Thank you!

I wonder about these questions a lot! I can also see a very logical extension to GLP-1s - as a fat person who is not interested in those medications, I’m starting to see subtle shifts from pity to confusion about my size (if she has money and health care, why ISN’T she on a GLP-1?).

Thank you for sharing this insight -- yes, clear parallels with the tensions I describe in this piece but I hadn't thought of the GLP-1 connection!

& your argument might be right— I am very uncertain about what the long term net effects of such a policy would be

Thank you, Kevin!

"Their very public embrace of cosmetic surgery and embryo selection could be seen as a bit of embodied rhetoric in support of their political and economic project. How else to justify...such parasitic hoarding of wealth without advertising yourself as exempt from the shared human condition?"

This is possible! but at this point in my life I am suspicious of any intended changes that hinge on me becoming more efficient— I see some amount of faffing about as unavoidable & my current overall work capacity as pretty inelastic

OK, that's all I got. What are your writing goals for 2026?

5. It is basically impossible to be a writer without being a reader. What have you read recently that made you want to write? If nothing comes to mind, then you might need to start there--resolving to read more--before resolving to write more.

4. If you do really want to spend more time writing, why? I want to write b/c living in my head usually feels like living with an out-of-tune brass band, and writing makes the cacophony stop. Knowing *why* you want to write more will make it easier to let go of other ways you might spend your time.

3b. Do you want to spend more of your one wild and precious life stringing together words to express your ideas? Lots of very successful people do not! They collaborate; they employ research assistants, ghost writers, LLMs. Don't try to "make time for writing" if that isn't your real goal.