During the Holocaust, some people refused to remain passive while their Jewish neighbors were persecuted and murdered. Israel later gave a specific name to certain non-Jewish rescuers who took extraordinary […]
Objectivism, Fatalism, and the Free Market: You Decide the Market
Fatalism can turn uncertainty and self-interest into an excuse for inaction. This essay distinguishes that reasoning from Ayn Rand’s Objectivism and examines climate risk, AI safety, public goods, and agency under uncertainty.
Could CERN Run on SciWard? The Limits of SciWard
Suppose conventional research institutions and grant committees disappeared, while SciWard had abundant funding. Could the scientists and engineers now working at CERN continue operating the Large Hadron Collider through SciWard? […]
Objectivism as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: How to Break the Vicious Circle of Self-Interest
There is a possible self-fulfilling prophecy of self-interest: When enough people expect others to act selfishly, doing good becomes more expensive. Prosocial people must spend more effort protecting themselves, enforcing […]
Opinion: Why Would AI Favor People
This article presents my personal forecast about one possible relationship between humanity and artificial superintelligence (ASI). The quantitative predictions are speculative. Why would an artificial superintelligence preserve humans, give them […]
Yet Another Story of Joseph: From Scientific Exclusion to AI Safety
By Victor Porton — a personal account and a hypothesis about science funding and AI safety. The biblical story of Joseph is a story of rejection that unexpectedly becomes useful […]
Opinion: The Future World Will Be Like China
I do not make a moral judgment here about whether mass surveillance is good or bad. This is a prediction, not an endorsement. My prediction is that the future world […]
Professional Ethics as a Substitute for Morality in Academia: Why Researchers Need Freedom to Act Morally
Academia has extensive systems of professional ethics. Researchers are told not to fabricate data, not to plagiarize, to disclose conflicts of interest, to respect research participants, and to follow established […]
When Scientific Talent Is Wasted: Underemployment, Skills Mismatch, and How SciWard Could Help
When a person with substantial scientific or technical expertise has to spend most of their working life doing a job that does not use that expertise, we usually call it […]
I Am a Mother to All of You: The Oxygen-Mask Principle for AGI Safety Funding
I use the phrase “I am a mother to all of you” deliberately as a metaphor for responsibility, not as a claim of authority over other people. On an airplane, […]