Natalya Bailey

4/ New ideas can come from playing with different assumptions and branches instead. So the skill looks at recent research (mostly from open sources), looks for these boundaries, traces the assumptions that led to that current understanding...

3/ Beyond that the domain is usually pretty uncharted. Not only do I think these areas signify interesting boundaries to explore in themselves, but from those boundaries you can also walk back to where the current branch of assumptions started that led to those empirical fillers.

Spooky

This week in What's Blowing my Mind in AI: using @NotebookLM to research new topics I want to learn about, creating "audio notes" with key questions or areas I want to really understand, then listening to and even participating in the resulting podcast-style audio recording!

@operationdanish The power dynamic has been flipped upside down in that family and it’s hard to right it! This is how I see gentle parenting in practice, the kids’ opinions and preferences run the family

@operationdanish Thanks for the thoughtful write up. A family friend was on vacation with us in Europe and the youngest, 3 or 4, was so upset the mom was leaving to go on a bike ride with the other moms. She asked him in front of us if she could go and he (4 yo) said no so she stayed.

We now have evidence that gentle parenting doesn’t work. Here’s an uncomfortable truth about parenting no one wants to say out loud: The data is not kind to gentle parenting. According to teenagers, strict curfews. strict bedtimes, screen limits, device drop off times, dedicated homework blocks, and sleepover restrictions IMPROVE higher relationship quality. And yes, parenting difficulty goes up. Of course it does. Leadership is harder than appeasement. For the past decade we have been sold a watered down, Instagram friendly version of “gentle parenting” that often collapses into boundary avoidance, endless negotiation and emotional processing without enforcement. Parents terrified of saying no because they do not want to rupture connection. But connection without authority is not connection. It is dependency. When parents impose structure, the relationship improves. Teenagers report better parent child relationship quality in homes with curfews and rules. Younger kids report better relationships in homes with screen limits and bedtimes. Even device drop off times correlate positively. Why? Because structure is not cruelty. Structure is love made visible. A bedtime says: your brain matters more than your entertainment. A screen limit says: your dopamine system is not fully developed and I will guard it until it is. A curfew says: your safety matters more than your social standing. That is not authoritarianism. That is caring. Boundaries create friction. Friction creates growth. The parent absorbs the short term discomfort so the child does not pay the long term cost. Children do not experience well calibrated limits as rejection. They experience them as stability. The human brain craves predictability. Predictability reduces anxiety. Reduced anxiety strengthens attachment. That is why relationship quality goes up. Notice something else in the data. The strongest effects are around time structure. Bedtime. Homework. Devices. Outside play. These are environmental constraints. They scaffold executive function. The winning formula is not tyranny. It is high warmth plus high structure. The modern failure mode is high warmth plus low structure. That is just abdication of responsibility wrapped in empathy. Children need leadership, not negotiation. They need adults who can tolerate their anger. They need boundaries that do not move every time emotions spike. They need someone whose prefrontal cortex is fully myelinated. The harder path produces the stronger bond. Because when a child feels that someone is strong enough to hold the line, they relax. And relaxed nervous systems build durable relationships.

Can you run a machine shop on Markdown? Brad Feld recently wrote about running a company on Markdown files. Compelling but here's what @a16z's American dynamism sector needs: natalyabailey.substack.com/p/what-the-bac…

Anyone else go off the deep end into AI and develop weird new hobbies as a side effect?! Waiting for Claude Code to finish implementing changes so now I crochet? Listening to my AI generated NotebookLM podcast so I wake up early to bake banana bread? Everything’s fine…

I'm about 9 months into my journey as a full stack developer/LLM engineer and am wondering... what do you all do when things are compiling/deploying/etc?! Pushups? Online shop?

@DanielleMorrill can't wait to hang!

Ok so, I’m moving to SF but I’m not selling my Denver house. I just can’t. I love my low mortgage interest rate, I love my neighborhood, love my dentist, my primary care doc, my injectionist, my obgyn, my garden, my parking situation Has to be a split city situation

writing code and programs these days is basically just searching for all the emojis your LLMs put into the code they write and deleting them to hide the evidence

Everyone talks about the perils of starting a company with your spouse, but one benefit: when you're late to date night dinner because you're negotiating a fundraising round together, you won't disappoint anyone!

Vibe Coding for Dummies 📗 We collected the best tips on X for vibe coding, so you can build cool shit without getting stuck in a loop (bookmark this):

Didn't get into @ycombinator's Spring '25 batch but the rejection letter said we were in the top 10% so that's something! Will try again next cycle, and keep shipping (our diagnostic/reporting tool for aviation maintenance) to customers in the meantime. Blue skies!

@sduggleby @elidourado @TheAnnaGat @rlj_law @llcrabbie @Vanessa_J_Clark Winnie Lai and Bridgit Mendler

@elidourado @TheAnnaGat @rlj_law @natalyarockets Thanks Eli! There’s also @llcrabbie, @Vanessa_J_Clark , and Maureen Gannon (not sure if she has an X account). But would there aren’t many of us…and it’s very difficult to find many women funders that understand and want to invest in aerospace! Would love to see more!

I’m modifying my investment MO and from now on I won’t just be investing in aerospace for Western dynamism and defence, but also IN FEMALE GENIUSES. If you’re a female genius, please email me: anna@interintellect.com

@tferriss @naval @astupple I finished the episode feeling like some people are afraid to be the alpha and want to be a happy friend to their toddlers, and so the kids might suffer, and also cutesy games to get kids to brush their teeth is still a form of coercion, no? It's just subtler.

@tferriss @naval @astupple diet soda/oreos and sugar/artificial sweeteners, total caloric consumption, sleep, possibly screen time. And other realities for parents like needing to exist within a society that uses the construct of time, and school as childcare during work hours.

NEW podcast episode is up! "Naval Ravikant (@naval) and Aaron Stupple (@astupple) — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting" This episode is more of a debate than my usual interviews. I hope you enjoy the extra spice, and if you like it, please let me know. This is a sharp contrast with the Dr. Becky Kennedy episode, and I encourage you to listen to both.

* The effects of sugar and ultra processed foods extending beyond making kids hyper (microbiome, inflammation, diabetes, , colon cancer, ??) * School as not just education but childcare for working parents, & generally existing within a societal structure that minds time

Thankful to @tferriss's attempt to bring this one down to earth! tim.blog/2025/01/18/nav… Long-time fan of David Deutsch but felt this was really out of touch, specifically wrt: