did you know crouton.net

Why do you hate the word "moist"? why do wet sounds like teeth-sucking, slurping, and swallowing evoke a sense of disgust and rage? @jakee.bsky.social explains in dazzling detail on The Ick... emilybynight.substack.com/p/the-moist-...

all @aspaglayan.bsky.social content is self-recommending

Super fun interview with @asteriskmag.bsky.social in which we talk about "Raised to Obey" (@princetonupress.bsky.social) but also: - is "indoctrination for democracy" desirable? - is low education quality driven by "low state capacity"? and more! asteriskmag.com/issues/10/wh...

when you love community but hate civilization

Basic tests for research reproducibility still aren't being met, even in our top journals. Some 15% of papers in even our best publications still contain code that doesn't run

Some very depressing forecasts on the impact of USAID cuts in the recent @asteriskmag.bsky.social special edition: asteriskmag.substack.com/p/forecast-...

For the past month, @asteriskmag.bsky.social has been working with a group of forecasters for a series on the mortality impacts of the Trump Administration's USAID cuts 5 forecasts, transparent and probabilistic, on PEPFAR, malaria, TB, nutrition, and WASH asteriskmag.substack.com/p/forecast-s...

Grateful to talk to Todd and Katie about the current status of USAID, that leaked reorganization plan, and what we can expect for the future of American foreign assistance

we're advertising 2-3 postdoctoral positions to work at NYU on artificial consciousness and related topics at the intersection of AI and the philosophy of mind (possibly including AI mentality, AI interpretability, and AI welfare). deadline is march 30! philjobs.org/job/show/28878

Have been reading Longreads well over a decade! A real privilege to be featured

We raised the attendance cap on this from 80 to 100 after high demand! Will sell-out! Donation-based! Very important topic! Very interesting questions! Very cool people! I will ask about panpsychism! Can't wait to meet you there!!!

A few tickets out of 80 total left! If there's enough demand we can find a way to finagle a few more, but it's going to be a full house. I'm really, really excited for this one

did I just release a project where ANYONE can update a site by calling the number 715-999-7483 right before going on vacation? yes.

Exciting update: @open_phil is doubling down on our YIMBY, innovation, and metascience success by launching a >$120m Abundance & Growth Fund to accelerate economic growth and boost scientific & technological progress. Funding from @goodventures.bsky.social, Patrick Collison, and others. Why now? 🧵

SUCH a good article about misophonia from @jakee.bsky.social. It's so hard for me to articulate my relationship with stimuli such as chewing and repetitive sounds, it's not just that I don't like them it's the uncontrollable full-body aversive reaction. Glad to see more serious research on this.

Absolute pleasure to speak with Kati Devaney for this issue. We covered a lot of territory: the deep-end of meditation, the neuroscience of cessation, the concept of "weird," and whether enlightenment is in the Overton window yet asteriskmag.com/issues/09/th...

During this bird flu pandemic I try to keep in mind the old aphorism: you can’t make an omelette

A demonstration this Friday to ask the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to restore PEPFAR funding, one of the best things the US government (or any organization in the world) does: pepfarreport.org/event I found the report very informative and interesting: pepfarreport.org

the most surprising and disappointing aspect of becoming a global health philanthropist is the existence of an opposition team

Thrilled to announce that @asteriskmag.bsky.social and I will be hosting a conversation between Rob Long and Kati Devaney on where two tracks in consciousness research — AI and meditation — collide If you're local to the Bay, would love to see you there! www.eventbrite.com/e/where-huma...

how to tell defunding science is in fact a bad idea: the notably left-wing and pro-government-spending think tank AEI agrees with @deenamousa.com and I that science funding is high ROI: www.aei.org/economics/wh...

There are 3 things one should never discuss in polite company: money, politics, and shrimp. asteriskmag.com/issues/09/ye...

Skepticism of government-funded scientific research is making the rounds again. In @asteriskmag.bsky.social, @lgilbert.co‬ and I write about why “weird” research pays off, and how the government is particularly well-positioned— better than the private sector—to fund it. 🧵 x.com/deenamousa/...

Forecasting & global health friends! @asteriskmag.bsky.social is working on a mini-series forecasting the impacts of USAID/other funding cuts over the next year

Basic research, even when it appears weird — from levitating frogs to the sex lives of beetles to fishing in geysers for bacteria — is a government investment with extremely high ROI asteriskmag.com/issues/09/a-...

Really enjoyed being interviewed for this feature on misophonia and misophonia research in @asteriskmag.bsky.social! asteriskmag.com/issues/09/th...

Illustration for a @jakee.bsky.social article about misophonia in the last issue of @asteriskmag.bsky.social #magazine #illustration

my latest - about trying to understand my own misophonia, and why it's taken so long for science to catch up

made this little tool, govwayback.com. add “wayback.com” to “.gov” on any US gov website and it’ll redirect you to that page on @archive.org … from before January 20th 2025

everyone is an animist when it comes time to choose a coffee mug

I'm pretty sympathetic sometimes to the caricature of EAs as weird galaxy-brained utilitarians willing to pursue absurd ends in service of decreasing suffering but then I take a few minutes to read the evidence, and change my mind

2/ Meta has announced that they’re removing third-party fact checkers and implementing Community Notes. What, exactly, are Community Notes? @asteriskmag.bsky.social recently published an in-depth interview with the team behind Community Notes: asteriskmag.com/issues/08/th....

In the wake of the turmoil around PEPFAR funding, we're re-reading @justsand.bsky.social's piece on how economists got Africa's AIDS epidemic wrong - and why it's so important that it continues asteriskmag.com/issues/05/pe...

pitches are open for Kernel Magazine Issue 5: RULES we want critical & creative meditations on your most esoteric regulations, logics, constraints 👷 📐 pitches and submissions are due february 1. we pay! joinreboot.org/p/kernel-5-p...

HEY ITS ME your instagram friend from college who never left their community nonprofit job & thinks luigi mangione is hot. anyway heres some misinformation on wildfire insurance in california

the property

I read around 30 meditation books this year. Here are 5 that stuck with me the most www.anzalogue.xyz/p/five-medit...

not pictured: when Anza met Pearl

I got frustrated with the GLP-1 discourse and wrote up some hasty thoughts jakeeaton.substack.com/p/the-glp-1-...

Read the magazine everyone is calling the antidote to EA and rationalism's bad aesthetics!

"handsomely designed" - The New Yorker WINNER of the 2023 AIGA Year in Design Award For the next week, get 15% off and free shipping on single print copies of Asterisk with code BLACKFRIDAY15 store.asteriskmag.com

hot tip for reporter friends: so there’s one guy who is basically the center of the largest Bay Area polycule I’ve ever seen. his name is Claude

If someone invented a drug that preserved what my state of mind and focus is like between say 5:30AM-7:30AM throughout the entire day, I would pay handsomely

We made a magazine! Very excited to launch Pace Layers into the world — it's a project that's been in the works for years, now (thanks to the tireless work and leadership of @med.bsky.social), and I'm so happy with how it turned out. longnow.org/ideas/pace-l...

Progress Conference really was my favorite event of the past few years, and I expect it to have even more momentum in 2025

I still think that social media and phones are doing bad things to our mental health, but I appreciate Claude's contrarian take on what's been happening in the past ten years with loneliness: housing is expensive, and it's hard to make friends when you live with mom and dad