Archive - Conspicuous Cognition

The Standpoint of the Oppressed Doesn't Lead to Truth

If you care about the oppressed, you should care about data, science, and rational thought, not misguided "radical" epistemologies.

Jul 7 •

June 2025

The Decline of Legacy Media, Rise of Vodcasters, and X's Staying Power

What the 2025 Reuters Digital News Report reveals about media, misinformation, and what I've gotten wrong.

Jun 25 •

Stupidity, gullibility, and other adaptive strategies

Sometimes irrationality isn't a mistake.

Jun 13 •

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…

May 31 •

Criticising misinformation research doesn't make you a Trump supporter

It's frustrating that this even needs to be said.

May 13 •

On becoming less left-wing (Part 2)

Learning about political psychology and epistemology made me more sceptical of left-wing politics (and all politics).

May 5 •

April 2025

Advice for bloggers

Follow these simple steps and you might very slightly increase your chances of becoming a moderately successful Substacker.

Apr 27 •

Contra critical theory

Academics are often rewarded for discovering novel ways of criticising and condemning Western societies. This generates lots of biased, one-sided…

Apr 20 •

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.

Apr 11 •

People embrace beliefs that signal their traits and loyalties

This is often bad and we should develop stronger norms against it.

Apr 6 •

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.

Mar 30 •

Social media isn't destroying society

But it does reward and amplify those willing to treat online discourse as a self-contained game.

Mar 22 •

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