Astral Codex Ten Podcast Links For February 2026
Mar 10, 2026
A wide-ranging links roundup covers tech industry origins and online culture history. It surveys contested lab‑leak odds, clinical trial inefficiencies, and AI scaling debates. Topics include political influence campaigns, reactions to model retirements, AI safety conversations, odd cultural curiosities, futuristic transport, and surprising research links from crime trends to cancer‑Alzheimer's connections.
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Try Wider Brighter Lights For Seasonal Depression
- For seasonal depression, brighter wide-area light sources may help more than traditional light boxes.
- Example: Get Brighter claims ~20,000 lux near bulbs and ~3,000 lux ambient for $1,200, improving room-level exposure versus typical 10,000 lux boxes.
Anti-Extremism Game Spawned Right Wing Meme
- A British NGO's interactive anti-extremism visual novel led to the heroine Amelia becoming an online right-wing meme.
- The game's guidance to report far-right ideas created an unintended cultural symbol adopted by opponents in anime-style imagery.
Futurist Cooking Mixed Cuisine With Political Art
- Futurist cooking embraced avant-garde, mechanized cuisine, rejected pasta, and staged meals as performance tied to futurist aesthetics and fascist-era ambitions.
- Dishes included deep-fried rose heads and polyrhythmic salads served with music and waiter choreography.