Sharing an article from the Internet while bypassing a paywall.
If you are a member and receive an interesting article, but your friend cannot read it because they are not a member, what do you do? You copy the article “by hand”, put it back together nicely and send it to the friend. This is a lateral copy.
If you are a member and receive an interesting article, but your friend cannot read it because they are not a member, what do you do? You copy the article “by hand”, put it back together nicely and send it to the friend. This is a lateral copy.
Another great article that J. will be interested in. But the link is useless to him: he's not a member. I'll have to make him a lateral copy again.
by ThePhysopher September 25, 2025
Get the Lateral Copy mug.The mistaken belief that scientific models, theories, and concepts are literal descriptions of reality rather than useful approximations. The Literalist thinks an electron is "really" a particle, a gene is "really" a discrete unit, a map is "really" the territory. Scientific Literalism forgets that science builds models, not mirrors—useful fictions that help us predict and intervene, not photographs of the noumenal world. It's the error of confusing the menu for the meal, the map for the landscape, the model for reality.
"You're arguing about whether light is 'really' a particle or a wave. Scientific Literalism: it's neither—those are models we use because they work. The map is not the territory. Your literalism is preventing you from understanding what science actually does."
by Abzugal February 23, 2026
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The naive belief that language can directly capture reality—that words mean what they mean, that concepts correspond to things, that truth is a matter of matching statements to world. Epistemological Literalism ignores the mediated, constructed, interpretive nature of all knowing. It's the epistemology of the confident, the unreflective, the certain. It feels like common sense but is actually a sophisticated philosophical position that most of philosophy has spent centuries dismantling.
"Just tell me the truth, directly, no interpretation." Epistemological Literalism: as if truth came pre-packaged in language, as if words weren't interpretations, as if you could escape meaning-making. There is no direct—only mediated. Grow up."
by Abzugal February 23, 2026
Get the Epistemological Literalism mug.a rocket thrust (in gimbal) that is angled half of the degree as long as it is equal or less than 45
"That rocket has a forty-five and below lateral or lenticular angle in truncated degree thruster to make it turn a little to the left!"
by outrageously long vocabulary May 26, 2024
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