Adam Perkins - Quillette

Narrow Roads of Bozo Land: How We Came to Be Governed by Online Mobs

Visionaries may be moody, obsessive loners but without them to provide a good idea in the first place, implementers end up working diligently to implement a faulty vision, like clockwork toys set off in the wrong direction.

Adam Perkins

22 Sep 2018 · 9 min read

Norms of Good Governance: Where Do They Come From?

What is it about humans that makes democratic norms stick? What are the traits that facilitate honesty and transparency in administration at the highest levels?

Adam Perkins

17 Aug 2018 · 10 min read

“It Has Come to My Attention…” How Institutional Complaints Procedures are Being Weaponized

My cardinal sin was to publish a book three years ago called The Welfare Trait that summarised data linking personality and welfare dependency.

Adam Perkins

24 May 2018 · 7 min read

The Scientific Importance of Free Speech

These are merely tools that help us to accomplish a far greater mission, which is to choose between rival narratives, in the vicious, no-holds-barred battle of ideas that we call “science”.

Adam Perkins

13 Apr 2018 · 7 min read

Science as Art

All of this discussion leaves unanswered the question of how we decide if something represents a breakthrough — after all, there isn’t an international court of arbitration for creativity.

Adam Perkins

18 Nov 2016 · 9 min read

Elite Opinion vs the Wisdom of Crowds: The Intelligentsia’s Tendency to Get Things Wrong

The anti-democratic attitude of the liberal elite is absurd from a theoretical viewpoint because a democratic judgment represents the will of the majority...

Adam Perkins

9 Oct 2016 · 9 min read

Authoritarianism is a Matter of Personality, Not Politics

Because democracy reflects the will of the majority, extremists will never win a fair election.

Adam Perkins

30 Nov 2015 · 3 min read