"When you look at the computers we make, they are thousands of acres large .... These industries manufacture numbers that when reformulated becomes intelligence. Intelligence manufacturing factories! This new industry manufactures the most valuable thing ever known: intelligence."
"If you have an imagination about the future, it is possible to bring other people along. ... The way we see the world is inclusive and brings other people along."
- Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, the world's most valuable company at $4.6 trillion (Microsoft at $3.9T and Apple at $3.8T are #2 and #3)
R World (Ron Davison muses aloud)
08 October 2025
07 October 2025
Is the Internet Shrinking Your Brain?
I wonder what evolutionary changes will be caused by our growing connection to the internets.
In Kensy Cooperrider's podcast episode “Why did our brains shrink 3000 years ago?” — Many Minds, Feb 2, 2022 - he spoke with guest Jeremy DeSilva from Dartmouth. The episode discusses the late, post-growth shrinkage of ~“a lemon’s” worth of brain volume, and explores possible explanations. (Hold a lemon beside your skull. That's a lot of volume.)
A brain is both incredibly useful and very expensive. Brain cells use more calories than other cells. And the larger the brain, the higher the risk that birth will kill the mother or child. So if it were possible to get by with smaller brains, evolutionary pressures would choose that direction.
DeSilva says there are various theories about why the brain shrunk just 3,000 years ago. One is that society had evolved to the point that one could outsource collective cognition. For me an even more interesting possibility - and in a way related - is that this brain shrinkage coincided with the emergence of reading and writing. One didn't have to hold as much in her head if she could hold it instead in her library.
How will our growing ease of connecting with so much data, so many people, and so many virtual experiences online change our brains? Could it shrink them even further?
Here's the episode:https://disi.org/why-did-our-brains-shrink-3000-years-ago/
In Kensy Cooperrider's podcast episode “Why did our brains shrink 3000 years ago?” — Many Minds, Feb 2, 2022 - he spoke with guest Jeremy DeSilva from Dartmouth. The episode discusses the late, post-growth shrinkage of ~“a lemon’s” worth of brain volume, and explores possible explanations. (Hold a lemon beside your skull. That's a lot of volume.)
A brain is both incredibly useful and very expensive. Brain cells use more calories than other cells. And the larger the brain, the higher the risk that birth will kill the mother or child. So if it were possible to get by with smaller brains, evolutionary pressures would choose that direction.
DeSilva says there are various theories about why the brain shrunk just 3,000 years ago. One is that society had evolved to the point that one could outsource collective cognition. For me an even more interesting possibility - and in a way related - is that this brain shrinkage coincided with the emergence of reading and writing. One didn't have to hold as much in her head if she could hold it instead in her library.
How will our growing ease of connecting with so much data, so many people, and so many virtual experiences online change our brains? Could it shrink them even further?
Here's the episode:https://disi.org/why-did-our-brains-shrink-3000-years-ago/
05 October 2025
Reality TV and Surreal Policies
"So that orange man who played such a powerful executive on TV? What was his catch-phrase?""'You're fired!'"
"Yes! Him. How is job growth under his leadership?"
"The economy has lost jobs in two of the last three months. He may not be creating jobs but he is creating drama."
"Well who could have seen that coming?"
"Umm .... if you watched his show, you literally saw that. Every single week the number of working people went down and the drama increased. Now he's just doing that on a larger stage."
"Wouldn't you have thought that he would have changed the script to something like, 'You're hired!'?"
"Well, he thought about it but decided that would be too boring - bad for ratings. So he's shut down the government but he is building a ballroom."
"Well that seems like a weird priority. What does he need that for?"
"When asked, he just danced around the question."
"Presumably once the ballroom is built ..."
"We will just see more of that. Yes."
"Yes! Him. How is job growth under his leadership?"
"The economy has lost jobs in two of the last three months. He may not be creating jobs but he is creating drama."
"Well who could have seen that coming?"
"Umm .... if you watched his show, you literally saw that. Every single week the number of working people went down and the drama increased. Now he's just doing that on a larger stage."
"Wouldn't you have thought that he would have changed the script to something like, 'You're hired!'?"
"Well, he thought about it but decided that would be too boring - bad for ratings. So he's shut down the government but he is building a ballroom."
"Well that seems like a weird priority. What does he need that for?"
"When asked, he just danced around the question."
"Presumably once the ballroom is built ..."
"We will just see more of that. Yes."
04 October 2025
Power Over and Power To - The Distinction Between Great and Awful Institutions
I watched a sharp Johnny Harris piece on the LDS Church, and one almost throwaway moment stuck with me: losing temple privileges for a few weeks after “going too far” with his fiancée—embarrassing not because people knew why, but because they could see he’d lost access.
As I get older, I get more sensitive to how institutions at their best give us power to ... amazon lets you quickly get about any product to your door within a day or two (even better, download an entire book within seconds) ... a great university provides you with testable theories about how the world works and how to create a life within it. A great religion simultaneously humbles you by reminding you of how inconsequential you are among 8 billion now and generations before and after while also giving you hope that your life matters.
But institutions can also exercise power over us. Sometimes they use us. The laborers building the Egyptian pyramids. The hopeful housewives trying to build a business through a pyramid scheme. The church member feeling guilty about desire.
Which brings me back to confessions. Expecting young men to confess lust to old men makes about as much sense as old men confessing joint pain to young men - that’s just what bodies do at those stages of life. But of course that arrangement also clearly gives old men more power over young men.
The trick of progress, it seems to me, is to reverse ancient injustices in which individuals were tools of institutions and instead do all that we can to make those institutions tools of individuals.
03 October 2025
Interplanetary System - A New Information-scape
Soon I'll be launching something even bigger than www - the worldwide web.
Stay tuned for the ips. - interplanetary system - the information-scape too big for a single planet.
Patch notes: added moons, rings, and meteors.
Stay tuned for the ips. - interplanetary system - the information-scape too big for a single planet.
Patch notes: added moons, rings, and meteors.
Falling Off a Cliff with a Blindfold - Job Loss Blackout During Trump's Government Shutdown
The economy is losing jobs but we don't know how many.
Each month the BLS reports the number of jobs lost or gained. ADP is the private sector equivalent - a less accurate number that comes from a smaller sample size generated by a private company. Wednesday they reported that the private sector lost jobs in September.
With the government shutdown, two things have happened. Millions of federal workers are furloughed, have effectively lost their jobs. And the federal government will not be reporting job numbers until the shutdown ends.
The bad news is that Trump and the Republican's policies are already costing us jobs. The worse news is that we are flying blind and that we don't even know how many jobs, how much damage Trump's chaotic policies are doing.
In Trump's final month in office, 3,000 Americans a day were dying from COVID - a 9-11 every day. He ignored this and was focused on overturning the election that he lost.
Now he has regained office and in his first months increased his personal net worth by $3 billion. In every single month of Biden's presidency, the economy created jobs. Within months of taking office, Trump's economy was losing jobs. And now, as it continues to lose jobs while he gains billions, he shuts down the government so that no one can see the official tally of jobs he's losing.
Each month the BLS reports the number of jobs lost or gained. ADP is the private sector equivalent - a less accurate number that comes from a smaller sample size generated by a private company. Wednesday they reported that the private sector lost jobs in September.
With the government shutdown, two things have happened. Millions of federal workers are furloughed, have effectively lost their jobs. And the federal government will not be reporting job numbers until the shutdown ends.
The bad news is that Trump and the Republican's policies are already costing us jobs. The worse news is that we are flying blind and that we don't even know how many jobs, how much damage Trump's chaotic policies are doing.
In Trump's final month in office, 3,000 Americans a day were dying from COVID - a 9-11 every day. He ignored this and was focused on overturning the election that he lost.
Now he has regained office and in his first months increased his personal net worth by $3 billion. In every single month of Biden's presidency, the economy created jobs. Within months of taking office, Trump's economy was losing jobs. And now, as it continues to lose jobs while he gains billions, he shuts down the government so that no one can see the official tally of jobs he's losing.
Or as the MAGA boys call it: winning.
02 October 2025
Jane Goodall on Making a Difference
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
- Jane Goodall
- Jane Goodall
01 October 2025
Donald Trump as the Last Resort
Did you know that Donald Trump is the only president in history to have never won a general election against another man?
Donald. The last resort of American misogynists.
30 September 2025
Bill Gates The Trillionaire
MSFT closed today at a market cap of $3.84 trillion.
At Microsoft’s IPO (1986), Bill Gates ’ stake is commonly reported in the ~45–49% range (the peak of his post-IPO ownership; it only fell afterward).
If he had maintained that same percentage, his hypothetical net worth today would be somewhere between $1.73 to $1.88 trillion.
Even as late as 1999, Gates held more than 15% of Microsoft; if he still had that share today, it would be ~$587 billion.
Why did he end up with a lower percentage? Divorce settlement. Gifts to the Gates Foundation and other charities. Share dilution from new issuance for things like employee options. And sale of stock for diversification into other assets.
His reported net worth today is $106 billion. Had he kept his peak post-IPO stake, his net worth would put him comfortably into 13-digit territory.
If he had maintained that same percentage, his hypothetical net worth today would be somewhere between $1.73 to $1.88 trillion.
Even as late as 1999, Gates held more than 15% of Microsoft; if he still had that share today, it would be ~$587 billion.
Why did he end up with a lower percentage? Divorce settlement. Gifts to the Gates Foundation and other charities. Share dilution from new issuance for things like employee options. And sale of stock for diversification into other assets.
His reported net worth today is $106 billion. Had he kept his peak post-IPO stake, his net worth would put him comfortably into 13-digit territory.
Trump Deploying Troops Into American Cities As Further Evidence He Doesn't Understand Specialization
“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
- Trump to his top military leaders today.
Put aside the absurdity of a man elected by red states sending military troops into the cities of blue states as one of his first acts of office. That's dictatorship 101 right there and unprecedented.
This also gets to the heart of MAGA confusion about the world. The chief reason that global trade has allowed for such unprecedented prosperity is that it has allowed for unprecedented levels of specialization. I worked with product development teams for decades and many were making incredibly complex products, like nanotechnology, computer chips, medical devices and drugs. In the nearly 30 years I did that I saw a fascinating thing play out: the portion of a project plan that was to be worked by an outside company rather than an inside department rose from roughly 10 to 20% to closer to 33 to 50%. Specialization hit a level that fewer and fewer companies could sustain affordable expertise in most of their processes and skills. The specialization that Adam Smith wrote about in 1776 - "one man draws out the wire, another sharpens it ..." was interpersonal. People along the same factory line each specializing on one step in production. The specialization today is literally different companies making different parts and doing different steps. Adam Smith's specialization played out on one factory line; today's specialization plays out across the globe with hundreds of companies coordinating to make a single product.
Why mention specialization in reference to sending troops into cities? Only people as clueless as Trump and his head of DoD, former Fox commentator Pete Hegseth would think that how you would deploy guys with guns for war has anything to do with how you would deploy guys with guns for policing. Police and military are specialists. They have very different objectives. Very different goals and constraints. And the tactics that might make you a great police officer could get you killed in war; the tactics that might make you a great soldier might get civilians killed in policing.
Then of course, I could be completely wrong. Trump may indeed be aiming for something akin to military occupation in the blue cities that tend to vote 4 to 1 against him. And if so, further evidence that the man cares little about the safety of American people or the economy and his presidency has everything to do with how he feels.
In either case, this is not normal governance for a democracy. This is the kind of thing his buddies Xi, Putin, MBS, and Kim do.
Put aside the absurdity of a man elected by red states sending military troops into the cities of blue states as one of his first acts of office. That's dictatorship 101 right there and unprecedented.
This also gets to the heart of MAGA confusion about the world. The chief reason that global trade has allowed for such unprecedented prosperity is that it has allowed for unprecedented levels of specialization. I worked with product development teams for decades and many were making incredibly complex products, like nanotechnology, computer chips, medical devices and drugs. In the nearly 30 years I did that I saw a fascinating thing play out: the portion of a project plan that was to be worked by an outside company rather than an inside department rose from roughly 10 to 20% to closer to 33 to 50%. Specialization hit a level that fewer and fewer companies could sustain affordable expertise in most of their processes and skills. The specialization that Adam Smith wrote about in 1776 - "one man draws out the wire, another sharpens it ..." was interpersonal. People along the same factory line each specializing on one step in production. The specialization today is literally different companies making different parts and doing different steps. Adam Smith's specialization played out on one factory line; today's specialization plays out across the globe with hundreds of companies coordinating to make a single product.
Why mention specialization in reference to sending troops into cities? Only people as clueless as Trump and his head of DoD, former Fox commentator Pete Hegseth would think that how you would deploy guys with guns for war has anything to do with how you would deploy guys with guns for policing. Police and military are specialists. They have very different objectives. Very different goals and constraints. And the tactics that might make you a great police officer could get you killed in war; the tactics that might make you a great soldier might get civilians killed in policing.
Then of course, I could be completely wrong. Trump may indeed be aiming for something akin to military occupation in the blue cities that tend to vote 4 to 1 against him. And if so, further evidence that the man cares little about the safety of American people or the economy and his presidency has everything to do with how he feels.
In either case, this is not normal governance for a democracy. This is the kind of thing his buddies Xi, Putin, MBS, and Kim do.
29 September 2025
Trump's Nobel Peace Prize
Next month the Nobel Prizes will be announced. Trump has already warned the committee that if he doesn't get a Peace prize he will send troops to occupy their buildings.
27 September 2025
The Colonization of Mars and America and Travel Times
For my fellow nerds.
Atlantic, 1776: British colonies were ~5,000–6,000 km from Britain. Crossings typically took 6 to 8 weeks (fast packets ~4 weeks; bad weather 10 to 12).
Earth to Mars (near-term tech): Distance varies from ~55 million km (close opposition) to ~400 million km (solar conjunction).
Launch windows open about every 26 months. Transit is about 6 to 9 months. Miss a window and the door-to-door delay (wait + flight) can be about 32 to 35 months; catch it and it’s only 6 to 9 months.
And that time gap assumes the Mars spacecraft is cruising about 20,000× faster than an 18th-century sailing ship when you compare end-to-end distance covered per day.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Atlantic, 1776: British colonies were ~5,000–6,000 km from Britain. Crossings typically took 6 to 8 weeks (fast packets ~4 weeks; bad weather 10 to 12).
Earth to Mars (near-term tech): Distance varies from ~55 million km (close opposition) to ~400 million km (solar conjunction).
Launch windows open about every 26 months. Transit is about 6 to 9 months. Miss a window and the door-to-door delay (wait + flight) can be about 32 to 35 months; catch it and it’s only 6 to 9 months.
And that time gap assumes the Mars spacecraft is cruising about 20,000× faster than an 18th-century sailing ship when you compare end-to-end distance covered per day.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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