{"id":6,"date":"2026-06-01T20:23:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T20:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandonsergent.com\/?page_id=6"},"modified":"2026-06-06T21:21:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T21:21:48","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/brandonsergent.com\/","title":{"rendered":"Sourcery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"Brandon<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Brandon M. Sergent<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Writer. Essays, short books, and software tools. Most of it is free; all of it is here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Books<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Missing Rung<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Empty ICBMs, Drone Swarms, and the Bank’s One Endless War<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A prequel to The Butlerian Setup. The new war is the drone. The old war is the bank. The missing rung is the suppressed conventional missile that proves the war is kept open on purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay-what-you-want from $1 on Ko-fi. $2.99 on Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Get on Ko-fi ($1+)<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Amazon ($2.99)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Butlerian Setup<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

How the Anti-AI Movement Hands the Future to a Single Feudal Empire<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A book-length analysis of the 2026 anti-AI backlash and the consolidation it enables. Hating a new technology is one of the oldest human reflexes, and the political move that exploits the panic is centuries old. AI hate is the most powerful version yet, because it runs on dangers that are actually real, and that kernel of legitimate fear sanctifies the cruelty built on top of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay-what-you-want from $1 on Ko-fi. $2.99 on Amazon. Free source on GitHub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Get on Ko-fi ($1+)<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Amazon ($2.99)<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Free source (GitHub)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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No One Will Take a Pay Cut<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mass Complicity Is Voluntary and the Necessity Defense Is Empirically False<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power runs on cooperation you can withdraw, quietly and in part, on any given day. The only thing in the way is the price, and for the comfortable majority it is a pay cut, not a grave. People decline it. A plain-prose argument that mass complicity is a choice and the necessity defense is a purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay-what-you-want from $1 on Ko-fi. $2.99 on Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Get on Ko-fi ($1+)<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Amazon ($2.99)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Hedonic Core Framework<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A Suffering-Elimination Approach to AI Alignment<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI alignment research has spent two decades trying to encode human values into systems that will soon outthink us. This framework takes a different route, grounding alignment in the elimination of suffering rather than the capture of values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay-what-you-want from $1 on Ko-fi. Free source on GitHub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Get on Ko-fi ($1+)<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Free source (GitHub)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Experientia Est<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Name One Thing That Is Not a Subset of Experience<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experientia Est. Experience is. And everything that is, is that. This ebook presents the foundational case that experience is the irreducible ground of everything we can meaningfully talk about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay-what-you-want from $1 on Ko-fi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Get on Ko-fi ($1+)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Sourcery<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Domain of Inquiry Underlying the Entirety of Meaning and the Axiomatic Foundation of Both Science and Philosophy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sourcery (noun): the methodological practice of deriving conclusions exclusively from sources you can actually point to. A work on the axiomatic foundation underlying both science and philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay-what-you-want from $9 on Ko-fi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Get on Ko-fi ($9+)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Essays<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Substack<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Essays on philosophy, technology, and how things actually work. Free to read; no subscription required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read on Substack<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Full Shop on Ko-fi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

All available titles are listed on Ko-fi, pay-what-you-want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Browse shop on Ko-fi<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Nothing here is ever really locked.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The paid builds on Ko-fi and Amazon are a convenience and a way to support the work. If you want something and cannot or will not pay, ask and you will get a free copy. The free versions live online too: essays on Substack, papers on PhilPapers, and book source on GitHub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Support on Ko-fi<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Elsewhere<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Substack<\/a>  |  Blog<\/a>  |  Ko-fi<\/a>  |  GitHub<\/a>  |  X \/ Twitter<\/a>  |  Goodreads<\/a>  |  Amazon<\/a>  |  Email<\/a>  |  Discord<\/a>  |  PhilPeople News\/Debates<\/a>  |  Zenodo<\/a> | ORCiD<\/a> | <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brandon M. Sergent Writer. Essays, short books, and software tools. Most of it is free; all of it is here. Books The Missing Rung Empty ICBMs, Drone Swarms, and the Bank’s One Endless War A prequel to The Butlerian Setup. The new war is the drone. The old war is the bank. The missing rung […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonsergent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonsergent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonsergent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandonsergent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandonsergent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/brandonsergent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42,"href":"https:\/\/brandonsergent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6\/revisions\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonsergent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}