“Dark matter can’t form black holes or other tightly-bound structures because gravity alone isn’t enough to bind something tightly together. Because the force of gravity is so weak, it can only bind it loosely, which means huge, diffuse, very massive structures. If you want a “clump” of something — a star, a planet, or even an atom — you need a force that’s stronger than gravity to make it happen.”

“So much of debate, including political and economic debate, is about which groups and individuals deserve higher or lower status. It’s pretty easy — too easy in fact — to dissect most Paul Krugman blog posts along these lines.”

“Nail’s high-blown lunacy was unexceptional among the SU speakers. What set his enthused disrupto-babble apart was its relative benignity. Later that first morning, however, I felt the tenor of the proceedings change from silly to scary. The turning point came with the onstage arrival of SU past president Neil Jacobstein, a wry veteran of the revolving-door establishment who boasts consulting stints at NASA, the Pentagon, and large weapons contractors like Boeing. Jacobstein’s matter-of-fact delivery belied the startling contents of his speech on artificial intelligence. He had a way of normalizing the outlandish and of creating the feeling that it’s crazy to cling to romantic biological defects like mortality.”