I wrote a thing. "The deep ocean floor is covered in naturally-occurring batteries that make oxygen... Wait, WHAT?!", by Julian Gough is writing The Egg & the Rock 🥚/🪨 theeggandtherock.com/p/the-deep-oce…

This is the best one-stop overview of the new biology. Extremely detailed, extraordinarily well researched. An epic feat of condensation and clear explanation. Highly recommended.

Many people on here seem to be seeking the meaning of life. Yet that problem was solved, comprehensively and for all time, in the mid-20th century, by Flann O'Brien in his novel The Third Policeman. ‘Is it life? Many a man has spent a hundred years trying to get the dimensions

Really enjoying David Christian's article "What is Big History?" Economic forces make this kind of big history - a consilient approach to the world - very challenging. Specialization is the most natural way to make an original contribution, and so tends to be what is

One of the huge gains in efficiency enabled by AI is in education, where students can use AI to do their homework, while teachers can use it to read & grade that work, often tripling the available time both can then devote to cultivating their alienation, anxiety & depression.

Reading up on electrostatics in nature. Bloody hell! Contactless pollen transfer! Also, bumblebees are HIGHLY charged. Fascinating stuff. “Electrostatics in pollination and seed dispersal One ecological function well known to be facilitated in part by electrostatic forces is

Read Julian Gough is writing The Egg & the Rock 🥚/🪨 on "our universe appears to be the result of an evolutionary process at the level of universes. ... our universe is descended from a long line of earlier, less sophisticated universes." theeggandtherock.com/p/an-introduct…

One amusing consequence of dictating unusual sentences about an unusual theory is that the transcription software has no idea what I'm trying to say and just takes a wild guess. I dictated "If universes gave birth to universes", and got "if universe is gay birthday universe is"

"People Are Trying Magic Mushrooms for Depression — and Accidentally Meeting God" A marvellous romp of an article, focused on the recent trend whereby HUGE numbers of depressed Mormons have accidentally had life-changing spiritual experiences on mushrooms. rollingstone.com/culture/cultur…

Has anyone written a paper/article that analyses the strength of some online extreme positions on social media with the weakness of real-world turnout when they finally organize a demonstration? For recent examples, tiny protests at the Democratic Convention, tiny far-right

Ireland could become one of the most successful countries on earth, but right now it’s crippled by a set of problems (in housing, infrastructure, and state capacity), that are largely the consequence of a lack of imagination. We need new ideas. I wish these guys luck. Read this.

I suspect there may be demand for this novel.