Outstanding news!

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Sat May 20 21:07:03 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

A out-and-out rave by @davidlsims for Scorcese’s latest, based on @DavidGrann’s awesome book https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2023/05/martin-scorsese-killers-of-the-flower-moon-review/674125/

-- Peter Lattman (@peterlattman) Sat May 20 21:01:38 +0000 2023

I talked to @BillSimmons about how AI is already creating magic & messiness in
- art: music, movies, WGA strikes, and writers rooms
- school: helping students write (and cheat); helping professors write (and cheat)
- science: writing papers, diagnosing patients
- war & more

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Fri May 19 13:02:37 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

New BS Podcast!
—The Lakers in trouble, Denver’s goofy history, Boston’s nightmare matchup, a Wemby/GOAT prospect debate + the Roy Kids as playoff teams w/ @djacoby @HousefromDC
—How AI and ChatGPT is not-so-slowly changing EVERYTHING with @DKThomp

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ew8hgeQgo9CNwAl6EkJH0?si=Vr8jyyCqQ0-CejYTfQQJjQ

-- Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) Fri May 19 05:55:48 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

New pod: AI is already changing the future of war. The question is how much power to give it.

I talked to @SchimpfBrian, the CEO of Anduril, about autonomous military technology; and @andersen about the awful temptation to give AI the nuclear codes.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0bVxSnKelY69Bd8VHDSutY

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Fri May 19 13:05:25 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

News partisanship plummeted in the 20th century. But the forces behind that shift have run out of gas, or are in outright reversal, and now news fragmentation and partisanship is going back to the 19th century, w/ the twist of digital algorithmic media

https://twitter.com/ho_ben/status/1659544865380638722?s=20

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Fri May 19 13:10:27 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

Replying to @DKThomp

@DKThomp This paper has good data on how partisanship in newspapers declined from 1880 to 1980.

http://econ.hunter.cuny.edu/mediaeconomics/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2020/09/newspaper_partisanship.pdf

-- Ben Ho (@ho_ben) Fri May 19 13:01:43 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson Retweeted

New BS Podcast!
—The Lakers in trouble, Denver’s goofy history, Boston’s nightmare matchup, a Wemby/GOAT prospect debate + the Roy Kids as playoff teams w/ @djacoby @HousefromDC
—How AI and ChatGPT is not-so-slowly changing EVERYTHING with @DKThomp

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ew8hgeQgo9CNwAl6EkJH0?si=Vr8jyyCqQ0-CejYTfQQJjQ

-- Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) Fri May 19 05:55:48 +0000 2023

Pretty wild if the story ends up being that big pharma was doing clinical trials on diabetes medication and sorta kinda accidentally discovered a weight-loss miracle drug ... and then, wait, oh-by-the-way, it's also the cure for addiction?

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Fri May 19 16:47:08 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

Ozempic doesn't just suppress your appetite.

I talked to patients who took the drug to lose weight— only to also effortlessly stop biting their nails, compulsively shopping, drinking alcohol, and so on.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/05/ozempic-addictive-behavior-drinking-smoking/674098/

-- Sarah Zhang (@sarahzhang) Fri May 19 16:02:30 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

Nothing ever works out quite as simply and silver-bullety as "Oh, neat, we accidentally discovered the cure for human nature. Enjoy utopia!" But man. Semaglutide is really giving LLMs a run for their money in the 2023 progress tournament.

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Fri May 19 16:49:00 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

Penicillin: also a science "mistake"!

Just some mold lying around on a scientist's table over a long weekend and, whoops, it kills bacteria dead!

If only there were a formula for maximizing happy accidents in science.

https://twitter.com/Armstrong40k/status/1659602393024319488?s=20

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Fri May 19 16:52:20 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

Replying to @DKThomp

@DKThomp The penicillin of our time, the do everything drug!

-- JB-GoCougz! (@Armstrong40k) Fri May 19 16:50:19 +0000 2023

RIP Cable TV.

You were the best business model in the history of media—essentially a private sector income tax on almost every household, divided generously among media cos. Bye!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/espn-lays-plans-to-stream-flagship-channel-eyeing-cable-tvs-demise-ad0fb727

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Thu May 18 15:43:27 +0000 2023

In 1822, the US had more newspaper readers than any other country—but no paper had more than 4K subscribers. All news was narrowcast.

When ppl today say we’re losing our sense of “shared reality” they’re right. But we are losing something that was only very recently invented.

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Thu May 18 17:58:04 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

screenshot via WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Thu May 18 17:58:31 +0000 2023

3 very different stories here, all important

1. Young Americans die way more than young ppl in similarly rich countries.

2. The US has still made huge progress in reducing youth mortality since 1970 (mostly bc of cars)

3. Progress is reversing, mostly bc of drugs and guns

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Wed May 17 15:23:04 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/death-rate-children-teens-guns-drugs-54c604f4?mod=hp_lead_pos1

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Wed May 17 15:23:17 +0000 2023

"The Vulgar Wave"—a snapshot of why so much mainstream media of the 1990s-early 2000s is so uncanny to modern audiences and so specifically dude-y—is an incredibly compelling bit of cultural theory.

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Wed May 17 16:27:03 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

Today on the Lindy Newsletter

The Vulgar Wave

A period of 10-15 years when the entirety of pop culture revolved around entertaining men in their 20s and 30s.

https://lindynewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/vulgar-wave

-- LindyMan (@PaulSkallas) Mon May 15 14:50:44 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

Movies and TV shows of the 1990s and early 2000s had such a specific edge to them. I watched some of OLD SCHOOL (2003) recently and it was like visiting a humor museum. Those jokes are simultaneously 20 and 20,000 years old.

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Wed May 17 16:28:31 +0000 2023

The Trump-Russia saga is like one of those "Law & Order" episodes where they show you the killer in Minute 3 and spend the next hour trying to complicate the story.

Everything we know with the highest degree of confidence in 2023 is stuff we pretty much knew in 2016.

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Wed May 17 17:18:37 +0000 2023

If you have any doubt that publicly hating stuff builds in-group solidarity, you can either read this paper or spend 10 minutes on Twitter. Whatever's more efficient for you.

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Wed May 17 17:31:31 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

Positive psychology has had a lot to say about how love gives people a sense of meaning but this well-done paper shows that collective hate towards collective entities (societal phenomena, institutions, groups) can also increase meaning in life: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002210312100130X

-- Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman ⛵🛵 (@sbkaufman) Wed May 17 01:08:55 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

Something v interesting about the ways the Internet amplifies high-arousal negativity. See:

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/03/negativity-bias-online-news-consumption/673499/

I think a big part of this is that it's just more fun to hate on shit in groups, and the Internet is a machine for helping groups find each other.

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Wed May 17 17:35:02 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson Retweeted

Our CEO @SchimpfBrian joined @DKThomp on the Plain English podcast to discuss all things AI, defense, and deterring conflict.

Listen here: https://www.theringer.com/2023/5/16/23725266/the-future-of-war-is-here-artificial-intelligence-military"

-- Anduril Industries (@anduriltech) Wed May 17 18:14:43 +0000 2023

Shakuntala Devi, the human computer.

She gave the 23rd root of a 201 digit number in 50 seconds. The answer was verifiedby the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written

[read more: https://buff.ly/3eoS0Xg]

-- Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) Tue May 16 11:43:18 +0000 2023

Totally unsurprising, but I'm so, so, SO fascinated by the far right's outright rejection of vaccine science, considering that the totem of godly perfection at the heart of their personality cult is *personally responsible* for the most successful vaccine policy in modern times

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Tue May 16 15:53:53 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

This is astonishing. Between 2019 and 2023, the % of Republicans who said parents should be able to put their kids in public school without the MMR vaccine (even if it creates health risks for others), more than doubled, from 20% to 42%.
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/05/16/americans-largely-positive-views-of-childhood-vaccines-hold-steady/

-- Samuel Perry (@profsamperry) Tue May 16 15:08:51 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

what I think is going on is that Trump is a mascot for the right's institutional paranoia, which is why he barely talks about his own institutional accomplishments ("hey, i made these vaccines" "BOOOO!" "ok whatever but guess who sucks: Fauci" "YAYYY!")

https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1658503796291403776?s=20

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Tue May 16 16:07:27 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

Replying to @DKThomp

@ZacBissonnette I think, more broadly, American conservatism has become an alliance of institutional paranoia.

sometimes, being institutionally paranoid leads to wisdom (i don't think extended school shut-downs made sense, either) and sometimes it leads to foolishness

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Tue May 16 16:04:53 +0000 2023

.@RepDonBeyer of Virginia is back in school and pursuing a master's degree at @GeorgeMasonU. He hopes to gain a better understanding of AI to help craft laws surrounding the emerging technology.

@MacFarlaneNews at @CBSNews has the story! #MasonNation 💚 💛https://www.cbsnews.com/video/72-year-old-congressman-pursuing-masters-degree-to-better-understand-ai/#x

-- George Mason University (@GeorgeMasonU) Mon May 15 15:22:04 +0000 2023

https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1657494022741426180?s=20

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Sun May 14 04:22:10 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

What Wikipedia did: we stood strong for our principles and fought to the Supreme Court of Turkey and won. This is what it means to treat freedom of expression as a principle rather than a slogan. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657422401754259461

-- Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) Sat May 13 21:12:24 +0000 2023

It takes less than two seconds to see that Musk’s framework — I’m a free speech absolutist … unless anybody threatens to shut off Twitter access, in which case, I’m for or against whatever they want — is laughably unworkable

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Sat May 13 17:22:41 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

Well, on the other hand, it is *workable*. It’s the status quo policy of the app I’m using right now. It just makes no sense. And furthermore makes a mockery of those who have defended his regime on the grounds of free-speech ethics.

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Sat May 13 17:25:22 +0000 2023

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/06/american-economy-negative-perception-inflation/661149/

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Thu May 11 15:18:55 +0000 2023

Derek Thompson tweeted this while quoting the below tweet.

So employment is at record levels, so is job satisfaction, and concerns about inflation have greatly receded. And people believe that the economy is in terrible shape https://www.wsj.com/articles/workers-job-satisfaction-survey-c42addba

-- Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) Thu May 11 15:17:45 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

Nobody's obligated to read everything I write, but in case you're interested in commenting on the piece, I would encourage you to read it first, bc the point isn't that everything is perfect and complainers are wrong. It's to note a sturdy gap b/w personal and global assessments.

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Thu May 11 15:25:01 +0000 2023

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult types of cancer to diagnose early. #AI has the potential to define high-risk individuals, as exemplified in this new @NatureMedicine report
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02332-5 by @sandercbio @davplacido @TheBrunakLab @boyuan_data and colleagues

-- Eric Topol (@EricTopol) Mon May 08 18:23:49 +0000 2023

New pod: For decades, nutrition studies have found a relationship between eating ice cream and being protected from type-2 diabetes.

Some scientists don't seem to want to talk about it.

So, @davidmjohns and I talk about it.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2AvP5pgHYYBCeVJ6PLDsng

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Wed May 10 20:24:27 +0000 2023

Replying to @DKThomp

The original story, published in @TheAtlantic, is masterful.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-cream-bad-for-you-health-study/673487/

-- Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) Wed May 10 20:27:37 +0000 2023