J'ai enfin mis le doigt sur ce qui dérange vraiment les gens qui hurlent dès qu'on écrit avec l'IA. Ils sacralisent les mots. Le choix d'un adjectif, le rythme d'une phrase, la petite tournure dont ils sont fiers. Pour eux, écrire, c'est ça. Et si une machine y touche, c'est une profanation. Sauf que dans 99 % des cas, ce n'est pas ça qui compte. Un post sur X, un article de presse, une tribune, un essai, un livre de prospective : personne ne lit ça pour la beauté de la phrase. On le lit pour les idées. Pour le signal. Pour la façon dont une idée en éclaire une autre, dont trois concepts qu'on croyait séparés se retrouvent soudain connectés. La valeur est là, dans l'architecture de la pensée. Le reste, c'est de l'emballage. Napoléon l'avait compris il y a deux siècles. Il ne rédigeait pas, il dictait. Il marchait de long en large et balançait ses idées à toute vitesse à ses secrétaires, qui notaient comme ils pouvaient avant de tout remettre au propre. Des dizaines de milliers de lettres, d'ordres, de directives. Est-ce que quelqu'un s'est déjà demandé si la virgule était de lui ? Évidemment que non. Il ne faisait pas un exercice de style. Il faisait un exercice d'idées. Et quand ce qui compte, ce sont les idées, on se fout complètement de qui tient la plume. C'est exactement ce que je fais. Je parle. Je déroule mes idées à voix haute, je les connecte entre elles, je pousse le raisonnement jusqu'au bout. Puis l'IA décompresse ce signal et le met en forme. Le fond est à 100 % le mien. L'IA, c'est mon secrétaire. Napoléon en avait plusieurs, j'en ai un qui ne dort jamais. Alors oui, il existe des cas où le style est l'œuvre. La poésie, le roman, la littérature au sens noble. Là, la forme est le fond, et je comprends qu'on veuille tout ciseler à la main. Mais soyons honnêtes : quand vous écrivez un thread sur la géopolitique ou un bouquin sur l'avenir du travail, vous ne faites pas du Chateaubriand. Personne ne relira vos phrases dans deux cents ans pour leur musicalité. Passer trois heures à polir une tournure dans ce contexte, ce n'est pas de l'exigence. C'est de la branlette intellectuelle. Et le pire, c'est qu'ils s'en vantent. « Moi, j'écris tout moi-même. » Comme un comptable qui se vanterait de faire ses additions à la main. Ce sont des artisans de la phrase qui n'ont pas vu que l'atelier venait d'être industrialisé, et qui confondent la fierté du geste avec la valeur de ce qu'ils produisent. Ce qu'ils perdent est énorme. Le volume, d'abord : on peut produire dix fois plus. La vitesse : une idée peut être accouchée le jour où elle naît, pas trois semaines plus tard quand elle a refroidi. Et surtout l'exploration : plus on sort d'idées, plus on les confronte au réel, plus on en fait naître de nouvelles. C'est ça qui me rend triste. Il y a énormément de gens brillants, de vrais intellectuels, avec une pensée dense et originale, qui sortent trois textes par an parce qu'ils s'épuisent sur la forme. Ils pourraient en sortir cinquante. Ils pourraient irriguer le débat public au lieu de le nourrir au compte-gouttes. Napoléon dictait. Les intellectuels d'aujourd'hui refusent de le faire. Et c'est nous tous qui y perdons.

Event cameras are excellent at detecting what changes, but often struggle to capture how much it changes. Our new work in Nature Materials introduces a single-layer organic photosensor that combines event detection with programmable amplitude modulation.

The primary scientific contradiction of the global warming campaign lies in the historical precedent. Natural mechanisms—not CO₂ dynamics—controlled every major climatic shift across Pleistocene history, all operating without any human intervention for 2.58 million years. We currently inhabit an interglacial period that follows these same structural frameworks—and it is, in fact, cooler than peak thermal maxima seen in prior interglacials. Geological history sets the precedent. During the last interglacial period, the Eemian, world temperatures were roughly 2°C warmer and African fauna roamed the Thames Valley, all while atmospheric CO₂ did not change from a baseline of around 285 ppm. For millions of years throughout the Quaternary Glaciation—spanning the last 2.58 million years—Earth has repeatedly emerged from ice age cycles following a remarkably consistent pattern. While early Pleistocene cycles occurred roughly every 40,000 years, the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (between 1.2 million and 670,000 years ago) shifted these glaciations into longer 100,000-year cycles, typically featuring a 5–6 °C warming shift. Antarctic ice-core records (such as EPICA Dome C and Vostok) show that temperature increases routinely precede rising CO₂ levels by several hundred to a thousand years. Recent revisions have sparked scientific debate around the precise resolution of this lag. But the fundamental paleoclimate record indicates that atmospheric CO₂ neither initiates the end of an ice age nor triggers its beginning (Caillon et al. 2003, Pedro et al. 2012, Parrenin et al. 2013). Deglaciations are consistent with the Milankovitch orbital anomalies, which alter high-latitude insolation and set off ice-sheet retreat, falling surface albedo and shifts in ocean circulation. Only after the oceans—particularly the Southern Ocean—have warmed for centuries does dissolved carbon dioxide outgas from the deep ocean abyss, slowly elevating atmospheric levels from roughly 180 ppm to 280 ppm across 5,000 to 10,000 years. As noted in IPCC AR6 WG1 (Ch. 5) and Shakun et al. (2012), CO₂ acts as a secondary feedback mechanism that amplifies orbitally induced warming, rather than driving it. This is the established dynamic of the natural carbon cycle on glacial–interglacial timescales. By contrast, the UN-led agenda asserts that human activity has added approximately 140 ppm of CO₂ in just 150 years, moving atmospheric concentration from a pre-industrial baseline of 280 ppm to around 420 ppm today. This narrative is based entirely on statistical computer analysis, all controlled by the IPCC. In the same way, production of CO₂ emissions has been allocated on a virtual per capita basis, more suited to a corporate takeover than physical reality. Paleoclimate records demonstrate that on multi-millennial timescales, temperature leads CO₂ dynamics. The core assumption of IPCC policy framework rests on reversing this historical paradigm. Instead, it asserts that CO₂ will now drive global temperatures on rapid, century-scale timeframes. This represents a significant departure from established paleoclimate observations. Yet this 'extrapolation' is the foundational justification for multi-trillion-dollar expenditure proposals and the accelerated dismantling of traditional hydrocarbon energy systems, all before reliable alternatives are in place.

PSA: I don't know who doesn't know this, but "high trust society" isn't some right-wing internet meme, it's literally very serious social science. If you poll people and ask them "Do you think most people in your society can be trusted?" the percentage of "yes" correlates very strongly with GDP per capita. Yes--muh GDP!

This reflects how science has been packaged and evaluated over the past two decades. In the 2000s figure preparation software such as PowerPoint and Illustrator became straightforward to use. By the early 2010s, high-impact journals came to associate dense, elaborate figures (i.e. the exhibits of a scientific study) with rigor and depth. The implicit assumption was that more panels and more data reflected more thorough and careful work. At the same time, the editorial decision on whether to proceed to peer review was made by individuals not deeply embedded in the specific science, relying more on visual presentation and the perceived completeness of the data. The aesthetics of the figure panels became a proxy for scientific thoroughness. In response, scientists adapted. Figures became more complex, more densely populated, and more expansive in scope. This gave the appearance of rigor independent of whether the additional data materially clarified the central questions of the study. Reviewers were tasked with evaluating these large and complex datasets under significant time constraints, typically within a few days and without compensation, while managing substantial professional responsibilities. Under these conditions, it is impossible to systematically interrogate every component of a multi-panel figure. There is also a reluctance to question whether key elements of a study are missing if there is a possibility they are included somewhere within the large amount of presented data. The result is a publication system in which the presentation of large volumes of data in complex figure formats can facilitate publication in high-profile journals, often with limited connection to the underlying clarity, coherence, or quality of the science itself.

One of the major paradoxes of the Iranian Revolution is that the ayatollah and his circle of religious fanatics were never broadly supported. Few people in Iran actually wanted a theocracy. Yet the extremists prevailed because they were far better organized. They had disciplined cadres, effective propaganda, and a vast network of mosques that served as a ready-made organizational infrastructure. They also knew how to shape the message. They talked about social justice, free benefits for the poor, and overthrowing an imperialist puppet. The goal was not to win broad support but simply to weaken the opposition. And that was enough. History shows that movements like this rarely need majority support. A determined minority can easily push through its agenda if it is organized, strategic, and cunning.

The problem with the “academia is just a job” framing is that it redefines the enterprise in a way that diminishes those who are genuinely dedicated to the craft. No one is entitled to a career in academia. It has always been a selective path with limited resources, justified only because some people are willing to devote extraordinary effort to work they find deeply meaningful. If the work consistently exacts an intolerable toll on someone’s mental health, it suggests there may be better, more fulfilling paths for that person outside academia. Those paths exist, and there’s nothing wrong with choosing them. The deeper problem is what this narrative enables institutionally. University administrators eagerly use “just a job” stories to justify imposing rigid, HR-style management on academic work - flattening incentives, constraining autonomy, and treating creativity like a compliance risk. The casualty isn’t just individual satisfaction; it’s the quality of the work itself. Excellence becomes disposable, and the reasons academia existed in the first place erode.

My sister is a former trauma surgeon and I was introduced to this fact years ago. The murder rate went down not for a lack of shootings but because we got much better at treating gunshot wounds. That's why the real question should be "what is your attempted murder rate." The answer in the U.S. is terrible.

In France, students are given exams that are graded blind (not knowing which student took it) and exams graded by a teacher who knows who took the exam. The exams measure the same knowledge and abilities It turns out the boys are graded lower when the grader knows they are boys