This is a post from Robin Sloan’s lab blog & notebook. You can visit the blog’s homepage, or learn more about me.

Pace layers

February 4, 2026
Stewart Brand's pace layers, early sketch
Stewart Brand's pace layers, early sketch

Deepfates on X:

As you climb the pace layers, your sources of infor­ma­tion get fewer and far­ther between.

Everyone has some­thing to say about nature. But to remain rel­e­vant in the higher and more tur­bu­lent layers you must update rapidly, and be cor­rect more often than not. Few people are worth lis­tening to about com­merce or fashion. Most people’s ideas are simply out of date. [ … ]

Isn’t it … precisely the opposite? Everybody’s got some­thing to say about the vibrating hyperpresent — indeed, it is the sub­ject of most things that most people are saying — whereas true news of nature is very VERY dif­fi­cult to find.

I want to style it True News of Nature — which sounds like the news­paper Aslan reads … 

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