Antinomy/thinkers

It looks like the writer has both intelligence and sense, and I'm always happy to find people who look as if they might have a clue. The writer is cynical, though. I wish I knew if it was reasonable or unreasonable cynicism, but as a low-status person with hermit tendencies, I am in no position to judge.

A collection of wonderfully cranky essays.

I neither endorse nor condemn his views, but this fellow who uses the pen name Spengler writes some interesting stuff. He shows evidence of both a functioning brain and active erudition, so he is worth reading.

Have you ever met a person who thinks a lot like you do but differently enough that he or she serves as a scary funhouse mirror? Sort of like meeting an extremist who has your core beliefs? That is how I felt when I found this collection of excerpts from the heavy Usenet poster The Danimal. He has been posting on Usenet for at least fifteen years and has submitted thousand of articles. He writes with precision, humor, harshness, and elegance about sociobiology, the scientific method, futurism, the battle between the sexes, empiricism, logical positivism, education, psychometrics, and more. I find him frightening because he starts with many of my premises but ends up at different places than I do, and I think he probably is smarter than I am.

This is the website of the author Jerry Pournelle, who makes his living writing science fiction and about computers. He has more basic good sense than 99.99+% of the population.