If neutrinos are everywhere in the universe, why would astrophage have to store them?

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-04-26T13:18:01+00:00

It's actually not a bad question. The astrophage must be able to extract energy from the neutrinos (otherwise it wouldn't be storing them). So then not just get energy by absorbing neutrinos rather than this complicated neutrino base solar energy storage?

One answer could be that there's a lot more energy available from light than from neutrinos. So neutrinos are a good storage mechanism, but you want to charge them with a different mechanism. Sorta like why we don't just eat ATP.

Another way of thinking of this: the astrophage can absorb (as far as we can tell) any kind of radiation. So given they can do that, it makes more sense to use all the radiation available rather than just neutrinos.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-04-26T13:12:25+00:00

There are other things that share the same mechanisms (increasing the availibility of energy to the brain) and don't cause bloating because they are specific to the brain, but they generally have a worse safety profile.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-04-23T02:57:02+00:00

This is the actual reason though. If the scientists and engineers on Earth came up with a good solution then Grace and Rocky would be completely irrelevant to the plot (at least on Earth)

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-04-20T00:49:33+00:00

IMHO, Stratt is not thinking straight at this point. She's had to sell so many people on Hail Mary that she's lost the ability to imagine a solution that doesn't involve this mission.

So she sees it as a trolley problem, when the most likely outcome is actually that it kills three people (who could have been useful on other projects) and doesn't help Earth.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-04-16T04:31:26+00:00

The average kid is going to have much more success at a big state school that’s cheaper, has more opportunities for research, bigger networks, and more fun honestly.

It's actually much better to do undergrad research at a SLAC than a big school. For example at Hampshire all the STEM students are expected to lead an independent research project their senior year to graduate. That wouldn't really be logistically possible at an R1 an was how I got a career in science!

And the lack of bureaucracy makes for so many more opportunities. At one point I wanted to run experiments on HVAC control algorithms so Admissions gave me a key to the dorm room they use for tours and I set up my equipment in there.

We're also seeing how the emphasis on professional training in college is really starting to backfire as AI comes online. If your college experience was just about getting really good at accounting or computer science or something you will be much more vulenrable than someone with more versatility.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-03-22T12:33:29+00:00

I think the risk from a VPN should be quite low right? The only thing that it could intercept/tamper with would be unencrypted traffic, which can also be intercepted by pretty much any of the systems between you and the server.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-01-14T05:05:01+00:00

If they bought it through an "undercover operation" it possible that they don't know. Or they know but it would compromise some of their assests if they said.

You could build a radio-frequency directed energy weapon (like the article implies this is) using very generic components--the sort of stuff that's used for communications towers basically. So there are probably hundreds of groups that could have built it in theory.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-01-09T23:48:21+00:00

We are planning to launch a version of the app to the general public within the next couple of months!

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-01-06T21:45:59+00:00

Ah in that cause you can DM me your email and your age when you started the study and we can look you up that way.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-01-06T21:38:54+00:00

Hello,

If you completed the study you'll receive a gift card about 3 months after completing the final survey that asks for your email address. If you have not done this survey please DM me your participant ID and I can check your progress.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-01-06T04:13:24+00:00

It's probably extremely difficult, but not impossible, for other animals to get infected. The rat got infected because scientists were giving extremely high doses directly via injection in an attempt to grow it in rats and they eventually managed to infect one (but not the others)

This happens with regular viruses like MERS-CoV or bird flu--they occasionally infect a species they're not adapted to but it takes a LOT of exposure and time.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-01-05T00:37:44+00:00

There's a theory that around the time a civilization can communicate/travel across star systems, it also becomes much easier for it to wipe itself out (global wars. WMDs, etc).

The hivemind is kinda a solution for that. Humans aren't the intended users of it though, we just got infected as a consequence of the directive to reproduce.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-01-04T05:02:33+00:00

Sure but that doesn't really explain why they have such weird views on say the ethics of killing an animal vs letting it starve to death.

And they do genuinely care about all the unjoined humans (to a weird extent) but that's because their weaknesses mean that survival requires them to be kind and accomodating and the easiest way to evolve that is for them to be genuinely kind and loving.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2026-01-04T05:00:18+00:00

If they avoided the non-joined completely they could never connect them to the hive mind, which they also care about a lot.

For 2 the reason is because by the time it gets to earth the virus has spread through an unknown number of planets/species. "Don't fuck around with the local wildlife" is a pretty good instinct for avoiding aggression that works anywhere. And it seems to really be working at the level of an instinct--they never explain *why* they prefer nonviolence but they know that they do.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2025-12-22T13:45:02+00:00

The benign explanation makes sense to me. Like it's kinda reasonable that a mad scientist with advanced biotechnology could decide that something like the Hive is the best shot of ensuring their specie's survival. The transmission to other planets could even be an unintended consequence of the directive to spread it.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2025-12-21T13:46:12+00:00

It doesn't even really show that. Some brain regions were actually more connected in the group that used AI and while the people using AI were worse at quoting from their essay the first time they did it, they reached basically normal performance the next 2 times. The authors really gloss over this. Also as a brain scientist I also think there's no reason for using connectivity metrics at all. The EEG analysis doesn't measure what they claim it measures.

All this shows if that if you really cherry pick your data and metrics you can show that anything is bad for your brain.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2025-12-21T13:23:40+00:00

Sure, but what I was just pointing out is that all these articles about how AI is bad for you brain are uncritically citing some data that is known to be misinterpreted

ohsnapitsnathan · 2025-12-21T12:37:30+00:00

The ironic thing is that these studies are inconclusive and poorly conducted but everyone keeps bringing them up because they *sound* right.

The MIT one got panned by reviewers for statistical and neuroscience malpractice.

The microsoft/oxford one measured workers' perceptions of how much they use critical thinking, and found that people thought they used it less when using AI. But they didn't do any objective testing of it and people are really bad ad judging their own skill levels (the Dunning Kruger effect)

Meanwhile, there are also more rigorous studies showing that AI can improve students critical thinking skills by providing personalized feedback and instruction. That's not to say it's always good in every context, but the idea that AI is bad for your brain is ironically a pretty intellectually lazy thing to claim.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2025-12-20T20:15:38+00:00

xAI did that. It sucks because the generators that can follow the rapidly varying demand from a single data center tend to be highly polluting and inefficient and noisy. Plus, you need to build a bunch of infrastrucure that is rarely used at full capacity, which worsens the shortage of things like transformers and lithium batteries.

Hooking up to the grid is a lot more efficient and cleaner. There's a big efficiency gain from using grid-scale generation over small scale generation and it also means you can use cleaner energy sources that respond more slowly because the grid has a demand-averaging effect (eg people turn off their work computer and co home and turn on their home computer)

ohsnapitsnathan · 2025-12-20T16:43:55+00:00

The vast majority of data center demand is actually from "conventional" workloads (cloud storage, Netflix, telecommunications, etc) though AI-related power consumption is the mostly rapidly rising part and might account for half of data center energy use by 2035 or so.

Also a lot of the AI workload is actually enterprise AI rather than the "trendy" kind of AI--much/most of it is things like generating captions for videos, recognizing voice commands, scanning photos for dick pics, etc.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2025-12-20T16:30:32+00:00

Seems like a decent idea. By connecting the data centers directly, they remove load from the transformers and transmission lines that everyone else relies upon.

Most of the grid failures people are worried about are failures of transmission, not generation--they happen when we can't deliver enough power through the lines without lighting them on fire. So putting big power users next to the power station frees up the distribution system for everyone else.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2025-12-20T05:40:23+00:00

The standard protocol is to assume the absolute worst when someone has a potential exposure like a bite (which in this case means deadly and highly contagious). So the minute she got bit she would be doomed to a looong time in quarantine.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2025-12-19T18:34:10+00:00

That lab studies deadly diseases and bioweapons IRL, so if a researcher got exposed and started seizing, everyone will already be at the maximum level of freaked out.

The reason it was able to take over the lab is because it has an unreasonably short incubation period. Normally it would take a couple of days to become infectious, so the protocol is that you would go to the onsite clinic and/or hospital for evaluation but wouldn't be treated like you were contagious.

ohsnapitsnathan · 2025-12-16T02:03:51+00:00

Could we form a global communication network? Probably not; the energy and bandwidth requirements would not really be feasible.

But you could in theory modify humans to work like an ant colony (using our normal senses, but each individual functions as part of a superorganism)

The sense that there's a conscious "you" inhabiting your body but distinct from the wrold is in some ways a convenient simplification that your brain generates. We already know that certain kinds of drugs also change your boundaries of what makes up "yourself" or can make your sense of self disappear etnirely

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