Conspicuous Cognition

Conspicuous Cognition

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May 2025

Status, class, and the crisis of expertise
By celebrating "common sense" over expert authority, populism performs a dramatic status inversion. It gifts uneducated voters the power of knowledge…
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Dan Williams
159
Criticising misinformation research doesn't make you a Trump supporter
It's frustrating that this even needs to be said.
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Dan Williams
56
On becoming less left-wing (Part 2)
Learning about political psychology and epistemology made me more sceptical of left-wing politics (and all politics).
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Dan Williams
15

April 2025

Advice for bloggers
Follow these simple steps and you might very slightly increase your chances of becoming a moderately successful Substacker.
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Dan Williams
23
Contra critical theory
Academics are often rewarded for discovering novel ways of criticising and condemning Western societies. This generates lots of biased, one-sided…
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Dan Williams
8
The puzzle of populist devotion: How alliances and propaganda explain right-wing populism
Understanding right-wing populism—and its critics—through a novel theory in political psychology.
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Dan Williams
79
People embrace beliefs that signal their traits and loyalties
This is often bad and we should develop stronger norms against it.
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Dan Williams
24

March 2025

What if the truth about AI is more boring than we'd like?
On the excessively negative, alarmist, and catastrophising discourse surrounding AI and democracy.
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Dan Williams
49
Social media isn't destroying society
But it does reward and amplify those willing to treat online discourse as a self-contained game.
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Dan Williams
17
Misinformation isn't a contagious virus you can be inoculated against
Against simplistic and misleading metaphors for understanding complex problems
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Dan Williams
42
The "everyone is biased" bias
On the problems with excessive epistemic cynicism
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Dan Williams
66
© 2025 Dan Williams
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