Brian Kateman

There are no words for my gratitude and excitement.

@AP @KennyTorrella

A Louisiana farm that raises alligators for skins used in luxury goods also helps conserve the species. After the alligator was listed as endangered, the state proposed boosting numbers by having farmers raise them for meat and skins, but releasing some back into the wild.

@smcenearney @TylerAlterman Etsy!

@TylerAlterman Where did you get those little bins for Everdell? They’re so cute! I need to get some for myself 👀

You can create little clubs w your friends to keep from drifting apart. Brian’s been my friend for 17 yrs. Every Tuesday, he takes the train in from Jersey, I take the train in from Brooklyn & we meet in the middle to play boardgames

@yeahyeahyasmin PREACH!

If you haven't gotten into beans yet, now is the time!!! theatlantic.com/health/2026/03…

@Leigh_Phillips Maybe I’m not such an anti-humanist after all! 🤝

@BrianKateman Headphones are humanist! They are thoughtful, public-spirited! Use of phone speakers without them is selfish, de-civilizing! It is barbarism! It represents the individualized privatization of what is left of the commons!

I’d always opposed the death penalty, but after 2016, when Apple got rid of headphone jacks, I changed my mind, as I feel it may be the only way to end the scourge of the most anti-social behaviour ever devised.

@Leigh_Phillips I never leave the house without my headphones. Otherwise a human might speak to me, and how horrible would that be.

@Leigh_Phillips Digging this vibe from you! 🤣

@TylerAlterman @jenny_wen When I lived in LA, I loathed the entire year because winter never came. The constant sunshine became impossible to appreciate. It was like eating cake 24/7.

@jenny_wen I keep thinking about this!!!

winter in nyc exists for two reasons: - social/hibernation break - remind us to practice gratitude for how amazing the other three seasons are here

@TylerAlterman For those keeping score, Tyler is winning 7 to my 5 in overall games. Impressive feat!

Completely crushed @BrianKateman today at our peaceful woodland boardgame. I stole his cards. I took his event rewards. I depleted his point total. Woe to the vanquished.

@hamandcheese @tylercowen latimes.com/opinion/story/…

Tell me you don't read moral philosophy without telling me you don't read moral philosophy... Askell is here exploring a well known debate in utilitarian ethics. See @tylercowen on the same. If you're a PETA-style activist, whether killing predators is good or bad is a genuine dilemma.

@Leigh_Phillips If my schedule permits, that would be a joy!

@BrianKateman Haha! Thanks, Brian. Yes, I’d actually honestly love you to be one of the ones who red-teams the manuscript, if you have the time? The MS won’t be ready till the fall.

I’ve just this week landed a deal for my third book, a radical defense of humanity as the most precious thing in the universe, contra the misanthropy of the green left (“We are the virus”) and the tech right (“We are the beta test for AI”). The book aims to construct a secular version of the Judeo-Christian Imago Dei doctrine. In place of revealed truth, my attempt at an objective, scientific argument for human dignity and value draws on geology, evolutionary biology, comparative cognition, and the history and philosophy of our understanding of ourselves. I want to re-affirm our Promethean, pioneering, tool-making, meaning-making essence — we are indeed Homo faber, man the maker — while critiquing those practices, technologies, and political economies that are already diminishing or degrading our humanity, well in advance of artificial general intelligence. The book is no dismissal of climate change, biodiversity loss, plastic pollution or any of the myriad other real and severe environmental problems we face, but instead argues that green-left misanthropy, founded upon an unscientific belief in a balance of nature (a species of the orthogenetic fallacy, the notion that there is a direction or purpose to evolution) ironically results in policies and politics that undermine effective ecological action and harm people. Similarly, the book goes beyond the vulgar animus toward AI that trades in narratives of critique that are easily fathomable, familiar (perhaps even cozy in their familiarity) yet easily shown to be false or straightfowardly corrigible (eg water consumption, carbon emissions). The book leaps over these cheap, disposable, quasi-luddite arguments to discuss the far deeper threats to our humanity from AI and adjacent technologies — *threats that are already here* — that most of these quickly out-of-date critiques miss: the risk of loss of human meaning-making, the erosion of the self-domesticating gains of civilization, and the market-driven reduction of people to mere animals, to biological desire-satisfaction machines. AI can be a great boon to humanity if we ensure it remains our tool, not our master, and we can indeed overcome all our ecological challenges, so long as we recognize that we are stewards, not vandals. Above all, we need to rediscover what it means to be human — and fast.

@Tyler_A_Harper @AlanLevinovitz @jessesingal I mean, I did write this which has the vibe of an AI abolitionist cause area (and others have said as much): time.com/6296234/ai-sho…. Though intelligence isn’t what matters but rather capacity for suffering.

@AlanLevinovitz @jessesingal Exactly. I am fundamentally confused by the idea that the question as to whether AI is “intelligent” in a recognizable way is a boring question. We all tacitly accept that it *doesn’t* actually possess human-like intelligence because there are no AI abolitionist movements!

I genuinely don't know what to make of people who claim that current LLMs aren't "intelligent" unless the point is a very trite one about consciousness or the absence of wetware. It's this weird reflexive incuriosity about one of humanity's strangest and most fraught inventions.

Helping wild animals is not only a moral opportunity, it is a responsibility, and it starts with seeing their suffering as something we must try to address. My latest for @latimes. latimes.com/opinion/story/…

Folks who may be interested @jeffrsebo @Lewis_Bollard @animalethics @atrembath @willmacaskill @bellaforristal @forwildanimals @zoophilosophy @robertwiblin @KennyTorrella @mbolotnikova @9brandon @herbivoryze. Thanks all!

@BruceGFriedrich @PublishersWkly Congrats, Bruce! Looking forward to reading it! Wishing you and it much success.

🎉 I am so excited I can barely contain myself: Today is the day that my new book Meat goes on sale! 🎉 I have been so incredibly gratified by the kind words of early readers, from @PublishersWkly putting Meat onto its list of the 10 best new releases in science (“This packed account makes food science feel like an urgent and essential undertaking”) to some of the most influential people on the planet across conservation and climate, hunger alleviation, global health, science, and national security, saying incredibly kind things about the book: MeatBook.org/praise If you have not purchased it yet, now would be a good time: MeatBook.org/purchase. Orders during the first week influence how much the publisher promotes the book, whether bookstores order it, and more. Once you’ve read it, I would be incredibly grateful if you would review it on @amazon, B&N , and Goodreads (if you’re a member). Here are more ways you can help: meatbook.org/promote Thank you—from my heart’s bottom. 🤸‍♀️🌈

@AlanLevinovitz @TylerAlterman

I interviewed this guy, Dr. Rick Bedlack, a few years ago for a story that I never wrote. He's the director of Duke's ALS clinic. I asked him why he wears the crazy clothes, and he said because it was one of the only interventions we have that helps.

@jeffrsebo I’m so sorry. Sending love.

Our beloved Smoky passed away Monday night. It was sudden and unexpected, but fortunately his doctors were able to keep him comfortable long enough for his entire family—Maryse, Lindsey, Rain—to join me in saying goodbye. He died at peace in our arms. There will be plenty to share about Smoky in the future. For now, suffice to say he was a miracle, a gentle and loving soul, and he led a long, happy, silly, beautiful life. He was my best friend and favorite person for nearly all of his fourteen years, and I miss him terribly. Rest in peace my friend, and thank you for everything.

@APazzdy @MSNOWNews Thank you for your comments. This incorrectly assumes people are following guidelines. They are not. Meat consumption is the highest in recorded history. In 1960 meat consumption was 167 pounds per person. It’s now 227 pounds per person. Eat like it’s the 1960’s is great advice.

@BrianKateman @MSNOWNews Also, growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, we ate a meat, a veg, and a starch every night for dinner. We also ate full fat dairy and butter and it was very unusual to see an obese person. Fat people were very scarce. Maybe our guidelines since then were based on bad science.

The Trump administration unveiled dietary guidelines this week that flip the food pyramid, encouraging greater consumption of meat. That’s not what the average American, who already eats 227 pounds of meat a year, needs to hear. My latest for @MSNOWNews. ms.now/opinion/rfk-jr…

@mbolotnikova Well said.

Some early takes said the new food guidelines weren't too bad, but you always gotta dig deeper to understand what MAHA is doing. So much going on here is chaos but most notably the new guidance makes an aggressive turn toward centering animal-based foods vox.com/future-perfect…