosophy by David Deutsch and Sarah Fitz-Claridge. It advocates a non-coercive, anti-authoritarian, fallibilist approach. It draws inspiration from Karl Popper's fallibilist epistemology and from libertarianism. Deutsch was my mentor. I learned a lot about TCS and was a fan. TCS was largely abandoned by its founders 20 years ago and became a pretty…