Intellectual Jokes and Longtermism

It Never Worked Before

Linch Zhang | The Linchpin | 18th September 2025

Nine intellectual jokes and a coda on what makes humour intellectual. It has to be layered, accessible to those who get the surface meaning with deeper rewards for those who see the additional levels. Jokes about intellectuals and jargon are not intellectual humour; they are “smart people jokes” based on stereotypes and in-group solidarity. If your appetite is whetted, head to the comments for more (1,400 words)

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The Brief Life Of Longtermism

Jesús Zamora Bonilla | Mapping Ignorance | 22nd September 2025

A popular notion of moral progress is the “expansion of the circle of empathy”, from a small group in the past to more humans and nonhumans over time. Its latest version is the theory that future generations living millions of years from now deserve the same consideration as people alive today or a century from now, an apparent “corollary of the principle that all human lives are equally valuable” (1,600 words)