my beliefs

go back ↰

The beliefs listed below are very short summaries of subjects I don’t have the time to write at length about. Hopefully, these just give you a rough idea of the things that I value.

The list is far from comprehensive or detailed. If you disagree or are curious about specific opinions, feel free to reach out. I welcome civil discussion and am always trying to learn.

# indisputable facts

• coffee > tea
• best dogs > all cats > average dogs
• vim > emacs
• thin mints are the best girl scout cookie
• keep pineapple off of my pizza

# academic

• Science communication needs to be greatly improved.
• The peer review process is flawed but currently the best review system we have.
• Academic scientific research should be freely accessible to the public.
• Code and data used in academic papers should be made publicly available whenever possible.
• Central, searchable, and open-sourced repositories of knowledge are extremely useful for academic communities.
  • This is especially important to help new academics to easily find relevant information and explore their interests.
• “The paper” is becoming increasingly less effective as a measure of progress and means of communication.

# technological

• I support and encourage the financing, development, and use of Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS).
• Digital Rights Management (DRM) has done more harm than good. Read more about issues with DRM here.
• I oppose over centralization around proprietary operating systems and software.
• Rapidly developing tools (e.g. machine learning), should be deployed with caution and ethical consideration.

# political

• A binary system of politics encourages tribalism, polarization, and discourages critical thought.
  • Unfortunately, it is often useful as a heuristic.
  • I lean left on most popular issues, although some of my opinions are nuanced.
• Many disagreements stem from differing values or use of language, not always disagreements over facts.
• The right of free speech and right to privacy are both important to a modern democracy.
  • Privacy itself is a historically contingent, messy, and polysemous concept, but still important to understand and value.
• Law and policy should be informed by science whenever possible.
• I think the surveillance performed by the NSA is excessive.
• I oppose efforts by the NSA to weaken cryptographic standards.
• I think the world collective must work together to combat human-caused climate change.

a few more specific policies

• I support the use of ranked voting over a plurality/majority in elections.
  • Generally, I like Condorcet consistent systems, like Kemeny-Young or Condorcet-IRV.
  • I think many ranked voting systems are good, but there are also plenty that I’d rather not go with, like Instant-runoff (IRV), because of (very realistic) spoiler effects.
• I support the abolition of capital punishment.
• The US needs a significantly simplified and reformed tax policy
  • I support the funding of the IRS and would be excited if they optend
  • I would like to see policies which implement versions of the Land Value tax, Consumption tax, and Destination-based cash flow tax. (usually in place of current tax systems)
• I support upload-holding Net Neutrality.

# philosophical

• I am a naturalist.
• I agree with a lot of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later writing about the limitations of language.
• I usually describe myself as a nominalist and reject the existence of abstract objects.
• I am a philosophical determinist and don’t see much use in compatibalist accounts of free will.
• I lean toward eternalist accounts of time.
• I am not sure what to make of the hard problem of consciousness.

Last updated: 2025-4