Stuart Nolan

Stuart Nolan (@nolanwrites) I would add that Musk likely got his evil notion of suicidal empathy from writers like Allie Beth Stuckey (Toxic Empathy) and Joe Rigney (The Sin of Empathy).

substack.com/@nolanwrites...

Interesting piece on "flag wars".

Next week, I’ll be at France Digitale inside the stunning Musée des Arts Forains in Paris.

I’ll be talking about my book,
How To Train An Empath: Lessons From A Professional Mindreader.

I'm looking forward to teaching mindreading and meeting cool people.

If you're there, come say hello.

#FDDay

Text that says "I used to read minds."Underneath is an image of a tin can telephone, the string connecting them is a red curly telephone cable, a metaphor for advanced communication.

I used to read minds.
Now I teach people to read each other.

My book, How to Train an Empath: Lessons From a Professional Mindreader, turns stagecraft into a practical, physical method for training and managing empathy.

Get the book or book the training here: www.stuartnolan.com

Proof copy. Publication imminent 🙂

This reminds me of the book Technology As Magic by Richard Stivers.

Truth is deeper than mathematics | Joanna Kavenna

This reminds me of the book Technology As Magic by Richard Stivers.

Are Small Boat Migrants Really 24x More Likely to Go to Prison? Spoiler: No. But here’s how the media got suckered by bad data and worse assumptions.

"Are Small Boat Migrants Really 24x More Likely to Go to Prison?

Spoiler: No. But here’s how the media got suckered by bad data and worse assumptions."

Cancers can be detected in bloodstream three years prior to diagnosis Detection of cancer before a clinical diagnosis could give patients and caregivers more time for intervention and may lead to better outcomes because tumors are more likely to be curable

Genetic material shed by tumors can be detected in the bloodstream three years before cancer diagnosis, according to a study led by investigators at Johns Hopkins University.

That study was made possible with federal funding. Now, many studies like this are canceled. hub.jhu.edu/2025/06/04/...

ChatGPT "Absolutely Wrecked" at Chess by Atari 2600 Console From 1977 Despite all its advances, ChatGPT still, seemingly, is less smart than an Atari simulator on beginner mode.

"ChatGPT got absolutely wrecked on the beginner level," Caruso wrote. "This was after a conversation we had regarding the history of AI in Chess which led to it volunteering to play Atari Chess. It wanted to find out how quickly it could beat a game that only thinks 1-2 moves ahead."

Conservatives on SCOTUS give DOGE the go-ahead A one-two punch: DOGE gets access to your data, but the public is restricted from getting information about DOGE.

NEW: Conservatives on SCOTUS give DOGE the go-ahead.

A one-two punch: DOGE gets access to your data, but the public is restricted from getting information about DOGE.

Today, at Law Dork:

Social Mobility and the “Class Ceiling” in the UK - JSTOR Daily People from working-class backgrounds in the UK bump up against a "class ceiling" analogous to the glass ceiling women face in the workplace.

Looking for solid research on how many of those who break this particular glass ceiling feel they have performed culture switching (cultural frame switching (CFS)) to do so.

Regarding "white genocide," If you liked Brooklyn Bridge Claude, you'll love White Genocide Grok

"An A.I. that works like magic can have a spooky persuasive power, but an A.I. we know how to control should be subject to the same suspicion (not to mention political contestation) as any newspaper or cable channel."

The real story isn’t young men supposedly voting far right. It’s what young women are up to | Cas Mudde There is an opportunity staring centre-left parties in the face – if they reject the male gaze distorting our politics, says political scientist Cas Mudde

Interesting analysis.

The "contract case" wrench that SCOTUS conservatives gave DOJ to defend Trump The Justice Department is using a jurisdictional shadow docket decision to try and prevent rulings on the merits in lawsuits challenging Trump administration actions.

“Children, pets, and magicians might find pleasure in the clever use of such shiny-object tactics. But a court of law should not be so easily distracted.”

Not a big surprise that the US Copyright Office has come out with a report about generative AI training data claims casting doubt on the fair use defenses of commercial developers. Endorses new theory of market harm.

The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models rep… The new era of tech seems to be built on superstitious behaviour

I only just found this interesting summary. I began making performances about tech and mentalism in 2012, including Parry, a performance about training a "superstitious" AI (www.stuartnolan.com/parry) and a TEDx talk about how organisations are as susceptible to Forer statements as individuals.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Hayden during my time as a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress. A fantastic person and a truly inspirational librarian.

“Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to making reading and the pursuit of knowledge available to everyone. Be like Dr. Hayden.”

‘The Worst Internet-Research Ethics Violation I Have Ever Seen’ The most persuasive “people” on a popular subreddit turned out to be a front for a secret AI experiment.

“The prospect of having your mind changed by something that doesn’t have one is deeply unsettling.”

TheAgentCompany: Benchmarking LLM Agents on Consequential Real World Tasks We interact with computers on an everyday basis, be it in everyday life or work, and many aspects of work can be done entirely with access to a computer and the Internet. At the same time, thanks to i...

"TheAgentCompany, an extensible benchmark for evaluating AI agents that interact with the world in similar ways to those of a digital worker: by browsing the Web, writing code, running programs, and communicating with other coworkers."

Just bought this in a secondhand bookshop. The owner had quite deliberately displayed it in the window next to JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy.

Count the Dead by the Millions From HIV and tuberculosis infections to millions of dead children, the deadly impact of Rubio, Musk and Trump’s agenda has been quantified.

“The findings shock the conscience. Cessation of U.S. aid will lead to people in poor countries dying, in genocidal proportions, of preventable and treatable diseases.”

The numbers of potential deaths are astonishing.

Would you join the resistance if stuck in an authoritarian regime? Here’s the psychology Good resistance fighters aren’t scared to take risks.

"In a world where autocracy is on the rise, how can we foster traits in people that promote appropriate forms of resistance?"

Joseph McCarthy in Wheeling, West Virginia: Annotated - JSTOR Daily Senator Joseph McCarthy built his reputation on fear-mongering, smear campaigns, and falsehoods about government employees and their associates.

History: itself, itself, itself, itself, itself, itself, itself, itself, itself, itself, itself...

YouTube video by Pitchfork Marc Ribot - "Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful)" (feat. Tom Waits)

youtu.be/50GvkAO0OIg?...

A 1930s movement wanted to merge the US, Canada and Greenland. Here’s why it has modern resonances In the 1930s a group sprang up in North America that wanted to merge the US with Canada. Elon Musk’s grandfather was a significant figure.

"A movement that wanted to merge North America into one nation and extend its borders as far as the Panama Canal might sound incredibly familiar. But this group, called the “technocracy movement”, was a group of 1930s nonconformists with big ideas about how to rearrange US society."

Storm-raising, witches and the new conspiracist threat to weather research Several US states want to criminalise atmospheric experiments, which could prevent meteorological studies

During my time as a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress, another Fellow, Adelaide Mandeville of Harvard University, was researching the history of ideas of weather control, and I had some fascinating chats with her about this topic.

The Uncertain Resiliency of Public Trust in Science Confidence in scientific institutions mostly survived the first Trump administration. What will happen to it now?

"...science has typically tried to brand itself as being apolitical, but I think it’s no longer possible,” Abhari said. “It’s sort of the political reality of the situation.”

Unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE

"...material with glassy appearance found within the skull of a seemingly male human body entombed within the hot pyroclastic flow deposits of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption formed by a unique process of vitrification of his brain at very high temperature, and is the only such occurrence on Earth."