Links #117

Hamilton Nolan on putting everyone into the grinder (metaphorically, don’t worry). “One of the most direct ways to improve a flawed system is simply to end the ability of rich and powerful people to exclude themselves from it.” Hear, hear. Via Tracy Durnell, whose post on equal systems being better systems is also good. I also liked and agreed with Hamilton’s post on nationalism being poison.

Louise Perry on the quiet return of eugenics. Interesting throughout. In reading this, I realized I don’t yet know what I think about polygenic screening. Something to mull over.

Mixbox, a library for paint-like color mixing. Very cool. I wish Procreate adopted this.

James Brown on Apple Intelligence. “Someone took all of the liberal arts people out of the room when they built this feature and let the Wall Street AI hype-men steer the ship. This isn’t a bicycle for the mind, this is a steamroller for the mind.” Count me among those who aren’t terribly excited to start getting emails from friends LLMs.

Rick Perlstein on conservatism’s endgame. “Note how conservatives talk in every generation about whatever it is they identify as the latest existential threat to civilization…. This is why I now describe the history of conservatism as a ratchet. It must always move in an invariably more authoritarian direction, with no possible end point but an apocalyptic one.”

Sharon McMahon on America’s rising sun moment. As someone who’s been feeling less optimistic about America’s future (cf. the previous link for one example), I found this a bit of hope in this post. Recommended.

Cirkoban, an interesting Sokoban + cellular automata mashup.