Ary Shalizi

2026 book thread, pt. 25 I once heard @adambecker.bsky.social mention imposter syndrome when writing #MoreEverythingForever. An anthropologist might do it better? Such a book exists: On Not Dying is the 12th book of Critical Aging Summer. It's cool & different, but not better. 💙📚 #writingcommunity

Social investment in universities to independently pursue knowledge for its own sake is the greatest driver of innovation we've every known. That is *the* message, and our leaders aren't doing nearly enough to help policy makers understand it.

If the alternate title for More Everything Forever is “These Fucking People,” the alternate title for this episode of @dreamingagainstthemachine.com is “These people, fucking.”

The TBR pile is growing too quickly… 💙📚

1 zacharia = 3.6 kilotommys 1 demimucci ≈ 1 zacharia

I’ve been remembering things that didn’t happen for years without generative AI.

Paradoxically, it’s because of stories like this that I don’t worry so much about Anthropic or other AI companies having a biological wet lab. It’s so easy to break things like incubators or liquid handlers, the vastly more likely outcome is spoilage, not an outbreak.

I’ve always been partial to the “argument from Einstein’s cat…” idlewords.com/talks/superi...

2026 book thread, pt. 24 Working through the last books for Critical Aging Summer, some observations about the author as character, with particular reference to 2020’s “Age Later,” by Nir Barzilai. 💙📚 #writingcommunity

My Journal of Open Tabs… Links to claims about automating laboratory science dating back five decades, misleading but productive metaphors about biology, and some neat new techniques. unsequenced.life/2026/10/08/j...

I’m generally not a “one weird trick” kind of guy, but… Don’t these people love exponential curves? Steep progressive taxation _is_ one weird trick for making a more equitable society and more functional democracy. Remember to vote!

Today my 11yo fully grasped the concept of inflation. Visiting home to mark 1y since my mom passed, found my old LoTR paperbacks. Disgusted, she asks "why is the paper so... yellow?!" "Because these are 42 years old." "Ugh, so gross." "Yeah, look: 1984 edition, $3" "You could buy a book for $3?" 💙📚

Wow. I really appreciate this review! (So detailed and well-written)

2026 book thread, pt. 23 Back to the biology of aging with what is, hands down, the best book about the biology of aging: “How We Age,” by @ctmurphy1.bsky.social. Lucidly written, meticulously researched, hype-free. #💙📚, #WritingCommunity

This time, I had so many open tabs — from 66 year old warnings about AI doom, to 20 years of claims that robots are about to do ALL the laboratory science — I gave them in their own entry. @chorye.bsky.social, if you want more of these for your automation classes, lmk!

Every change of season, I like to take stock of what's been happening in the world, what I've been reading, and make a list of tabs I'll get back to and read, I swear...

Cell culture is hands on/brain off, and before podcasts I'd listen to the classes I didn't get to in undergrad. One UC course on the History of Information changed my ideas about information, and this 1965 thing about international paper sizes reminded me how physical an abstract concept can be.

2026 book thread, pt 22. Taking a break from the biology of aging with a suggestion iof my daughter's: Chelsea Sedoti's backwoods mystery, "Tell Me What Really Happened." #booksky #WritingCommunity

Bring back the triune brain. Make Sagan accurate again!

2026 book thread, pt 21. So, I read “Outlive” because it was relevant to my summer project of “popular books about aging.” For a book whose central message boils down to “better living through KPIs,” it was … better than I expected? #booksky #WritingCommunity

2026 book thread, pt. 20. Margareta Magnusson's charming essay collections embrace the role of community and connection for healthy aging. Also, it helps to have an intact welfare state... #booksky

Forgot to add #booksky when I posted last week. 2026 book thread, pt. 19. "Cracking the Aging Code" is a reminder that you don't need AI to produce slop. The central argument is that aging is adaptive and arose via group selection, but we should still try to stop it, because getting old is scary.

After soccer practice today, the 8yo says out of nowhere: “Dad, I have an idea! Boba [long pause]… … Topped with cotton candy! I bet they have it in New York.”

2026 book thread, pt. 19. "Cracking the Aging Code" is a good reminder that people can produce slop without AI. The central argument is that aging is adaptive and arose via group selection, but we should still try to stop it, because getting old is scary.

Very disappointed in this episode. I listen exclusively to hear them dunk on Oberlin, and there was no dunking on Oberlin.

I work in drug discovery, and mine was after our daughters’ preschool closed in March 2020. My wife asked if the pandemic would really be done by summer like the news was saying. I said “no way, at least 500 days to develop and widely distribute anything effective enough.”

YT served me this video, which has nearly 1M views. The audio is just the content creator reading a 24-year-old book review, word-for-word. The author of that review is still alive, and the content creator never asked for permission to use the text!

Laboratory automation does not make science easier. It makes it a different kind of difficult.