Stephan Bridger

Objects decay. Information decays. Let's periodically reiterate obvious concepts as a safety measure.

Humans are complex multicellular diploid organisms, differentiated into two sexes often called “sperm” and “eggs.” While human reproduction involves a multicellular diploid phase, the haploid phase consists solely of gametes. The evolution of gametes into two extremes evolved independently across nearly all lineages of multicellular organisms.

Objects decay. Information decays. Let's periodically reiterate obvious concepts as a safety measure.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people are suddenly reblogging this post again. For anyone wondering what it means or what I was referring to, this post is about the concept of spaced repetition.

Mirror life presents potential dangers. For example, a chiral-mirror version of cyanobacteria, which only needs achiral nutrients and light for photosynthesis, could take over Earth's ecosystem due to lack of natural enemies, disturbing the bottom of the food chain by producing mirror versions of the required sugars.

"Scientists rush to stop mirror microbes that could threaten life on earth" - June 13, 2025

Fascinating. Also, Benjamin Franklin's autobiography is a great book—an incredible bit of history. And it's free on Project Gutenberg. Highly recommended.

you used to be able to put a dvd in your laptop and play it. you used to be able to burn cds.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned? But I still have five vintage(?) computers from the early 2000s that double as servers. And I still burn CDs as a way to keep safe, offline, redundant backups.

It appears some users have found my blog and are trying to perform an internet maneuver known as the 'ackshually' on this blog post. But my post is both joking and serious. And interpreting it in a charitable, reasonable manner requires being able to think about it for more than five seconds. For the perplexed, I offer a helpful analogy: in atomic physics, we infer the existence and properties of particles through indirect measurements. That is, we don't actually see individual charges. We measure them by how they scatter or interact with other fields through spectroscopy. Initially, we are taught the atomic model, and we learn that electrons "orbit" the nucleus of the atom like a planet orbits a star. But as we learn more about physics, we learn that this model is actually just a useful lie. And it is eventually replaced by quantum mechanical models, where electrons exist in probability clouds — and we can only predict the likelihood of finding them in a certain region. Much like the more accurate-yet-probabilistic models of atoms, the nature of our relationships with others varies in the same probabilistic fashion. Some relationships produce a feeling of great trust and alignment; others not so much. A great deal of social decision-making relies on guesswork from an external point of view by proxy measurements. But the point I wanted to most highlight is that even in the extreme case of sensing great trust and alignment, those measurements are still based on proxy measures—our very fallible senses—and our approximate mental models of the other person. Trust is a spectrum. And yes, some nodes of trust are greater than others. For example, when we make sacrifices for or have patience with each other, we are essentially minting a proof of work—a proof of our convictions, commitment, or alliances with one another. But even commitment, taken to an absurd extreme, can become self-destructive — where you get in deep shit, and justify it post hoc with, ‘I am here because I am committed.’ That, however, is a different dilemma altogether. Even those constructive, meaning-making rituals do not guarantee absolute trust or understanding. If it did, there would be no literature about betrayals—a category of story that exists precisely because it is such a common theme in nature and our collective anxiety.