This is The Stark Way
The challenges of modernity without wishful thinking.
I’m Jamie, I’m a writer and researcher based in Canberra. I work in TV and academia.
Why I’m starting this newsletter.
📝Virtually everything good I read these days is on Substack, baby.
📖I’m writing a book about the search for a scientifically respectable concept of meaning. It’s ambitious, probably foolhardy, and a labour of many years and I want to share some of the ideas.
🤖My new job is researching the philosophy of intelligent systems. Timely!
😱If you’re looking for someone who takes the risks of AI very seriously — no wishful thinking — but with a tone that is more ironic, humanistic, then I can provide. There are tech types who are either utopians or doomsayers; and there are snark-merchants downplaying the whole thing because they think it’s silly sci-fi. I’m neither. I’m a humanities scholar but my professional work has focused on science: as a science communicator and as an academic in the philosophy of science. I’m also a screenwriter and have a weird absurdist worldview. Could be well-suited.
📚I’ll also do some posts about books and reading and about ☢️ nuclear weapons (which is, for mine, the gravest global risk) and 🧠 consciousness too.
I’ll be doing some bonus 🎙 audio content as well.
📬I’m open to feedback on anything!