Best of Twitter week of August 12-18, 2024

After ten years of engaging pretty seriously with Mills, Rawls, Plato, etc. I kept on being bothered by certain observations

— Max Langenkamp (@mslkmp)
9:52 PM • Aug 5, 2024

Tyler Cowen is a savage

— Alexey Guzey (@alexeyguzey)
12:06 PM • Aug 5, 2024

whales with menopause end up living much longer than expected vs whales without menopause.

suggests menopause emerges from extended post-reproductive lifespan, rather than truncated reproductive lifespan
doi.org/10.1038/s41586…

— american biologist (@95thoughts)
3:36 AM • Aug 15, 2024

I can't for the love of me understand how people bear to stay in tech for decades

everything is just so broken and dysfunctional

I joined [FAANG] three years ago and I probably thought of quitting every. single. day. since.

parasitism is just a hugely underestimated problem -… x.com/i/web/status/1…

— r (@theorizur)
11:30 PM • Aug 13, 2024

On impact & on what we should do with our lives

My friends often ask me: what impact has New Science had? What impact has Emergent Ventures, which I admire so much, had? What impact will [project I'm currently thinking about] have?

There's a few universally-considered truly… x.com/i/web/status/1…

— Alexey Guzey (@alexeyguzey)
6:19 PM • Aug 15, 2024

Our new study is out today in the New England Journal of Medicine! We demonstrate a speech neuroprosthesis that decodes the attempted speech of a man with ALS into text with 97.5% accuracy, enabling him to communicate with his family, friends, and colleagues in his own home. 1/9

— Nicholas Card (@NS_Card)
9:11 PM • Aug 14, 2024

Yes, building market-rate "luxury" housing reduces rent for poor people.

— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@Noahpinion)
5:41 PM • Aug 13, 2024

Prophesy: Leo Szilard—the physicist who first conceived of the nuclear chain reaction and who urged the US to undertake the Manhattan Project—explaining how science would stagnate, in 1948. rootsofprogress.org/szilard-on-slo…

— David Chapman (@Meaningness)
6:33 PM • Jan 5, 2023

Very pleased with the screams of Platonists.

The mathematical nature of reality is not obligated to be simple and sexy and perceivably Divine. We're just playing in the beginner area. Greater minds will discover bitrotten horror beyond our comprehension.

— Teortaxes▶️ (@teortaxesTex)
2:44 AM • Aug 11, 2024

YES.
Physics is not necessarily less "elegant" than muh pure math.

And that's also why I'm not a functionalist. It may be that some Grug-brained "me head here is what I am. Informaishon? Wuzzat?" is a more correct theory of consciousness than smart-sounding CS Platonism.

— Teortaxes▶️ (@teortaxesTex)
8:55 PM • Aug 11, 2024

a lot of executive dysfunction seems to just self-correct once you start doing things with friends and in community, instead of trying to brute-force everything alone

— Orpheas (@OrphicCapital)
12:57 PM • Aug 11, 2024

the first piece of dating advice i got from my dad was "older men will tell you they love you so you'll have sex with them"

— goblin costanza, worm moder (@goblinodds)
3:09 PM • Aug 10, 2024

I want to print this and stick it around our office.

— Vaidehi (@vaidehiagrwalla)
4:24 AM • Jul 29, 2024