1. Rebus 2. Rock 3. Talk 4. Phemus 1. Rebus Writing systems that arise de novo, such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian cuneiform, and ancient Chinese script, tend to use complex logograms. These symbols represent words through a combination of semantic and phonetic content. These scripts are cumbersome. They are difficult to learn because you have to separately learn the symbol for each individual word; although there are elements that are shared between logograms and that indicate roughly the same thing, many logograms are partially or completely opaque: just by knowing about the shared elements, you can't necessarily predict what the full logogram will be for a word, and you can't necessarily understand what word a novel logogram is representing. On Chinese logograms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_radicals On Egyptian logograms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs#Writing_system These scripts also don't have a natural o...

(Mouse over a name to reveal how they pronounce it.) As Appearance-of-God pulls us into our campsite, the sight of the others undoes the somewhat car-weary looks on my and Name-of-God 's faces. It's hard to not be happy, seeing one's weekend companions under the towering redwoods, with the golden sun slanting wildly through the spaces far up off the ground between maroon pillars. Crest-of-Volition , Who-is-like-God , and White-Spectre come over to greet us, also grinning. Off in a nook of the clearing that's ours for the weekend, Follows-on-the-Heel and God-is-Gracious are engaged in a struggle involving various ropes and nested metal tubes under bending tension, which surely will somehow eventually lead to a tent. Nearby, Beloved is kicking rocks off a patch of ground, but also taking some glances at other points along the rim, wondering if he should select a different spot to sleep tonight. While Name-of-God , Appearance-of-God , and I unpack our things, a cou...

1. Synopsis 2. Introduction 3. Elaborations 3.1. Communication is for hearing from minds 3.2. Communication is for hearing assertions 3.3. Assertions live in dialogue 1. Synopsis When we share words with each other, we don't only care about the words themselves. We care also—even primarily—about the mental elements of the human mind/agency that produced the words. What we want to engage with is those mental elements. As of 2025, LLM text does not have those elements behind it. Therefore LLM text categorically does not serve the role for communication that is served by real text. Therefore the norm should be that you don't share LLM text as if someone wrote it. And, it is inadvisable to read LLM text that someone else shares as though someone wrote it. 2. Introduction One might think that text screens off thought. Suppose two people follow different thought processes, but then they produce and publish identical texts. Then you read those texts. How could it pos...

1. Regime change Conjecture: when there is regime change, the default outcome is for a faction to take over——whichever faction is best prepared to seize power by force. One example: The Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979. In the years leading up to the revolution, there was turmoil and broad hostility towards the Shah, across many sectors of the population. These hostilities ultimately combined in an escalation of protest, crack-down, more protest from more sectors (protests, worker strikes). Finally, the popular support for Khomeini as the flag-bearer of the broad-based revolution was enough to get the armed forces to defect, ending the Shah's rule. From the Britannica article on the aftermath: On April 1, following overwhelming support in a national referendum, Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic republic. Elements within the clergy promptly moved to exclude their former left-wing, nationalist, and intellectual allies from any positions of power in the new regime, and a return t...

People who think about how the world is ending often ask how to deal with the fact that the world is ending. For example, one could deny or pretend; one could be angry, or shrill, or panic; one could have determination. One could be sad or despairing. One could make the best of what's left, or play to one's outs, or work oneself to the bone... A suggestion, take it or leave it: think of the spirit of the song "A Walk to Caesarea" by Hannah Szenes (pronounced "Khah-nah Seh-nesh").

[This post is labeled בבל, meaning it's especially experimental. See: בבל disclaimer ] ....a triune hyperobject ....