Pete Wolfendale
@deontologistics.bsky.social
Wandering philosopher. Purveyor of Platonic heresy, Kantian computationalism, and Hegelian minimalism. (he/him/it which speaks)
Pinned
Obligatory pinned post: my new book, The Revenge of Reason, is now available to buy: www.urbanomic.com/book/the-rev...
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
i recoiled a lot at the depiction of the fans in Ep 1 of Pluribus because, while people like that exist, they aren’t really the full extent of the problem
The subcategorization/tropefication of popular fiction has been very bad in general, both for authors and readers.
The death of browsing is part of the reason art is the way it is now. Our opinions are largely fed to us by algorithms. Spending a spare 15 minutes wandering around a bookstore or comic shop or video rental place was how you found stuff you wouldn't ordinarily pick up and thereby expanded your taste
November 29, 2025 at 7:09 PM
i recoiled a lot at the depiction of the fans in Ep 1 of Pluribus because, while people like that exist, they aren’t really the full extent of the problem
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
Liberal Zionism is 80 years of saying 'we just want a liberal international order based on universal human rights and the facts on the ground, and we will let you know once we made the facts on the ground the way we want them and it's time to start'
November 28, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Liberal Zionism is 80 years of saying 'we just want a liberal international order based on universal human rights and the facts on the ground, and we will let you know once we made the facts on the ground the way we want them and it's time to start'
Black Sabbath
Jethro Tull
Magma
The Magic Band (sans the Captain, alas)
Godspeed You Black Emperor
Jethro Tull
Magma
The Magic Band (sans the Captain, alas)
Godspeed You Black Emperor
5 concerts:
Pharoah Sanders
Kraftwerk
Hariprasad Chaurasia
Jeff Buckley
The Orb
Pharoah Sanders
Kraftwerk
Hariprasad Chaurasia
Jeff Buckley
The Orb
Introduce yourself with five concerts you've seen —
NIN
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Soul Coughing
Poe
Tom Morello
NIN
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Soul Coughing
Poe
Tom Morello
November 27, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Black Sabbath
Jethro Tull
Magma
The Magic Band (sans the Captain, alas)
Godspeed You Black Emperor
Jethro Tull
Magma
The Magic Band (sans the Captain, alas)
Godspeed You Black Emperor
First time I’ve put them side by side.
November 27, 2025 at 9:19 PM
First time I’ve put them side by side.
I've complained at length on here and elsewhere about the tendency to collapse the distinction between Right and Beauty, rendering the Good homogeneous. This is the characteristic trick of utilitarianism: enforcing mandatory excellence on a cosmic scale.
November 27, 2025 at 12:30 PM
I've complained at length on here and elsewhere about the tendency to collapse the distinction between Right and Beauty, rendering the Good homogeneous. This is the characteristic trick of utilitarianism: enforcing mandatory excellence on a cosmic scale.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
Over a year in I guess we can say that the general pattern with Starmer's Labour has been that it usually turns out they either have no ideas or bad ideas. So when the no ideas side wins out that is often actually a cause for celebration.
bsky.app/profile/last...
bsky.app/profile/last...
It honestly does seem to me that Labour should raise income taxes, including on people like me. I am willing to pay my share if it means some hope of a functioning state that can achieve things rather than lurch perpetually from one crisis to another forever in damage mitigation mode.
November 27, 2025 at 5:25 AM
Over a year in I guess we can say that the general pattern with Starmer's Labour has been that it usually turns out they either have no ideas or bad ideas. So when the no ideas side wins out that is often actually a cause for celebration.
bsky.app/profile/last...
bsky.app/profile/last...
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
Okay, so news cycle finally seems (relatively) slow, so I'm going to finally do some promotion for my book.
I read many hundreds of books and articles in drafting Did The Science Wars Take Place? and a lot of delicious quotes or examples didn't make it in...
www.amazon.com/Did-Science-...
I read many hundreds of books and articles in drafting Did The Science Wars Take Place? and a lot of delicious quotes or examples didn't make it in...
www.amazon.com/Did-Science-...
November 26, 2025 at 2:22 AM
Okay, so news cycle finally seems (relatively) slow, so I'm going to finally do some promotion for my book.
I read many hundreds of books and articles in drafting Did The Science Wars Take Place? and a lot of delicious quotes or examples didn't make it in...
www.amazon.com/Did-Science-...
I read many hundreds of books and articles in drafting Did The Science Wars Take Place? and a lot of delicious quotes or examples didn't make it in...
www.amazon.com/Did-Science-...
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
stupid young people, stop buying a new phone every year if you don't want to be broke. wait no, not like that.
November 25, 2025 at 5:51 PM
stupid young people, stop buying a new phone every year if you don't want to be broke. wait no, not like that.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
Why the two-child limit has to go, in a chart.
November 25, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Why the two-child limit has to go, in a chart.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
Maybe I’ll always be yank-brained but floating removing the choice of a trial by peers is irrefutable evidence that the UK needs a codified constitution setting out the legal rights of people. Maybe it can be modelled on one of the constitutions from one of its many colonies
November 25, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Maybe I’ll always be yank-brained but floating removing the choice of a trial by peers is irrefutable evidence that the UK needs a codified constitution setting out the legal rights of people. Maybe it can be modelled on one of the constitutions from one of its many colonies
Big same.
I mean for example I've hit a point where my in principle belief in the value of journalism has been completely destroyed by the actual reality the UK's media. You could announce the closure of almost any paper and I'd be like "well, serves them right". I know that's not good but it's how I feel!
November 25, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Big same.
Any self-identifying liberal who voted for these instinctively authoritarian pieces of shit should hang their head in shame. Genuinely worse than the Tories on basic legal freedoms.
what the fuck
November 25, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Any self-identifying liberal who voted for these instinctively authoritarian pieces of shit should hang their head in shame. Genuinely worse than the Tories on basic legal freedoms.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
In Thiel's mind this intra-rationalist war is basically the only thing that matters rn. And, you know, it's more relevant than people think: Yud's camp did a coup at OpenAI and then were couped in return by Sam Altman and the vc class. Titanic corporate drama over an ideological split.
November 24, 2025 at 10:47 PM
In Thiel's mind this intra-rationalist war is basically the only thing that matters rn. And, you know, it's more relevant than people think: Yud's camp did a coup at OpenAI and then were couped in return by Sam Altman and the vc class. Titanic corporate drama over an ideological split.
Studies in cognitive macro-economics part 471: www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...
Essay | How to Turn the Bureaucratic Grind of Life Into a Party
We all feel it: the growing stream of administrative tasks sapping our time, spirits and social lives. Admin Night represents a tiny, nerdy resistance.
www.wsj.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Studies in cognitive macro-economics part 471: www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
This gets to the core of it I think: insofar as social media radicalisation has been immensely damaging in politics, it’s not because it’s broken the minds of the average punter. It’s because it has deranged the brains of politicians and political commentators.
November 24, 2025 at 7:55 AM
This gets to the core of it I think: insofar as social media radicalisation has been immensely damaging in politics, it’s not because it’s broken the minds of the average punter. It’s because it has deranged the brains of politicians and political commentators.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
November 23, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
Engagement KPIs have been responsible for infinite scroll UI traps, RecSys radicalization spirals, public shame brigades, and basically every modern ailment novel to the past decade. At some point, you have to recognize that the problem isn't any one technology, it's the metric.
The company essentially turned a dial that made ChatGPT more appealing and made people use it more, but sent some of them into delusional spirals.
OpenAI has since made the chatbot safer, but that comes with a tradeoff: less usage.
OpenAI has since made the chatbot safer, but that comes with a tradeoff: less usage.
November 23, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Engagement KPIs have been responsible for infinite scroll UI traps, RecSys radicalization spirals, public shame brigades, and basically every modern ailment novel to the past decade. At some point, you have to recognize that the problem isn't any one technology, it's the metric.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
Just to echo Rodent, UK politics makes much more sense if you understand it as Thatcherism collapsing in 2008 but persisting as gospel among the elites, who then spent the next two decades setting up various scapegoats to slaughter and then go, "Whoops. Turns out the blood is in another neck!"
I am not going to tell you my ideas are for def 100% the solution but I am going to say that it was crystal clear ten years ago that migrant-squealing Thatcherite centrism was a democratic disaster, and the lads spent that entire time screeching and gargling to protect it.
November 22, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Just to echo Rodent, UK politics makes much more sense if you understand it as Thatcherism collapsing in 2008 but persisting as gospel among the elites, who then spent the next two decades setting up various scapegoats to slaughter and then go, "Whoops. Turns out the blood is in another neck!"
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
Judith Butler in 2021
November 21, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Judith Butler in 2021
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
... The UK feels like a nation whose ruling elite are absolutely committed to their own decline and utterly in love with their own perpetual mismanagement. Or, at least, so proud, so unwilling to admit general mistakes, that they will de facto achieve those goals rather than every saying sorry.
November 21, 2025 at 7:38 AM
... The UK feels like a nation whose ruling elite are absolutely committed to their own decline and utterly in love with their own perpetual mismanagement. Or, at least, so proud, so unwilling to admit general mistakes, that they will de facto achieve those goals rather than every saying sorry.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
From Twitter. Perfect illustration of the stupidity of an old right-libertarian/ancap talking point, and two takedowns of it.
November 20, 2025 at 9:06 PM
From Twitter. Perfect illustration of the stupidity of an old right-libertarian/ancap talking point, and two takedowns of it.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
There's this whole image of nazi eugenics as evil scientists doing science without checks, but in reality what "science" happened was usually incompetent and driven by cruelty, and so fucking much of eugenics was about rejecting modern medicine as an "unnatural" boon to those who would otherwise die
American “public health” has been fully remade into the eugenics based view that the weak will die and the strong survive. This is fascism 101 and it’s the use of natural methods to enact genocide.
It’s a form of auto genocide and part of MAHAs expressly murderous plan globally.
It’s a form of auto genocide and part of MAHAs expressly murderous plan globally.
The only way to understand this is to realize that they are eugenicists.
November 19, 2025 at 8:37 PM
There's this whole image of nazi eugenics as evil scientists doing science without checks, but in reality what "science" happened was usually incompetent and driven by cruelty, and so fucking much of eugenics was about rejecting modern medicine as an "unnatural" boon to those who would otherwise die
There goes a plot point from my sci-fi novel.
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 20, 2025 at 6:32 PM
There goes a plot point from my sci-fi novel.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 20, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
i've been asking this all along & critics accused me of exaggerating
but that's just the logical consequence of their position - if trans people are to be barred from single sex spaces & a venue *can't* create a gender neutral space, then what?
www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bat...
but that's just the logical consequence of their position - if trans people are to be barred from single sex spaces & a venue *can't* create a gender neutral space, then what?
www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bat...
Britain’s Bathroom Ban
The UK has gone from a bathroom ban being unthinkable to a Labour government implementing an extraordinarily authoritarian one—without a vote.
www.liberalcurrents.com
November 20, 2025 at 7:49 AM
i've been asking this all along & critics accused me of exaggerating
but that's just the logical consequence of their position - if trans people are to be barred from single sex spaces & a venue *can't* create a gender neutral space, then what?
www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bat...
but that's just the logical consequence of their position - if trans people are to be barred from single sex spaces & a venue *can't* create a gender neutral space, then what?
www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bat...