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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 8d

The lineup looks incredible. Sad that I won't be able to go!

UCSF CODEX @ucsfcodex.bsky.social · 8d

🗓️ DEX25 is less than a month away!

We're excited to share that the detailed meeting agenda is now live! View and download the full schedule to explore session titles, presenter information, and more details about each session.

We hope to see you there!

👉 codex.ucsf.edu/events/dex25...

UCSF CODEX @ucsfcodex.bsky.social · Aug 12

🚨 Registration is open for #DEX25!

📅 Oct 27–29, 2025
📍 Ann Arbor, MI

Join experts, early career professionals, educators, researchers, and patients to advance diagnostic excellence through presentations, workshops, and community building.

🔗 umich.cloud-cme.com/course/cours...

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 9d

Happy New Claude Day to those who celebrate

Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 9d

A favorite John Searle meme, in his memory

A human approaches a woman at her desk and says hello in Chinese. She says, “Aww, you’re sentient.” A computer approaches the same woman and says hello in Chinese. She looks panicked, picks up her phone, and says, “Hello, John Searle?!”

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Reposted by Nathaniel Hendrix

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · Aug 4

Research active faculty teach classes that are significantly closer to the knowledge frontier.

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 17d

Spooky is scary + camp.

Kind of like how Burke defined the sublime is viewing danger from a place of safety, spooky is further neutralizing danger so that it doesn't produce awe, but rather feelings like coziness, nostalgia, and a sense of being in on the joke.

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 17d

There should be a moratorium on calling for "systemic change" unless the person calling for it can plausibly prove that they know how to change systems. Which would of course involve answering the question of why they haven't just changed the system already.

Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 17d

Russell Ackoff: “The educational system is not dedicated to produce learning by students, but teaching by teachers.”

A Lifetime of Systems Thinking - The Systems Thinker

hen one reaches 80, one is considered to be ripe and ready for picking. Picking usually consists of the pickers asking the pickee to reflect back on the wisdom he has gained over his lifetime. This re...

thesystemsthinker.com

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 18d

We’re ready

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 18d

"It's more and more perilous to be generic in any way--to be a generic writer, or to be a generic person, a generic thinker. Because the machines are very good at analyzing [generic models]. There will be a much *higher* premium on cultivating your own distinctive, inimitable voice."

Ian Leslie on Being Human in the Age of AI - Econlib

When OpenAI launched its conversational chatbot this past November, author Ian Leslie was struck by the humanness of the computer’s dialogue. Then he realized that he had it exactly backward: In an ag...

www.econtalk.org

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 18d

“[T]here is no love after marriage. It's just that marriage is caused by love. And I think most people do not wanna say that. They don't wanna say that there's only a causal link between the thing Taylor Swift is talking about and the thing you're supposed to feel during marriage.”

So good.

Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 18d

Podcast on how Taylor Swift’s engagement represents a crisis for both her songwriting and the popular conception of how love relates to marriage.

Taylor Swift's Engagement – from Minds Almost Meeting by Robin Hanson and Agnes Callard

Audio player and transcript for 'Taylor Swift's Engagement' from Minds Almost Meeting. Agnes and Robin talk, try to connect, often fail, but sometimes don't.

mindsalmostmeeting.com

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 20d

How is Paramount+ involved in this? It's not owned by Disney, right?

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Reposted by Nathaniel Hendrix

Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 20d

nihilism is cowardice.

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 20d

From this (paywalled) article:

After lagging far behind, NIH now seems on pace to spend its entire $47 billion budget by Sept. 30

A frenzy of grantmaking in August has the NIH seemingly on pace to spend its entire $47 billion budget by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30

www.statnews.com

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 20d

A little bit of good news: NIH has caught up with previous years' funding levels. Their staff deserves tremendous respect.

A chart showing value of NIH grants over calendar months by year. The 2025 level initially lagged far below previous years, but has now caught up to the average.

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 21d

"The closed society represented a perennial moral possibility, whose roots are found in every human soul. In its most common expression, the closed society levels a familiar accusation: that the open society is immoral because it jeopardizes the very possibility of living a virtuous life."

Leo Strauss and the Closed Society - First Things

In the spring of 1941, as Hitler was laying plans for his invasion of the Soviet Union, Leo Strauss gave a lecture at the New School for Social Research...

firstthings.com

Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 21d

I mean, the safety data strongly suggests that their system is already superior to human drivers. If you have reason to believe that they’re hiding safety events from regulators/investors/the public, though, you should share that widely.

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 21d

And I think the problems of automated driving systems are a lot easier to solve than the problems of human drivers. Waymo can fix their cars' response to emergency vehicles with a software update. How do you fix humans who won't look for pedestrians when they're driving in cities?

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 21d

Sure, human-driven cars should become a lot more automated too. I just see it as pretty obvious that a non-fatiguable robot with extra senses is going to outperform humans who speed while changing lanes and sending text messages.

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 21d

Before you ask, this is adjusted for road type.

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 21d

Waymo data from 95M miles finds an 80% reduction in injurious crashes and, esp. noteworthy, a 92% reduction in pedestrian injuries.

There should be some real moral urgency behind the wide-spread implementation of self-driving cars (and I mean good systems like Waymo's, not Tesla's FSD).

Text from Waymo's safety report: "91% fewer serious injury or worse crashes. 79% fewer airbag deployment crashes. 80% fewer injury-causing crashes. 92% fewer pedestrian crashes with injuries. 78% fewer cyclist crashes with injuries. 89% fewer motorcycle crashes with injuries."

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 24d

Like we just use multiples more than we use fractions in conversation?

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 24d

It seems like people are increasingly using multiplication to indicate a magnitude of diminution: like “20 times smaller than” our “15 times less than”.

Isn’t that what we have fractions for? “One twentieth the size” and “one fifteenth of” are so much cleaner.

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 24d

Let the PetSmart point float!

A Threads post stating that the PetSmart point has a stronger exchange rate to the US dollar than the Argentine peso (9,794 points = $18)

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Nathaniel Hendrix @nhendrix.bsky.social · 26d

Cat tax, in case you’re curious

Two tuxedo cats and a gray and white cow cat look expectantly at the viewer. They are spaced far apart because they all loathe each other. There is a small, cat-sized couch in the foreground.

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