Oh my god... Every time I wonder whether leaving silicon valley was the right choice, another Jasmine Sun piece drops. I don't understand how you stay sane!
That NYT story was great. First time I’ve seen that info anywhere but Reddit.
I normally tell people who say they can’t afford the GLP-1s to go on Reddit but now I can directly them to your story. Incidentally, a lot of people have zero SF or tech culture connections at all. Middle class moms in flyover country inject without knowing anybody else who is doing it.
I first ran across the word Physiognomy years ago while reading Emerson. I like to think I'm an expert in this practice! Lol! Judging people, taking their inventory, sizing them up, friend or foe.
It is (and always was) embodiment all the way down.
I wrote about this: “We keep pretending language is enough; that if you brute-force enough numbers and letters, intelligence will bloom. But that’s like trying to taste the wind or hear food.
AI can generate a sonnet, but it cannot feel shame. It can solve for heat transfer, but it cannot shiver. It can mimic intimacy, but it cannot fall in love.
Intelligence is more than just computation. It is perception and metabolism and touch and ache and hunger and joy all in one.
It is the humiliation of a first kiss, the dizziness of standing too quickly, the fatigue of carrying grief, the ache in the ribs after delirious laughter, the salt sting of sweat in the eyes, the way hunger hones thoughts and shortens temper.”
“Nearly one in four American adults is currently modifying their biology or morphology via significant pharmaceutical or surgical intervention,” estimates Ben Goldhaber.
How different is this to the introduction of coffee/ sugar? This is not to diminish the significance of nootropics, peptides etc. as coffee was also pretty significant. By the way, Daniel Smail’s book ‘Deep History and the Brain’ is super interesting on this - how we can think of history through a psychotropic balance between stressors (Orwell) and pleasure (Huxley). He argues culture is also a drug, in that it operates on the nervous system.
Oh my god... Every time I wonder whether leaving silicon valley was the right choice, another Jasmine Sun piece drops. I don't understand how you stay sane!
I’m having fun!
Ngl a lot of this feels like “new age alternative medicine, but for STEM nerds”.
haha I think this is right
this is all fascinating and, i dunno, to me scary. The combination of true believers and grifters is fascinating.
great read - re T, i’m also seeing more framing of its effects less as aggression increaser than a broader “booster” of what’s already there.
That NYT story was great. First time I’ve seen that info anywhere but Reddit.
I normally tell people who say they can’t afford the GLP-1s to go on Reddit but now I can directly them to your story. Incidentally, a lot of people have zero SF or tech culture connections at all. Middle class moms in flyover country inject without knowing anybody else who is doing it.
Yeah it’s increasingly mainstream! So much stuff on tiktok reddit etc
This article nearly gave me a vasovagal response, particularly at the mention of needle play. Fascinating otherwise!
Excellent explainer article.
I first ran across the word Physiognomy years ago while reading Emerson. I like to think I'm an expert in this practice! Lol! Judging people, taking their inventory, sizing them up, friend or foe.
fascinating
This was a great read and so many comedic lines in here! Great work and thanks for doing so much research across all these categories! :)
That tizz vs rizz is a joke right? I mean people can't think that Altman/Zuck/Elon have charisma... right?
Lol
It is (and always was) embodiment all the way down.
I wrote about this: “We keep pretending language is enough; that if you brute-force enough numbers and letters, intelligence will bloom. But that’s like trying to taste the wind or hear food.
AI can generate a sonnet, but it cannot feel shame. It can solve for heat transfer, but it cannot shiver. It can mimic intimacy, but it cannot fall in love.
Intelligence is more than just computation. It is perception and metabolism and touch and ache and hunger and joy all in one.
It is the humiliation of a first kiss, the dizziness of standing too quickly, the fatigue of carrying grief, the ache in the ribs after delirious laughter, the salt sting of sweat in the eyes, the way hunger hones thoughts and shortens temper.”
More: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/when-robin-williams-outsmarted-chatgpt
They all seem so deeply disconnected from their bodies and what it means to be a person and sort of normal
https://www.ft.com/content/b15407bd-7b86-45c3-9780-0c92117ccbfb&ved=2ahUKEwj_4q7IxbGSAxX1HkQIHWQILZYQvOMEKAB6BAgWEAE&usg=AOvVaw06LvQ1ofEGRc6_oGGJlrke
this is just like that movie gremlins but all over again
“Nearly one in four American adults is currently modifying their biology or morphology via significant pharmaceutical or surgical intervention,” estimates Ben Goldhaber.
How different is this to the introduction of coffee/ sugar? This is not to diminish the significance of nootropics, peptides etc. as coffee was also pretty significant. By the way, Daniel Smail’s book ‘Deep History and the Brain’ is super interesting on this - how we can think of history through a psychotropic balance between stressors (Orwell) and pleasure (Huxley). He argues culture is also a drug, in that it operates on the nervous system.