About
I’m Dawn Drescher. I write about the things I can’t stop thinking about, which currently fall into two clusters that are more connected than they first appear.
The inner world. I’m writing a multi-part series on the psychopathy spectrum – the biology, development, psychology, and ethics of narcissistic and antisocial personality. I interview people with NPD, ASPD, and related presentations about their inner lives, their recovery, and what it’s like to navigate a world that mostly talks about them rather than to them. I’m also co-authoring a recovery handbook for people with these conditions and building an AI-powered mental health tool. If you’re here for the psychology, start with The Psychopathy Spectrum series or the interview with Tiffany.
The outer world. I’m an effective altruist and priorities researcher interested in suffering risks, AI safety, animal advocacy, welfare ecology, and how to allocate resources when the stakes are astronomical and the uncertainties are vast. I write about decision theory, game theory, and evidential cooperation. I also run a separate blog on impact markets. If you’re here for the EA content, start with Cooperative Moral Goals or The Strategic Case for AI Rights.
The connection. Intergenerational trauma shapes individuals, families, institutions, and political systems. Understanding how personality disorders develop – and how recovery works – is upstream of questions about authoritarian leadership, institutional dysfunction, and the long-term trajectory of civilization. The inner world and the outer world are the same world at different scales.
I also have a drawer of older work on philology – literary analysis, linguistics, fiction – and occasionally I write something that doesn’t fit any category at all.
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