2025-10-12
uluru
Sentinel forecasting interviews Paul Scharre on the future of AI and drone warfare. The increasing importance of personability as a result of AI automating white collar work is one reason I feel like autism rates are likely to decline in the future. In the same way, I wonder what downstream effects will be caused by human soldiers being replaced by autonomous robots. I’m reading Joyce Benenson’s Warriors and Worriers (reviewed by Wood from Eden), and it was curious to me to how many of the traits that are described as evolutionarily female, like higher conscientiousness, agreeability, and neuroticism, seem to be descriptions of East Asian cultures, which according to Richard Hanania are excessively worry-prone. Insofar as people are complaining about feminization of western society, I wonder to what extent Asian societies are ones which have already feminized, over years of selection via bureaucratic Legalism and Song Dynasty propaganda against martial valor1. If selection for warriors is what causes males to engage in risk-taking, overt aggression, direct competition, and activity-focused cooperation, then maybe sports betting is another thing that will sort itself out over time, with a simultaneous fall in risk-tolerance and interest in team sports.
Brooke Bowman with descriptions of her experience at Slutcon. As a prude who admires sluts, it seems to me gender relations would be strictly better if women were expected to learn how to be comfortable saying no, because a lot of the dominant norms seem to be based around the assumption that not only that they are not, but that they are justified in feeling so. As to how to make that actually happen, I have no idea. Somewhat related, John Julius Reel writes in the Republic of Letters reviews Sweet Nothings, on professor-student relationships.
Yirui Li has a translation of an interesting take by Hu Xijin that “If China, drawing on growing hard power and rising confidence, also advances tolerance and freedom under its constitutional order, that would puncture the remaining sense of Western arrogance”. According to Alice Maz’s interpretation of the works of Yan Xuetong, this might actually be the case.
Donna Vatnick in the Asimov Press tracks a liver as it goes through the donation and transplant process, along with the issues and history behind each step. On that note, the latest Human Progress linkthread mentions the first successful transplant of a genetically engineered pig liver into a living human.
Eric Topol comments on a recent paper on a possible mechanism for naked mole rat longevity.
Yassine Meskhout with an entertaining story of a cross-continental stray cat adoption.
Balaji Srinivasan links vods and summarizes the latest Network State Conference.
One plausible explanation for why gender relations are particularly fraught in South Korea is that, by introducing mandatory male conscription, they are introducing atavistic warrior traits into a culture they are not suited for, which leads to both female discomfort and male alienation.