David Lluncor

Senior-staff software engineer

[Pete Simard @SimardPete]

@mboudry Framing parenthood as an optimization problem is exactly how you talk yourself out of the most meaningful thing you'll ever do. Nobody on their deathbed wishes they'd maximized carreer output.

[Autism Capital 🧩 @AutismCapital]

Life pro tip. Not enough people talk about this. The secret to having a "fulfilling" life is doing new things. Radically doing new things. Consistently. Every day. New activities, people, goals, even something as simple as trying new foods. Life feels longer when you're a kid because every day is packed with almost infinite amount of new learning. As you get older, you've already acclimated to your environment, the new inputs stop, so your perception of time speeds up drastically. You fall into routine, which is a time accelerant. If you want to feel like you have a long infinite lifespan, like you did as a child, you MUST be having new experiences, which slows time down.

[David Lluncor @lunkyloo]

@Plinz the fundamental assumption is that bacteria and all life form are not intelligent, when in fact they all possess problem solving capabilities. Michael Levines work I feel has made this kind of statement demonstrably inaccurate

[The Intellectualist @highbrow_nobrow]

Bob Costas on Trump: "He is by far the most disgraceful figure in modern presidential history.
You have to be in a toxic cult to believe that Trump has ever been emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, or ethically fit to be POTUS." * (2024)

[David Lluncor @lunkyloo]

@clairlemon @timurkuran strange hill to die on. there's mountains of evidence - normally Claire is pretty evidence based so curious why on this topic she's not

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

Kindness is peak human performance and high status.

Kindness requires metabolic abundance: the capacity to override primal impulses, regulate emotions, and extend empathy.

Meanness is dirty energy: high cortisol, inflammation and an exhausted executive function.

[Not Your Average Liberal @NotAvgLiberal]

Just so we’re clear….

DOJ failed to remove / redact dozens of pictures of nude minors in the latest Epstein Files dump.

But -

The DOJ was able to remove all pictures of Donald Trump.

Let that sink in.

[David Lluncor @lunkyloo]

@Plinz @2Philosophical_ love Joscha Bach but people too embedded in scientism lose fact of the sight that our universe is intricately ordered and well maintained. materialists just want Darwin's theory of evolution to apply to everything. it's possible to both have a designer and emergence into complexi

[David Lluncor @lunkyloo]

@megynkelly embarrassing and heartless take. shameful

[Chris Olah @ch402]

I try to not talk about politics. I generally believe the best way I can serve the world is as a non-partisan expert, and my genuine beliefs are quite moderate. So the bar is very high for me to comment.

But recent events – a federal agent killing an ICU nurse for seemingly no reason and with no provocation – shock the conscience.

My deep loyalty is to the principles of classical liberal democracy: freedom of speech, the rule of law, the dignity of the human person. I immigrated to the United States – and eventually cofounded Anthropic here – believing it was a pillar of these principles.

I feel very sad today.

[Dylan Allman @dylanmallman]

We are living through a moment where a group of people do not just disagree, they do not even acknowledge a shared fundamental reality.

There is no common frame of reference, no mutual set of facts from which discourse can even begin. They can watch the same video, from multiple angles, and walk away convinced they saw a completely different event.

They exist inside a narrative so deeply entrenched that to question it, to even acknowledge a contradiction, is to commit some sort of ideological treason.

This is a deliberate, conditioned immunity to contradiction. It is a cultivated resistance to evidence. They have developed a mind so thoroughly welded to its chosen reality that it will alter, discard, or fabricate whatever it must to maintain coherence.

They can be shown, in real time, the unraveling of their worldview, and they will patch over the holes with fantasy rather than face any doubt whatsoever.

Politics has turned knowledge itself into a partisan weapon. The expectation is no longer to seek truth, but to defend your team at all costs.

There is a lingering obligation to have an opinion on everything, to be informed at all times, to adopt the correct stance. And so, they improvise. They adopt prefabricated opinions handed down by their faction. They fill in the gaps with instinctive loyalty rather than demonstrating any semblance of independent thought.

The game is rigged, and they know it. Two parties, two choices, two sides that everyone is herded into, and neither is worth the loyalty demanded of them.

But to acknowledge this would be to admit powerlessness, to admit that they are trapped in an illusion of choice. So they cope. They retroactively justify their allegiance by turning their side into something righteous, infallible, and necessary. The alternative is too terrifying.

It is a coping mechanism turned mass psychosis. And it is escalating. When reality itself is dictated by allegiance, when loyalty outranks reason, when every fact must be bent into submission to fit the tribe’s chosen narrative, the outcome is inevitable: war.

When factions exist in separate realities, they cannot coexist. They cannot negotiate, they cannot reason, they cannot even comprehend the other side as anything but a threat.

This is irreconcilable. We cannot function like this. A society cannot sustain itself when its people are no longer individuals but ideological husks, possessed by abstractions, fighting battles for masters who do not even know their names.

You are not your faction. You are not your party. You are not an extension of a collective mind.

The moment you outsource your thinking, the moment you allow yourself to believe that your side must be right because the alternative is unbearable, you have ceased to be an individual. You have become another interchangeable pawn in a game that does not need you to think, only to obey.

Wake up. This war for reality is not one you want to be drafted into.

[David Lluncor @lunkyloo]

@EXM7777 their Myspace moment

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

Most of the hate I get is understandable. Wealthy guy doing unusual things for health. Looks weird. Acts weird. Says weird things. Ok.

There’s also something else going on.

Ultraprocessed foods emerged in the 1970s. Those in adolescence / early adulthood (now 50-64) exposed to these foods now have nearly 2x the food addiction rates than the generation immediately preceding them (now 65-80).

More than half of U.S. calories now come from ultra-processed foods: 53% for adults and 62% for youth.

Contending only with tobacco and ultra-processed foods now seems quaint.

In recent decades, the most dynamic economic engine in history, American capitalism, has pointed its powers at addicting people to their products. Using the best available science. It’s become a predator prey relationship. We are the prey.

Social media, porn, nicotine, junk food, fast food, smartphones, streaming, energy drinks and gambling.  Each perfectly engineered to hijack our reward systems, enslaving us to their wishes.

Might we be the most addicted society in history?

Sleep deprivation is the silent amplifier. It wrecks willpower and deepens dependency. Yet it’s worn as a badge of honor, a cultural flex that rewards self-destruction.

On some level, many people realize that they’ve become powerless amidst the ocean of addiction that engulfs them daily. They’re powerless over what they eat. Dependent on stimulants to function. Compulsively checking their phones. Unable to turn off the screen before bed, unable to go to bed on time. Scrolling through the night, trapped in a loop they can’t escape.

As a result, they’re fatigued, depressed, anxious, metabolically unwell, and lack basic self-respect for the inability to do and become what they want in life.

This helplessness is where I think the hate directed at me gets much of its fuel. Sure, some people just don’t like me. It’s the magnitude, variety and intensity of the acrimony that points at something else.

Whenever a human finds themself in a situation they don’t like, they’ll search the world for moral frameworks that help them reassert dignity when they feel powerless.  Ideally, they’ll find something that makes themselves superior and others inferior. If you cannot win in strength, win in virtue.

Examples of moral reversals throughout history

0. The meek shall inherit the earth. (Christian inversion of power)
1. My preferences prove my worth. (aesthetic and consumer moralism)
2. My pain grants me moral authority. (victimhood as virtue)
3. Attachment is the root of suffering. (Buddhist renunciation)
4. I transcend the game; therefore I win it. (ascetic superiority / Stoic-Daoist synthesis)
5. The worker is the conscience of history. (Marxist moral economy)
6. Freedom lies in mastery of the self, not possession of things. (Stoicism)
7. The oppressed are the voice of truth. (Modern political theology)
8. The last shall be first. (Christian moral reversal)
9. What I cannot have must be bad. (sour grapes, the original moral inversion.)
10. Body positivity. (victimhood and authenticity as virtue)

Frameworks people use to try and wrestle their superiority over me:

0. Bro forgot to live (hedonic moralism)
1. I’m adding life to years instead of years to life (anti-optimization modesty)
2. What you’re doing is unnatural (purity moralism)
3. You spend millions and you look like shit (anti-wealth austerity)
4. Narcissist (communitarian morality)
5. You’re playing God (anti-hubris theology)
6. It’s worthless for the average person (equity absolutism)
7. Why when you can just get hit by a bus (fatalistic moralism)
8. Stupid, we all die (mortality leveling)

Basically, to strive is neurotic; to coast is enlightened.

You get the idea. People weaponsize moral frameworks to try and wrestle superiority and reconcile reality. Nothing is more painful than an unreconciled inner life.

Here is the thing. I am trying to be your advocate. Years ago, I was owned by these addiction systems. I wish there had been someone in my life helping me see the situation for what it was and giving practical guidance on how to dig out.

I’m on your team and I’ve got your back.

If you’re going to be angry, be angry at the systems that create the pain.

Then reclaim yourself.

[David Lluncor @lunkyloo]

@bryan_johnson @pumpdotscience how do you ice effectively while in the sauna? any products or techniques you recommend?

[Michael Nielsen @michael_nielsen]

A little light history for Friday night

[David Lluncor @lunkyloo]

@ed_hagen I think Michael Levin's work shows this mechanistic view of cells is controlling cells at the wrong level of interface. much more bullish on his approach than any approach that attempts to micromanage cells

[Sheila Macrine, Ph.D. @MacrinePhD]

What if cells had a "mind"? @drmichaellevin applies cognitive framework to bioengineering, viewing morphogenesis as the spatial behavior of cellular intelligence bioelectricity to guide swarms.
https://t.co/pi4rpzUOoT
#CellularIntelligence #Bioelectronics #BiomedicalEngineering

[David Lluncor @lunkyloo]

@drmichaellevin Incredible work and a fascinating read. 100% onboard with the direction. Have you considered that language emerges from one Platonic pattern in order to communicate across time?

For example cells using DNA as a language to store n-grams about the past, for future problem solving

[Michael Levin @drmichaellevin]

Are you out of reading material? Our lab has you covered. As promised, here are some new preprints:

Ingressions from the Platonic space as influences beyond genetics and environment; not the weirdest thing I plan to write, but perhaps the farthest out so far: https://t.co/liBVwg4J4f

Conceptualizing goal-directedness in biology, with David Resnik (https://t.co/weqjmQLmqT) @DavidResnik1962 :
https://t.co/EXS9jfXY0D

How do biological systems at all levels hack each other in health and disease? with Evgenia V. Shmeleva @ZhShmel (https://t.co/gwGVFpUfHU):
"The Hijacker's Guide to biological systems: Manipulation by self‐defecting or foreign agents"
https://t.co/3aEeTc1MW5

A new theory of aging (and simulation data) based on loss of goal-directedness by the cellular collective intelligence (not a noise/damage-based cause):
"Aging as a loss of goal-directedness: an evolutionary simulation and analysis unifying regeneration with anatomical rejuvenation" with @BeneHartl @LPiolopez
https://t.co/ppqXyvgs1E

[no.mind @the_no_mind]

This is Dr. Michael Levin (@drmichaellevin).

He’s a visionary biologist of our century.

Most think biology is all about genes & chemistry—Levin proves it’s also about bioelectricity.

Here are his 5 mind-blowing discoveries (& how they could redefine your health): 🧵