Steve Esser

The world left its fight against tuberculosis unfinished — how can we complete the job? If we get it right, the world could save more than 1.2 million lives every year.

In a new article, @hannahritchie.bsky.social and @spoonerf.bsky.social look at why there are such large differences in TB death rates, and what can be done to consign tuberculosis to the history books, everywhere: ourworldindata.org/ending-tuber...

Great series of posts! #philsci

Great work! #philsky

A popular and very old argument for the value of philosophy claims that studying philosophy cultivates important intellectual abilities and dispositions. But empirical evidence for that claim has been hard to come by. Until now!
1/4

Amazing story from @amandagefter.bsky.social

Good news! (But that is a long time to wait…)

Effective health aid: Evidence from Gavi’s vaccine programme Coordinated health aid for vaccination has increased coverage rates and saved the lives of children around the world.

"We use our estimates on the impact of Gavi funding on child mortality to calculate the number of lives saved by Gavi support, which is approximately 1.5 million lives."

Kartini Shastry & Daniel Tortorice's research highlights the importance of Gavi ⤵️ voxdev.org/topic/health...

I enjoyed this: Dana Tulodziecki on how we can make sense of the role of virtues if we 1) set aside the old debate about their supposed relation to realism/truth and focus on other epistemic work they can do and 2) acknowledge that this work is a process and isn't captured in a snapshot. #philsci

Happy birthday AI. A joy to watch play every time. #NBA

As a fan of Salmon-style causal process theory, this effort at creating an apt formal modelling framework is indeed very cool. #philsci #philsky

Bar chart showing the percentage of LGBTQ adults in the United States who say they've been subject to slurs or jokes or feared for their personal safety at some point in their lives. The chart shows these experiences among LGBTQ adults overall, as well as among those who are transgender, gay or lesbian, or bisexual. The findings come from a January 2025 Pew Research Center survey of LGBTQ adults.

70% of transgender adults in the US say they've feared for their personal safety at some point in their lives. www.pewresearch.org/social-trend...

Congrats #Pacers !

Does ginger apply to both orange and red hues? If so, less precise?

Man I hate the injuries so much.

How hard are USAID cuts hitting Africa's healthcare? – DW – 05/11/2025 HIV patients are losing access to medication, while healthcare programs have come to a halt. What impact are the Trump administration's USAID cuts having on healthcare in Africa?

“We are losing 10 to 20 years of progress in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Many programs have been stopped, including programs for tuberculosis and outbreak control,"

Lifesaving US assistance programs have not been protected. The death toll is mounting.

p.dw.com/p/4u3MC

Record-breaking 600-foot flag to be on display — and on the move — at this year's Pride festival After a 400-foot banner became the largest ever in the state at last year's event, organizers decided to go even bigger in 2025.

After a 400-foot banner became the largest ever in the state at last year's event, organizers decided to go even bigger in 2025.

!!

#NBA playoffs have been amazing.

A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life How the purposive behavior of living systems outstrips the constraints of the free energy principle.Since 2005, Karl Friston's proposal that the principle

Re-reading parts of @kathrynnave.bsky.social 's A Drive to Survive - I love this from Ch. 8 (introducing distinction between substance vs. process ontology): "It might seem obvious that a cat is more like the ballet shoe than the ballet."

direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

@kathrynnave.bsky.social !

This is really good. Highly recommended. #philsky #philsci

I hated the move. I’m a big fan of Jrue (esp. in playoffs) and thought the only problem with the team post their championship was that Middleton was going thru injuries. They should’ve been patient/methodical.

Oops, sorry. I read too fast.

The Life of the Cosmos - Wikipedia

Strange that the article doesn’t at least mention that the idea that universes reproduce and evolve was the subject of Lee Smolin’s 1997 book The Life of the Cosmos en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lif...

This goal would be the preservation of the system's organization, in a context where that organization is less complex/sophisticated than that of any existing organism. Then maybe artificial agency comes sooner than artificial life? 4/4

stephenesser.com/the-question...

I've now added a postscript with a caveat. In an interesting talk by Nicholas Shea (I heard at last fall's PSA conference) he discussed the idea that perhaps there could be an easier-to-achieve analog to the goal of survival in living things that might be the basis for artificial agency. 3/4

I concluded this isn't happening any time soon (current AI efforts are not on a path to this result). We need something like embodied, autonomous artificial life for this to be achieved. 2/4

Thread: Last year I blogged about the prospects for intrinsic agency in artificial systems. By "intrinsic" I meant not just a capability (like in some AI "agents") to pursue tasks designed by us, but the ability to act independently toward its own goals (as do living things). 1/4
#philsci #philsky

YouTube video by Win-Win with Liv Boeree How to End Factory Farming | Lewis Bollard & Liv Boeree

Very good overview of the state of play in factory farming (and the many related issues) in this interview with Lewis Bollard from Open Philanthropy.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pbe...

This was a pretty good segment (apologies for not knowing that Ted Koppel was still in the tv news business)