What’s up,

It’s fall :) Yay :)
Sweaters are coming out and trees are starting to turn. Finn and I celebrated our six months, my sweaters are coming back out, and the trees are vibrant.

I’ve restarted school now, and algorithms is kicking my ass. The class pushes me on skills I’ve never put any thought into. I’ve maybe mentioned this before, but i’ve never considered myself a math person. I took the easy way out in high school, and took calc I for the first time my last semester of undergrad. Getting through this class will be good, not only because it’s my job now, but help break that psychological mould i’ve placed on myself for no reason. The skill is learnable, that’s why it’s a class. I just have to lock in. My other class, an introduction to cybersecurity, has been much less of a bear.

A funny story from class: someone sitting in the front row fell asleep with Clash Royale in their hands for about 30 minutes. They woke up, and began scrolling TikTok instead. This person will either fail or get the best score in the class; I'm not sure which yet.

Regarding my schedule these days, I'm a bit dismayed because it’s meant I haven’t had time for a lot of the reasons I was excited to begin school in the first place. Computational theory is cool, but mentally monolithic at the moment. I've been dreaming of math. Art, writing, research, and community building have become more secondary than I’d like.

That said, even before classes picked up, I've been busy with other stuff! My website has been updated, including new art and a microblog. My first first-author paper has been accepted for publication by the ACM, and I have been able to publish an article on substack about democracy and ai safety. I’ve also met a lot more neighbors and gotten more involved in grassroots activism for tech politics. I have also restarted my attendance at the environmental philosophy group, which has has made me realize the depth of my dogmatic slumber lately.

My field has gotten weird, too. Ezra Klein has a good primer on whats happening in my world, but the craziest thing of all is that these weird ideas I’ve been circling since 2019 are now normal enough to be discussed, let alone endorsed, by Ezra Klein. As part of my political turn in ai safety, I encourage my readership to email their representatives in support of Bernie’s new superintelligence bill and my Massachusetts friends to call their representatives in support of the WINS act.

Overall, September was a welcome return to deep study and a success replanting myself as a student.

What I've been listening to:

• Elaenia - Floating Points

• Either/Or - Elliot Smith

• Relationship of Command - At The Drive In

What I've been reading:

• Seeing like a State by James Scott

Longshot asks:

• Im going to Converge's hardcore festival on December 13, folks are welcome to join me :)

• I’m going to Something in the Way next February, folks are also welcome to join me for this one.

With love and care,
Ryan Baylon
ryanbaylon.com
ryanbaylon.substack.com
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