The 1960s-80s countercultures abandoned rationality because they believed it negated all meaning. They were wrong.| Meaningness
Understanding why nihilism became silly may improve your attitude to life considerably.| Buddhism for Vampires
A bridge from systematic rationality to fluid meta-rational understanding may be necessary to prevent civilizational collapse.| Meta-rationality
Intuitions of “cosmic meaning” root in hunger for personal significance, and in encounters with vastness.| Meaningness
Jung's “shadow,” and Robert Bly’s monstrous interpretation of it, resonate with Buddhist Tantra; but Romanticism obstructs a translation.| Buddhism for Vampires
A surreal, postmodern review of Ken Wilber’s book Boomeritis, which seems to be about my work at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.| Meta-rationality
Meditation, usually beneficial, can have negative effects too—sometimes catastrophic ones.| Vividness
I ain’t against gods and goddesses, in their place. But they’ve got to be the ones we make ourselves. Then we can take ’em to bits for the parts when we don’t need ’em anymore, see?| Vividness
American Buddhist organizations and events rarely run smoothly. We take muddled ineffectuality for granted. Leaders don’t understand how to organize, and participants vigorously resist all systematic processes. Few are on board with principle that “if you say you are going to do something, you should do it.” (And if you are not going to do it, you need to tell someone about it and help clean up the mess.)| Vividness