Astral Codex Ten

Beroe

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Beroe

Article

Beroe is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 4 times across 4 issues between October 07, 2022 and April 14, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “Beroe: Allow me to try a hostile rephrasing of your point”; “when Beroe brought it up”; “Beroe: Eugenics inspired the Nazis (and 1920s Americans) to do very evil things”. It most often appears alongside Adraste, America, American Jews.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 4
  • Issue count: 4
  • First seen: October 07, 2022
  • Last seen: April 14, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

A Columbian Exchange
October 07, 2022 · Original source
Beroe: Happy Columbus Day!
Beroe: Does “Columbus Day was originally intended as a woke holiday celebrating marginalized groups; President Benjamin Harrison established it in 1892 after an anti-Italian pogrom in order to highlight the positive role of Italians in American history” count as one of the usual beats by this point?
Beroe: What about “Indigenous People’s Day is offensive because indigenous peoples were frequently involved in slavery and genocide”?
Highlights From The Comments On Columbus Day
October 10, 2022 · Original source
I (not American, mind) didn't know Columbus Day was a thing at all, and when Beroe brought it up, I thought it was an alternate history idea Scott had made up to set up a reversal test. I learned something today.
Galton, Ehrlich, Buck
May 15, 2023 · Original source
Beroe: Eugenics inspired the Nazis (and 1920s Americans) to do very evil things. But Islam inspired Osama bin Laden to do very evil things, and we rightly believe that it’s fine to practice Islam as long as you don’t use it as an excuse to do evil things. Islam isn’t bad, flying planes into buildings is bad. Likewise, eugenics isn’t bad, involuntarily sterilizing people, or sending them to gas chambers, is bad. What’s the argument against forms of eugenics that don’t do this?
Beroe: Let’s say - financial incentives for the most talented people to have lots of children. Something like the old Nobel Sperm Bank, where people with great socially-valuable gifts are encouraged to deposit gametes, and couples who can’t conceive naturally - maybe infertile people, maybe lesbians - are encouraged to make use of them. And making voluntary contraception free and easily available, since by far the most common reason for the less-genetically-blessed part of the population having children is that they want contraceptives but can’t access them.
Beroe: I take it you will shortly find some other objection, though.
Open Thread 377
April 14, 2025 · Original source
Beroe: You can’t blame thinkers for what other, worse people do with their ideas. Wasn’t it Kipling who said you needed to be prepared to “hear the truth you’ve spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools”?