David Kipping

Everything’s political, but some topics are more politicized than others

a woman in a pink chef 's hat is eating a strawberry ALT: a woman in a pink chef 's hat is eating a strawberry

let it be known that my achilles heel is cadbury mini eggs

See bsky.app/profile/davi...

GPT is v unreliable for citations, I hear Perplexity is much better but haven’t tried myself

For sure, to be clear I don’t think it’s mysterious why this is happening, there’s numerous very obvious factors.

Climate change is of course well trodden here. If I make a video warning about raising temperatures, one half of the US will actively avoid it, and to some extent the opposite is true (but less poignantly). As an educator I want to challenge someone’s thinking, not just reinforce their biases.

Although I totally understand how and why this is happening, it’s also a real challenge for open dialogue and science communicators. The social media feedback engine risks reinforcing leanings into ideologies on this topic. Soft priors become delta functions.

One thing I’m seeing is that AI appears to be perceived by many as an increasingly political topic, whereas a decade ago it was largely one of technology alone. Both statements of critique and praise for such systems are becoming seen as latently partisan, much like climate science experienced.

Descartes!

Very interesting Astrophysics colloquium given today by Prof David Kipping (@davidkipping.bsky.social) about the role of Bayesianism and Anthropics in searches for life. Excited to see the paper published! Much to think about when it comes to finding life with future space telescopes.

Right now it’s pretty quiet so booking isn’t a stress, but I wish I’d had a bit longer to look around if anything, many houses close for public at 4pm

Pompeii really is amazing

None of us can prove that anyone else is truly thinking. I’m not sure what you find concerning about what I wrote here.

“I think, therefore I am.”

The only thing we can be sure of.

So what does that mean about our thinking machines?

“I am somebody” shaped how millions of us saw ourselves as kids, including me. That message mattered. It still does.

Rest in power, Jesse Jackson
🙏🏽

Jesse Jackson 1941-2026 A photo of Jackson in his later years wearing a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition pin.

The US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, a pioneer of progressive Democratic politics, close ally of Martin Luther King Jr, and two-time candidate for the presidential nomination, has died at 84.

See his life in pictures: bit.ly/3OxOT3f

Claude Code is highly addictive. I find myself constantly walking back to my laptop to check on builds and agents. Is this the new social media?

It feels like all shows and movies coming out these days are extremely derivative, ruin source material and have similar look/feel anyway….

Quite possible. When TV first arrived, I think there was similarly a lot of resistance about what would happen to radio. But radio still exists and it adapted, into a more niche role. It’s going to be interesting to see how this wave of tech shifts around many industries.

Of course, there are legal and permission issues here. In the same way the JJ Abrams reboot required permission from the IP owners (Paramount), any sequels (be it AI or not) require such endorsement, but that’s a separate issue to capability which my original message was about.

So if an entity, be it human or artificial, committed enormous intellectual labor and effort to produce something it was proud of and was perceived as “perfect” by all (see my original carefully worded message!) then dismissing that as “slop” is just prejudice.

YouTube video by Cool Worlds Podcast #29 Nick Bostrom - Simulation Theory, Anthropic Reasoning, Great Filters

I think we’re going to soon need to rethink our relationship with ever more sophisticated models. Bostrom raised some great points with me (youtu.be/RSMnOFgzfbQ?...) about how we should I be careful not to dehumanize advanced agents, essentially that treating them like shit may come back to haunt us

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we need more chair mounting in the world

I just want to get to the point where I can prompt “make TNG season 8” and it’s perfect

What to Know About the E.P.A.’s Big Attack on Climate Regulation

One of the most stupid things I’ve ever seen www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/c...

YouTube video by Cool Worlds Podcast #31 Joshua Winn - Exoplanet New Discoveries, History and Future

#31 Joshua Winn - Exoplanet New Discoveries, History and Future
youtu.be/ISZHVwY5YjE

Am I the only one who names all my devices after Tolkien Elves? What’s your naming system?

Fair point. My thinking here, building from the MCMC example, is that you don’t truly understand these models until you build one yourself. And science, ultimately, is also about understanding (more than optimization).

Cool! What text did you follow? I am particularly interested in astronomy classes to clarify here.