Bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay hurdle sea sponges onto their beaks. Around three-fifths of dolphins are spongers in this area, and researchers think that they are doing this to protect their beaks—more technically, the rostrum—while foraging for sea urchins, crabs and other spiky bottom-dwellers that hide in the craggy seabed. They specifically select cone-shaped sponges too, which presumably sit more comfortably and securely on their beaks. One animal uses a second to eat a third.
Lybia leptochelis, the boxer crab, picks up and carries a pair of stinging anemones with its claws to ward off enemies, though this has also earned them the slightly less hardcore nickname of “pom-pom crabs.” They’ll fight other crabs if they’re short of these gauntlets, and if they only have one, will rip it in half, and the anemone will grow into a cloned pair.
the longevity of dinosaurs was such that we humans are closer in time to the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, than the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex was to the iconic stegosaurus.*
The confession is doing structural work. If you admit the danger, you establish yourself as the one honest actor. And if you are the one honest actor, your safety claims do not require external verification. You have pre-certified yourself through the performance of self-doubt. The confession is not transparency. It is inoculation against scrutiny. Behavioral experts call this manufactured credibility. You spend credibility on cheap admissions, theoretical risk, solemn commitments, to accumulate it for claims that would cost far more to verify. The valuation, capability assertions and alignment progress.
In 1969, after a proposal to abolish the Electoral College by constitutional amendment passed in the House, it was only very narrowly defeated in the Senate, mostly due to the surprising opposition of strange bedfellows: the NAACP and Southern segregationists.
China takes energy security seriously. The enormous effort it has made to build low-carbon capacity—solar, wind, and nuclear—has to be understood as part of a broader motivation to make the country dependent on energy sources within its borders. Beijing is trying to mitigate the pain if it ever loses access to sea-lanes that deliver its oil. That is also why, in 2023, China added twenty times more coal-burning capacity than the rest of the world put together. It is serious about addressing issues in climate change, yes. But Beijing is not turning its back on its rich coal reserves. That also explains why China is so enthusiastic about electrifying the auto fleet: It would rather burn domestic coal than Middle East oil to power its cars.
in reality, prediction markets produce the opposite of accurate, unbiased information. They encourage anyone with an informational edge to use their knowledge for personal financial gain. In this way, prediction markets are the perfect technology for a low-trust society, simultaneously exploiting and reifying an environment in which believing the motives behind any person or action becomes harder.
The most valuable tools in this new world won’t be the ones that generate the most code fastest. They’ll be the ones that help us think more clearly, plan more carefully, and keep the quality bar high while everything accelerates around us.
