Author: Larry Sanger
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Against Anti-Natalism
The arguments for anti-natalism are terrible. The claim that can be justified in giving birth only if new people consent to the risks involved in new life is incoherent. David Benatar and many anti-natalists are constantly found assuming not living is preferable to living, but it strikes me as not just (a) unsupported by the…
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A Theory of Evil
First posted Aug. 16, 2019. Revised and reposted Nov. 4. Good to read alongside “Why Be Moral.” For a long time, the nature of evil eluded me. But dark contemplation of the Jeffrey Epstein case and of the very existence of pedophile rings has clarified the nature of evil for me. Here, then, is a…
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Introducing the Encyclosphere
This is the text of a speech I gave yesterday (October 17, 2019) at TheNextWeb’s Hard Fork Summit in Amsterdam. For now, you can go to Encyclosphere.org to sign up for news of the project. We’ll also give you opportunities to get involved within the next week or two. Update: I’ve added a video (produced…
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Want to help build an open encyclopedia network—an “Encyclosphere”?
We are fed up. After ten years of domination by big social media—which might finally be in decline—we are tired of giant Silicon Valley corporations using us contemptuously. We still remember an Internet in which we charted our own destiny. It’s not just social media. It’s Wikipedia, too. If you want to participate in the world’s largest…
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Big Tech In Decline?
Massive Shakeup of Major Players Under Way, Especially in Social Media LarrySanger.org does not usually break news. But since this is such a huge story and no other outlets seem to be covering it, we thought we would do so. Note: Updated rank numbers (not images), below, with data from Sept. 30. Sep. 29, 2019…
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Why Be Moral
This essay represents my basic approach to ethics, so although I do not feel quite certain about everything here, I feel comfortable enough to post this theory here on my blog. It is rather long for a blog post (well over 7,000 words), but different sections are often reasonably self-contained, so you could skip through…
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Why I haven’t read Lolita
I posted a Twitter poll recently, by way of unburdening myself of the following opinion about Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, the book about a middle aged man who has a love affair with a 12-year-old girl. Here is the question: How many of you, like me, always found it bizarre and even a little hard to…
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Constantly monitor those in power
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” That’s a question we should be asking more in this day and age of constant surveillance. I’m toying with a proposal: Anyone who goes into public office should have absolutely no privacy whatsoever. Every movement should be available on video, every email and message logged and read, and every conversation recorded.…
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On the misbegotten phrase “surveillance capitalism”
The loaded phrase surveillance capitalism has been in circulation since at least 2014, but it came into much wider use this year with Shoshana Zuboff’s book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The phrase means the system of extremely widespread surveillance by giant private corporations, entailing the systematic invasion of our privacy as well as control…
