sean

[sean @seanpower2016]

@bangkokaussie I'd encourage you to lean into it a bit. Getting the balance is the challenge, but used well it can really add value.

[sean @seanpower2016]

@emollick @tylercowen has written about using AI to iterate research papers
https://t.co/QG6f1BV4om

[sean @seanpower2016]

@michaeljsmiddy @superfooty

[Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp]

In medieval times, within the arms race of ever more demonic torture devices, some sadistic genius came up with the idea of the Little Ease.

This was a prison cell built so small in every dimension that a grown man could not stand upright in it nor lie down at full length nor properly sit.

The pain is relentless and without relief and inflicted by one's own body. Prisoners were known to go insane within a few days. A stay at the Little Ease was considered even more cruel than the rack, the thumbscrew, and the other ghoulish machinery of the Tower of London.

A breeding pig will spend her whole life in a version of that box.

These are social, roaming creatures (more intelligent than dogs) who will never leave this corset of steel.

They have been selectively bred to be bigger than their frames can support. Yet we put them in cells so confined that they cannot comfortably sit, and their attempts to do so (for example, by sneaking their limbs into adjacent stalls) reliably lead to fractures and sprains.

They cannot sweat, yet have nothing to roll around in to cool themselves off. Except their own manure, which (contrary to the common misconception) they are so averse to (thanks to their strong sense of smell) that new sows will often suffer from constipation to avoid soiling the space from which they eat and sleep.

Here is how the writer Matthew Scully described what saw at one of Smithfield’s “gestation barn”:

> “Sores, tumors, ulcers, pus pockets, lesions, cysts, bruises, torn ears, swollen legs everywhere. Roaring, groaning, tail biting, fighting, and other “Vices,” as they’re called in the industry. Frenzied chewing on bars and chains, stereotypical “vacuum” chewing on nothing at all, stereotypical rooting and nest building with imaginary straw. And “social defeat,” lots of it, in every third or fourth stall some completely broken being you know is alive only because she blinks and stares up at you … creatures beyond the power of pity to help or indifference to make more miserable, dead to the world except as heaps of flesh into which the [insemination] rod may be stuck once more and more flesh reproduced.”

—

The Save Our Bacon Act is trying to unroll the few state protections we have against this barbaric cruelty - for example California’s Prop 12 - which banned the sale of pork from pigs kept in gestation crates.

It’s incredibly important we don’t end up with this sort of federal preemption.

SOB will not only kill the most important animal welfare related laws in the US of the past decade, but more importantly, it will also restrict ALL future legislative progress (aka how the animal welfare movement has gotten its biggest wins).

The Senate is currently deciding whether to add the SOB Act to the Farm Bill.

With relatively little money now, we can discourage the most pivotal senators in the Ag committee from backing this amendment.

Defeating this bill is even more important given the amount of philanthropic funding I expect to come online in the next year or two.

It will plausibly be over 10x more expensive to repeal SOB than to prevent it from passing in the first place.

All that money that could be spent transforming our society's relationship to mass animal suffering will instead have to be spent just getting us back to where we are right now.

That's why money spent now fighting this bill (and I mean right NOW) is so effective.

If you’re in a position to donate six figures, please DM me.

[sean @seanpower2016]

@EconTalker Thanks for a wonderful conversation, handled with humility, grace and candour. Few neat answers (intended as a compliment); lots of avenues for further thought and exploration.

[sean @seanpower2016]

@kenlmathis @TenLatitude Interesting, thanks. If you look at airport bookstores, Naiin charts or urban nonfiction shelves, self-help dominates. But if you add the huge digital reading ecosystem — Meb, ReadAWrite, serialized romance/Y fiction, web novels — fiction might be more popular than you think?

[sean @seanpower2016]

@annvandersteel Who is backing this financially, you ask. The answer is nobody. That's why it has never got off the ground. And as for cutting days off shipping times, the land bridge might save
1–3 days for some routes BUT
port handling + inland transfer would eat much of that gain.

[sean @seanpower2016]

@JeffWhite34 @GeelongCats What are your thoughts on Edwards' ruck craft? What are the biggest things he needs to work on? More generally, I'd love a segment on how young rucks develop their craft in first 5 years on an AFL list. What aspects do they learn quickly? What takes more time?

[sean @seanpower2016]

@ThosMajor

[sean @seanpower2016]

@michaeljsmiddy @BangkokDi Thailand's carrier was commissioned in 1997. It originally handled fighter jets and helicopters, but the jets were retired in 2006. The ship now functions as a helicopter carrier rather than a full conventional carrier. The navy labels it an “Offshore Patrol Helicopter Carrier”.

[sean @seanpower2016]

@demishassabis @GeminiApp Pity that Veo 3.1 is constantly throwing up error messages. I'm paying for a service that is never delivering.

[sean @seanpower2016]

@NandoDF @avdnoord It's a pity Veo 3.1 in Flow never works. I am paying for the privilege of receiving error messages. Every single time.

[sean @seanpower2016]

@AFLLab

[sean @seanpower2016]

@BangkokDi Along Aonang's foreshore they installed tactile paving (with the little bumps) to help visually impaired people but didn't trim the numerous branches that hang over the path at head height. Good intentions, but ...

[sean @seanpower2016]

@michaeljsmiddy @NicNegrepontis Saad had slightly more bounces per game this year than in 2023 or 2021. Saad's season total bounces - year: games, bounces... 2021: 22, 63; 2022: 21, 113; 2023: 25, 55; 2024: 18, 58.

[sean @seanpower2016]

Victoria taking the first step with a long-term approach to improving indoor air quality @BangkokDi
https://t.co/j7a9vPSyAH

[sean @seanpower2016]

@michaeljsmiddy @bangkokaussie

[sean @seanpower2016]

@michaeljsmiddy @DThomas_39 @7AFL Someone remind him that there's a game of football going on, not just an exhibition to demonstrate the new interpretation of a rule.

[sean @seanpower2016]

'Boiling not warming': Marine life suffers as Thai sea temperatures hit record https://t.co/zr2sy9v5lL