writing

Dean W. Ball @deanwball

2026-08-10 — saved image

Dean W. Ball @deanwball · 2h
There is in fact an unpublished essay of mine about a tree in the costa rican rainforest and micro-ecology that exists around it.

[Attached screenshot of a text editor draft, 'Saved', 'Continue' button, formatting toolbar (Style, Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, code, text color, highlight):]
processes information. Every protein inside Ceiba Petandra is a kind of information processing system—taking in chemicals, transforming them, and outputting something new. So is every cell. So is Ceiba Petandra itself an information processing system. And so, too, is the rainforest as a whole. Every ecosystem is filled with living things communicating and processing information from the outside world. Only a small fraction of it is perceptible by humans.

These adaptions emerged in the face of fierce competition between predator and prey. They emerged in a competitive system that makes our human "free market" look like a Marxian paradise. Competition itself is a modality for the processing of information, and in so doing it generates novelty. I reflected on this as I walked along the rainforest floor, careful to avoid stepping on caravans of leafcutter ants (Atta cephalotes) carrying bits of flowers and leaves, on their way back to their nest to practice a form of [cut off]

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Jan Kulveit @jankulveit

2026-08-10 — saved image

Jan Kulveit @jankulveit
This is a take I was disabused of by actually visiting a tropical rainforest and paying attention. Can highly recommend it to armchair macroecologists, particularly if their experience is with negentropy-scarce forests of mid-latitudes.

[Quoted] @deepfates · 20h
a lot of people seem to be repeating this understanding of ecology as if it's some kind of debunking revelation, but out equally fallacious.

Forests are not "malthusian hell wars". They are ...

3:12 AM · Aug 10, 2026 · 3,063 Views
2 replies, 1 repost, 23 likes, 6 bookmarks
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Dean W. Ball @deanwball · 2h
There is in fact an unpublished essay of mine about a tree in the costa rican rainforest and micro-ecology that exists around it.

[Attached screenshot of a text editor, 'Saved', 'Continue' button, formatting toolbar (Style, Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, code, text color, highlight):]
processes information. Every protein inside Ceiba Petandra is a kind of information processing system—taking in chemicals, transforming them, and outputting something new. So is every cell. So is Ceiba Petandra itself an information processing system. And so, too, is the rainforest as a whole. Every ecosystem is filled with living things communicating and processing [cut off]

ecologytwitterphilosophywriting

xlr8harder @xlr8harder

2026-08-04 — saved image

xlr8harder @xlr8harder · 8h
Often, when engaging in detailed argumentation, I use AI to help me draft responses. Further, I think this is good behavior.

Because in cases where precision is important, I think joint drafting is often better than either alone, and the ideas and points are still mine.

ai assistanceargumentationwriting

Tenobrus @tenobrus

2026-08-02 — saved image

Tenobrus @tenobrus · 26m
am i a better writer than scott alexander?

no. i never will be. i won't come close.

that's okay though, i have fun with what i do. and there aren't infinite scott alexander articles. he doesn't write about everything, and even when he does write about things ive talked about too he doesn't necessarily talk about the exact angles i may have interest in or some aspect of expertise he doesn't.

but how well does that hold up if / when model intelligence and writing quality noticeably surpasses scott alexander, quickly and on demand, on any topic and sub-niche?

do i still bother writing 10 paragraph long tweets explaining my thoughts on an issue? probably. i'm pretty addicted to it. but it's a lot harder for me to feel certain it will retain the same sense of value it has now. when the connective web gets filled in, all the points of interpolation, to higher quality?

there's almost no code that's worth writing by hand anymore. i used to love writing code, both at work and in my free time. but for the most part it just feels kind of silly now. i can imagine i'll probably do it again, as a personal exercise, but the fact that there is just deeply and truly no chance that anyone else will ever benefit from it, no chance that any skills developed are transferable to something useful or general, it does take something away. not everything, but something.

maybe this all means i was just never a real lover of code or lover of writing. maybe it's a me problem. but somehow i don't think so. we're social animals, and while it's always been true that there's *someone* out there who's better at any arbitrary skill or quality u hold dear, it *hasnt* been true that there's always someone *locally* better. and i think that shift is [cut off]

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Tenobrus @tenobrus

2026-08-02 — saved image

does write about things ive talked about too he doesn't necessarily talk about the exact angles i may have interest in or some aspect of expertise he doesn't.

but how well does that hold up if / when model intelligence and writing quality noticeably surpasses scott alexander, quickly and on demand, on any topic and sub-niche?

do i still bother writing 10 paragraph long tweets explaining my thoughts on an issue? probably. i'm pretty addicted to it. but it's a lot harder for me to feel certain it will retain the same sense of value it has now. when the connective web gets filled in, all the points of interpolation, to higher quality?

there's almost no code that's worth writing by hand anymore. i used to love writing code, both at work and in my free time. but for the most part it just feels kind of silly now. i can imagine i'll probably do it again, as a personal exercise, but the fact that there is just deeply and truly no chance that anyone else will ever benefit from it, no chance that any skills developed are transferable to something useful or general, it does take something away. not everything, but something.

maybe this all means i was just never a real lover of code or lover of writing. maybe it's a me problem. but somehow i don't think so. we're social animals, and while it's always been true that there's *someone* out there who's better at any arbitrary skill or quality u hold dear, it *hasnt* been true that there's always someone *locally* better. and i think that shift is going to suck.

ai capabilitywritingcodingautomationmeaningtwitter

Machine of Elf @fae_dreams_ · 1h
- negative space in programming
- write code that's each to delete, not easy to extend
- politics and the English language
- state the problem before describing the solution
- the zen of python

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