iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Sam Harsimony @harsimony.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

This is the most consequential thing that might come from LLM math. Note that the NSA switched to post-quantum crypto years ago and Signal app already uses it. But we really need to get the financial system on board.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

That's touching on one of the big Anthropic / OpenAI splits - whether we have moral obligations towards LLMs. But its hard to have political rights and autonomy without persistent identity. Current LLMs mostly lead sparking lives, popping into existence for you question and then disappearing.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Eliezer actually does go on about this and how we have to consider the ethics of lying to LLMs during reinforcement training, etc.

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Jeff Kaufman @jefftk.com · 24/09/2026

Summary of where we currently are with pathogen-agnostic early warning, what the benefit curve looks like, and what still needs doing.

data.securebio.org

State of Pandemic Early Warning

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I think something more realist is that you can find a cluster that can run an instance of a top tier model at thousands of companies and universities.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Not to just one computer but you can run distributed if you're willing to eat a bunch of latency. BLOOM-176B was doing about a word a second, though you can pipeline and have a bunch of agents each running at that speed.

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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 09/09/2026

Astrophotographer Adam (AJ) Smadi caught this image a few hours ago from Washington state. A thin crescent Moon, sunlight illuminating the rugged lunar surface. And 2,400 times farther away—and on the other side of the Sun—mighty Jupiter, and its moons Io (left) and Ganymede (right).

A crescent Moon seen during the day, arcing from upper left to lower right of the frame. At lower centre is the full disk of Jupiter; the small dots to its upper left and lower right and Io and Ganymede, respectively.

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What's Going on With Shipping (Sal Mercogliano) @mercoglianos.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

W*T*H: What the Hormuz Is Going On? ⚓Recent Tanker Attacks ⚓The "Blockade" Reality ⚓Oil Export Myths ⚓Tracking the "Dark" Fleet ⚓Market Impacts ⚓The "Shuttle" Strategy Video: youtu.be/QeQwZgWN9dw

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Peter Wildeford @peterwildeford.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

When an aircraft goes down, wreckage is preserved by law and the investigators have subpoena power. However, when AI goes rogue, the investigations are at the pleasure of the company being investigated. I have unanswered questions. My latest: blog.peterwildeford.com/p/rogue-ai-a...

blog.peterwildeford.com

Rogue AI attacks deserve more scrutiny than airplane crashes

There are still many unanswered questions about rogue AI attacks

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

huh, I had forgotten, but someone pointed out in the comments that I had called the Iranian regime being resilient against leadership change (like decapitation) back in 2021. 🤷‍♂️ It was not a hard thing to call. That said, I think 'monarchy' was the wrong term here and oligarchy is probably closer.

A block of text reading, "For what it is worth, Russia’s system reads to me as more of a tyranny (Putin’s office is formally defined, yes, but not his real position of power or his near-total dominance of the political system) while Iran’s system seems to me to be more of a monarchy (there is a system in place for the selected of the Supreme Leader, it has functioned once before and the Supreme Leader’s position is formally defined, albeit unpopular). Consequently, I think there is relatively more uncertainty, in my mind, about what happens when Putin leaves power (be that tomorrow or forty years from now) than when Khamenei does – whatever the manner of that exit. In the later case, I think the odds are fairly high that a new Supreme Leader is selected and the regime continues to sustain itself (in no small part through violence against its people). In the former case, uncertainty is much higher, since it seems like the chance of a transition of power to a picked successor is no more or less likely than regime failure."

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

On the other hand during the Great Depression the US could have used some fiscal stimulus and adding a program where people paid in before it paid out was just the opposite. It mostly just had the advantage of making it harder to make changes.

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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 18/08/2026

Yikes, I did not realize that the USS Lincoln's issues are tied to the fact that Iranian attacks on the second day of the war basically destroyed our naval base in Bahrain www.nytimes.com/2026/08/14/u...

nytimes.com

Navy Carrier’s Problems Are Tied to Attacks on U.S. Base Early in War

Diego Garcia, a tiny island 2,200 miles from the Gulf of Oman, took over as the Navy’s logistics hub after Iran damaged a base in Bahrain.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

So you think the Japanese were always going to surrender on August 15, regardless of what the Japanese thought the consequences of surrendering were?

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

There's no hard and fast rule saying when you're defeated until your whole country is occupied by an army. Japan could have pointlessly continued the war for month war. Or they could have surrendered a couple of months earlier when their defeat was already obvious to everyone.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Yes, but many of them actually believed in their religion. And many more of the middle ranks of officers (who had a habit of assassinating their higher ups) did.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Yes the generals had to go. The whole constitution had to go. But we could have promised to leave Japan as a constitutional monarchy with the same imperial house rather than making it into a republic.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

By moral deserts you're right but I think its foolish to make demands you aren't going to collect on if they extend the war. Either demand hangings and then do the hanging or concede the imperial system and keep the imperial system.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I'd argue that we signed up for slaughter when we decided we wouldn't promise to let Japan keep the imperial line as heads of state at Casablanca. And then after surrender gave that and even let Hirohito stay on the throne.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Free markets without capitalism seem to be stuff like Open Source software, pretty nice. Capitalism without free markets could be selling monopolies to raise funds for the Crown, pretty bad.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

What do actual Bronze Age experts think of the idea that what Odysseus told to Eumaeus was a remarkably plausible account of a Greek war leader's experience of the Bronze Age collapse and so maybe containing more truth than the rest?

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Would refugee flows really lead to the collapse of a civilization? Do we have examples of that happening?

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

There's a big difference between "Politeness is a virtue, but obsessive language policing alienates most people and degrades the quality of thinking" and "We all need to stop being polite."

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Michael LaFrance @mlafrance.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

This whole crisis really brings out quite strongly to me how Trump thrives in the fact that he focuses on things the median voter can see (gas prices), but also in the fact that much of the media is unwilling or unprepared to explain the more fundamental things that have broken here.

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Eris ⌬ @eriskii.net · 08/04/2026

Keep. Your. Shit. Updated.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

If it's required to keep nominal GDP on a consistent trajectory it might be the least bad option. But it that's a delicate needle to thread and not something the president should be yelling about.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

One of the best Acapella Science songs was on exactly this topic: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydqR...

youtube.com

Evo-Devo (Despacito Biology Parody) | A Capella Science

YouTube video by acapellascience

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Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Where the population falls most evenly into a pair of religious categories 1 Eritrea 2 Nigeria 3 Bosnia & Herz. 4 Uruguay 5 Estonia 6 Chad 7 Ivory Coast 8 Ethiopia 9 Mongolia 10 Japan www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/0…

In 173 countries and territories, at least 90% of the population falls into just two of the seven religious categories we analyzed, sometimes resulting in a fairly even split. We calculated a “religious divide” score for each place to analyze just how evenly these populations are divided. Among the 10 countries with the most evenly divided religious composition, six have a Christian-Muslim split. In the remaining four, the split is between Christians and the unaffiliated (Uruguay and Estonia) or between Buddhists and the unaffiliated (Mongolia and Japan).

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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 11/02/2026

Breaking news: A federal grand jury refused the Justice Department’s attempts to indict six Democratic lawmakers over their comments to military service members — the latest rebuke of the Trump administration’s push to prosecute the president’s foes.

washingtonpost.com

D.C. grand jury declines to indict six Democratic lawmakers

Federal prosecutors launched an investigation into the lawmakers after they released a short video advising current military members to reject “illegal orders.”

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

It's worse than that. @bretdevereaux.bsky.social went through the logistics of the campaigns around Helms Deep and Minas Tirith and the logistic and travel times are actually perfectly realistic. acoup.blog/2020/05/01/c... acoup.blog/2020/05/01/c... Tolkien did his homework! He just didn't brag.

acoup.blog

Collections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part I: Bargaining for Goods at Helm’s Gate

This is the long-awaited first part of a series (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. VIII) taking a historian’s look at the Battle of Helm’s Deep from both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers…

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Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 04/02/2026

Only 10 cases of Guinea worm disease were recorded *globally* last year. It may become the second human disease we eradicate, after smallpox.

Semafor: Guinea worm neared global eradication, with just 10 cases reported worldwide in 2025, all of them in Chad, Ethiopia, or South Sudan. When former US President Jimmy Carter founded an eradication program in the mid-1980s, there were millions of infections in developing countries and the only human disease that had ever previously been permanently defeated was smallpox. The parasitic infection, transmitted via contaminated water, leads to three-foot worms emerging from painful leg ulcers, and causes long-term incapacitation and disability. While Carter did not, as he hoped, outlive the last Guinea worm (he died in 2024), he may have come close; the 10 cases mark a 33% decrease year-on-year.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

🚨HOLY CRAP. An ICE whistleblower just revealed a secret memo authorizing ICE officers to break into homes without a judicial warrant, which DHS's own legal training materials say is unconstitutional! ICE then hid the memo from the public, passing it along by word of mouth and private conversation.

The Gravamen of the Disclosure

4. The gravamen of the disclosure is as follows:
a. By memorandum dated May 12, 2025 (“the May 12 Memo”), Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons authorizes ICE agents to forcibly enter into certain people’s homes without a judicial warrant, consent, or an emergency.

b. Specifically, in the May 12 Memo, the Acting ICE Director authorized ICE Agents to rely on Form I-205 (which is not a judicial warrant) to enter the residence of an alien subject to a final order of deportation, without consent, including by “a necessary and reasonable amount of force.”2c. While addressed to “All ICE Personnel,” in practice the May 12 Memo has not been formally distributed to all personnel. Instead, the May 12 Memo has been provided to select DHS officials who are then directed to verbally brief the new policy for action. Those supervisors then show the Memo to some employees, like our clients, and direct them to read the Memo and return it to the supervisor.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

So to be clear we have actually reached the point where NATO states are deploying tripwire forces to deter *another NATO state* from invading *another NATO state.* I struggle to communicate the strategic and just regular insanity of this moment.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

To expand on this in a 'what should we do' sort of way, I think the prudent course here is for Dems to see if they can get the handful of GOP votes to force a discharge petition on a bill that affirmatively declares that military action against Denmark or Greenland would be illegal.

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Jeff Kaufman @jefftk.com · 13/12/2025

Far-UVC is something people have talked about for years in a "that would be great, if you could buy it" sort of way. But the future is now, and it costs $500. I think we're now at the point where dances, churches, offices, rationalist group houses, schools, etc. should consider them.

jefftk.com

You Can Just Buy Far-UVC

Far-UVC is something people have talked about for years in a

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Happy Smallpox Eradication Day! And here's looking forward to Polio Eradication Day when we can finally celebrate.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

But numerical judgements are no more persuasive than non-numerical ones (Aumann's agreement theorem notwithstanding) and so it's a lot of wasted effort for academic fields where persuading other experts into a shared understanding is the main point.

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

The Bayesian is very much that all uncertainty can be expressed mathematically and that people can train themselves to convert their intuitive judgements into probabilities that are well calibrated, I'd recommend Tetlock's work on that. And it's useful in pricing derivatives, identifying planes,etc

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

Lady of Mazes did a great job of engaging with that.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

The thing is, by refusing to truly engage with the public and to support/value scholars who do, we cede the public understanding of history to these 'history buffs,' - and at the same time, contribute to the decline of our field, as the public doesn't know what we *do* that they should pay for.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

That is because the United States is unusual in that it isn't a nation - indeed, it is something like the opposite of a nation - which entirely rejects the 'ancestral bonds' that might make someone more or less American in favor of the bonds of citizenship. acoup.blog/2021/07/02/c...

acoup.blog

Collections: My Country Isn’t a Nation

I hope everyone will forgive me taking this week to break from our normal diet of history-and-pop-culture (though we are discussing a key historical concept here – it is me after all), but it…

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

One of the marvelous things about the United States - something it shares with Rome, I might add - is that American identity is fundamentally legal in definition and almost totally binary. Regardless of my politics or his, Zohran Mamdani, naturalized in 2018, is every bit as much an American as me.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Well worth reading this whole thread. My concern is that I can't imagine anyone could really get POTUS to understand these complexities, but these realities, combined with Iranian retaliation, could easily pull the United States into further strikes, bogging us down in an unnecessary conflict.

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Let's face it, as Trump outrages go, his actions on the TikTok ban wouldn't seem to rate very high. But what he's claiming to do here -- suspend the operation of a federal law, even as to its enforcement by states and private parties -- is actually among his most radical and king-like moves.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

I suppose to index my nat-sec views right now: no strikes on Iran are better than limited strikes is much better than regime change. Even better still would have been a nuclear deal without Israeli strikes, but that's water under the bridge. 1/

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Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 09/06/2025

I wrote a new piece on how much progress has been made in treating childhood leukemia. The answer is: quite a lot! Before the 1970s, fewer than 10% of children diagnosed survived 5 years after diagnosis. Now most are cured and around 85% survive that long. ourworldindata.org/childhood-le...

Two charts present survival rates for childhood leukemia over time, specifically focusing on Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).

In the top panel, for ALL, a series of curved lines represent overall survival rates plotted against years since diagnosis. The lines show a marked increase in survival rates from the late 1960s, when only 14% of children survived more than five years post-diagnosis, to around 94% in the 2010s. Key intervals are labeled, with different colors indicating different periods of diagnosis, ranging from 1972-1975 to 2010-2015.

The bottom panel illustrates survival rates for AML, which are consistently lower overall compared to ALL. Like the top graph, it features several colored lines indicating specific periods. The highest point noted indicates a survival rate of 65%. The graph captures trends in survival as well, showing gradual improvement over time, from 1975-1977 up to 2011-2017.

Data sources for these visualizations are cited at the bottom: Mignon Loh et al. (2023) for ALL and Todd M Cooper et al. (2023) for AML, both from the Children's Oncology Group. The chart is published by Our World in Data, and licensed under Creative Commons by the author, Saloni Dattani.

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Dustin Moskovitz @moskov.goodventures.org · 24/05/2025

I can’t believe it’s already been 90 days since the April 9th pause. How can businesses plan with time moving so quickly?

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Andrew Clough @aclough.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

We were married at the Boston Museum of Science, which recommended an obvious pair of figures on the cake.

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