A must read.

“This is exactly the kind of pathogen that's going to test whether the global health security infrastructure is functioning,”

There's a growing concern that AI tools used to help produce innovative drugs could also make it easier to create new threats go.nature.com/4fhtqXx

Particles are nature’s smallest constituents, but that doesn’t mean they’re fundamental. So what is the Universe made of?. An Essay by Felix Flicker

Offered without comment

May is budget month so I’m warming up by practicing saying “stagflation”

LOL. National, please continue making your pro-war noises as loudly as possible over the next six months. #nzpol www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360...

Now that it has been out for a week, I thought I’d address a few strange takes regarding our recent mega-analysis on the effects of psychedelics on brain function (specifically, resting-state functional connectivity). 1/15 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

What conversations between Republicans looked like when Eisenhower was POTUS. (also, love that the incidental music is Franck’s Symphony in D minor)

To be fair to Winnie, it’s hard to speak at all whilst boot licking. #nzpol

Again, there is no moral test that Luxon cannot fail. #nzpol

Willis has the look of someone figuring out what “regime change” actually means. Unfortunately for us, she has no clue how to handle any of this. Remember: #ETTD #nzpol

Luxon: “Keep working, keep the kids in school, doing all that stuff. Please don't think 'it's Covid 2.0, I'm making sourdough at home again'." Indeed. Covid 1.0 was a successful govt intervention to save lives This is a shit show(and good time for sourdough) #nzpol www.odt.co.nz/news/nationa...

‘My ties to Habermas were multi-layered. He was a mentor and an antagonist; a figure who showed me early on how to practise “critique with an emancipatory intent” but from whom I eventually had to distance myself.’ Nancy Fraser, new on the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

Headed out to a performance of Schubert’s Cello Quintet (D956) now!

“ ‘Technological imperatives, not popular opinion, are the most important sources of change,’ they write. The supremacy of technology is their theory of history.” 1/2 engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

“Thiel is consciously seeking to position himself as a figure of religious authority, using scripture and philosophy to preach in favor of a capitalism that murders democracy.” www.thenerdreich.com/peter-thiels...

“An instance of this failed judgment is in Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia. Clausewitz argues his primary fault was misjudging the impact of taking Moscow on the Tsar. Had Napoleon been right that this would force the Tsar to come to terms, the campaign strategy would have been sound.” 1/2

In memory of Jürgen Habermas, we’re sharing an essay that draws on his theory of deliberative democracy to rethink climate change, arguing that climate change is not only a scientific problem, but a political and moral one

I am excited to release, perhaps the world’s first Indigenous Peoples AI Framework for understanding and describing the nature of an Artificial Intelligence (AI). Drawing on mātauranga Māori, tikanga Māori, and te reo Māori. www.taiuru.co.nz/kaupapa-maor... #ai #maori #indigenous

As US military assets flow out of the region, just gonna leave this here in case you are curious what the folks behind the US administration really intend to do when China takes Taiwan. 1/2 stanfordreview.org/the-illusion...

“among one of the best pandemic responses in the world” notes the (2nd!) Royal Commission I clearly remember how collectively frightened, but determined, NZ felt going into COVID We enter the current crisis with mean, self-pitying leadership and a Trumpian “idea of a plan” This ends poorly #nzpol

‘Most philosophers have tried to fuse sublimity and decency, to fuse social hope with knowledge of something big. Universalism of the sort Habermas insists on still suggests the possibility of such a fusion.’ Richard Rorty on Jürgen Habermas, from 1987. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v0...

Opens today’s Post: —Malpass’ turd-polishing prose (and sooo much of it!) —Willis’ desperate spin on the limits of deficit spending and crisis response —Soft filter power pose This is gonna get ugly, and soon, and they know it. #nzpol

… Brownlee, not taking this affront lying down, promptly suspends entire Green Party caucus for two weeks. #nzpol

World War III: Psychopath reality TV star vs psychopath nepo baby. #worsttimeline

Oooh, I know this one! 1. Blame Labour 2. More tax cuts for the rich and more austerity for the rest of us 3. Enlist media hacks like Malpass to “explain” this to us #nzpol

OPINION: Our first priority has become to avoid attracting the attention of the playground bully

What a pathetic stance for a head of state. Basically, “I’m too uninformed and bereft of a moral compass to comment.” Again, there is no moral test that Luxon can’t fail. #nzpol 1/2

🙄The sane-washing the media does for right wing war mongers. There is no plan.

The “growth” ghouls never learn. Yesterday: Westpac’s chief economist for New Zealand, Kelly Eckhold, said the move was “great news” for our exporters when “conditions are probably the best they've been in a very long time” “Any reduction in tariffs is welcome news,” McClay said Today: 😬 #nzpol

No matter what happens with the economy in the interim, NZ will likely be voting in the shadow of another election in which cities will be occupied, ballots seized & any opposition criminalized It starts with the politicians in power picking the electorate You, citizen, are not a “dropkick” #nzpol

Toitū Te Tiriti

“The United States looks more and more like the sick man of the Americas, a country of spectacular disparities in wealth, crippling political dysfunction and pervasive violence.” www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Gawd our press is exhausting in its endless grant of “silver linings” to this government’s failures. www.thepost.co.nz/business/360...

Worth reading Anil Seth’s essay in its entirety, but this point especially: “As Immanuel Kant argued long ago in his lectures on ethics, treating conscious-seeming things as if they lack consciousness is a psychologically unhealthy place to be.” www.noemamag.com/the-mytholog...

A ruling and a sermon: Matthew 19:14: “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." John 11:35 is famously the shortest Bible verse: “Jesus wept.”

great blog maxread.substack.com/p/suicide-ri...

Bracing and clear eyed assessment from Carney, who understands you can’t beg your way off the menu. Please pay attention, AoNZ, as we head into this next election. Luxon’s neoliberal nonsense and Winston’s appeasement will be our ruin. #nzpol www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

The question of whether LLMs are conscious is now settled. @erikhoel.blogsky.venki.dev’s approach is agnostic about which theory of consciousness is right. Empirically, LLMs are equivalent to a lookup table, which is manifestly not conscious. But a future A.I. system that learns on the fly might be.

She’s in her lane: reserve banking Winston’s in his: tosser Nothing to see here. Perhaps the media should stop feeding this troll … #nzpol

From March 2025. Just gonna leave Luxon’s “I trust Donald Trump” here to remind you how f&$@‘d we all are. #nzpol

"For Kirk and for much of society today, words are not expressions with referents, but rather, performative speech acts with specific functions — in his case, owning the libs." holy moly, what a blog www.theverge.com/policy/84960...

Just published my review of neuroscience in 2025, on The Spike. The 10th of these, would you believe? This year we have foundation models, breakthroughs in using light to understand the brain, a gene therapy, and more Enjoy! medium.com/the-spike/20...

Reading this exceptional piece from 2023 that goes hard on the distinction between words and meanings. This is *exceptional*. nymag.com/intelligence...

Nature research paper: Mapping the genetic landscape across 14 psychiatric disorders go.nature.com/3MoazOr

Proud to stand with Louisa Wall, Marama Davidson, Rawiri Waititi and Green MPs as we delivered a 30k strong petition calling on the PM to bring his ministers into line. Whether it’s Seymour calling academics “deranged,” or Peters taking cheap shots at anyone who disagrees with him, it’s not ok.

… in which Smithers explains why Springfield loves Mr Burns. #nzpol #lolibertarians

A Washington resident has been hospitalized with bird flu, according to the Washington State Health Department, and they’re infected with a strain of the virus that hasn’t been seen in humans before. https://cnn.it/4oIRswI