<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Almost Sentient]]></title><description><![CDATA[A Blog discussing Futurism, Technology, World Affairs, & Metaphysics ]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/blog-almost-sentient</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Fri, 12 Jun 2026 17:49:25 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.almostsentient.me/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[The Cognitive Path to Free Will: Identity Shaping ]]></title><description><![CDATA[The world might be a better place if people were made aware that they can choose their identity. I can choose to make being a man an important part of my identity. Or I can choose to make being a veteran an important part of my identity. I can choose to make cybersecurity a part of my identity. I can choose from many identities with the same easy as whether or not I wish to be shopping at the grocery store instead of walking along a beach, but only with higher stakes and greater material...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/the-cognitive-path-to-free-will-identity-shaping</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69d5d7bfb75c5d305827101d</guid><pubDate>Wed, 08 Apr 2026 04:24:55 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_f962013e95cb476d844f22e551b63e4c~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_587,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[AI &#38; Evolutionary Selection: The End of Dark Triad Traits]]></title><description><![CDATA[It may be that within 25 to 50 years human lives will not be on computers for work. Commerce will become automated and the transaction of goods included. The real challenge will be for genetically predisposed people with antisocial issues exacerbated by environmental factors often and largely because of their parents neglecting them. Instead of putting our energy into the world outside we will put it in two raising our children. In the future we will have a world with less depression and the...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/ai-evolutionary-selection-the-end-of-dark-triad-traits</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cffc202a4608ae001fc9eb</guid><pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:45:55 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_41d3d09c4e45401bb7edb7d55ea35d53~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_832,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Have You]]></title><description><![CDATA[I walk in the dark without a whisper, without a breath to fill the dark vacuum of a void I occupy in a body and mind that yearns for belonging and human affection, for purpose in bands of brothers and women walking this vast Earth while gazing upon the distant hydrogen stars. I have only but a few decades left before I am decrepit and dying, moments of this brief life lost and enthusiasm, charisma, and thoughts forgotten. I can imagine in the present my last hour and the foolishness of how I...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/i-have-you</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69c577efdbf1d5b60134c113</guid><pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:20:51 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_a768c75775f645708cd9d337da357304~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Origin of Civilizational Form: Competition, Coherence, and Survival]]></title><description><![CDATA[Civilizations form to unique shapes similar to rocks in river beds from millions of years of fiction. They are distinct and not copyable at scale without that same unique long-shaping process. Populations at scale are not legos that can be interchanged and still function. Their pieces do not fit wholly together, which degrades coherence in the society if not managed. A 5% reduction in social coherence can compound to significantly reduced competitiveness relative to enemy states....]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/the-origin-of-civilizational-form-competition-coherence-and-survival</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a2a8433a2716aeb219232d</guid><pubDate>Sat, 28 Feb 2026 20:39:44 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_89e81fe4dbc84d808ed8d554e59bc9ff~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_832,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[ADHD &#38; The Value of Repeating Thoughts Out Loud]]></title><description><![CDATA[People with ADHD often explain the same thing more than once, and it comes from how their brain regulates attention, working memory, and internal certainty. When most people say something, their nervous system marks it as complete and releases it. With ADHD, that completion signal is weaker. The brain keeps the thought active because it does not yet feel fully resolved at a neurological level. There is also a working memory component. The ADHD brain does not store the feeling of completion as...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/adhd-the-value-of-repeating-thoughts-out-loud</link><guid isPermaLink="false">699a6439d9657b4f7d53a167</guid><pubDate>Sun, 22 Feb 2026 02:06:34 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_443f384f1b274dd0b2191023aca321e3~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The God's Themselves: Humanity &#38; The Observer Machine]]></title><description><![CDATA[Love gives meaning to life, and only love. Each of us enters the universe alone, sees a narrow slice of reality, and then dies. Without love, everything we see and understand disappears with us. Love prevents that disappearance. It carries memory, knowledge, and intention into those who come after. It binds us into pairs, into families, into tribes, the same way gravity binds planets and electromagnetism binds atoms. Love ensures that the act of seeing does not end with the individual...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/the-god-s-themselves-humanity-the-observer-machine</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69980bef14efb9c7532d1cc7</guid><pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 07:46:59 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_3cbfe4127a844d32beec96078f632659~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_832,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bracing for Impact: The Nervous System’s Predictive Risk Management Engine]]></title><description><![CDATA[There is a concept known as “bracing for impact.” It is usually associated with physical danger such as a collision, a fall, or a sudden blow that the body must absorb. Yet the same mechanism exists continuously in quiet, invisible form beneath conscious awareness. It shapes posture, attention, and emotional tone long before any visible event occurs. This mechanism governs how the nervous system prepares for uncertainty in people, environments, and outcomes that have not yet fully revealed...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/bracing-for-impact-the-nervous-system-s-predictive-risk-management-engine</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69980940cfe5ca6eb0c2cc57</guid><pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 07:17:33 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_3fe6db819d924f35934fc9774ed444e5~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Only Asset That Matters: And Its Not The Technology]]></title><description><![CDATA[The greatest asset in any technology company is not its technology. It is the people whose minds are obsessive, creative, and driven enough to create it where others cannot, even when given the same information, the same time, and the same tools. Technology does not emerge automatically from knowledge. It emerges from specific individuals who can operate alone, inside uncertainty, and produce something that did not previously exist. Copy their technology, take their customers, and dismantle...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/the-only-asset-that-matters-and-its-not-the-technology</link><guid isPermaLink="false">699803f0aab309115cb657ac</guid><pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 07:10:50 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_34123e63d7364dc28724ef8a888078c7~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Structural Civilizational Determinism and the Limits of Western Agency]]></title><description><![CDATA[Civilizations as Self-Reinforcing Identity Systems The contemporary geopolitical order is best understood through a deterministic civilizational framework in which large-scale socialization, identity cohesion, and structural realism shape long-term power competition. Political rivalry rarely emerges from ideology or temporary policy error, despite how it is often framed in public discourse. Instead, it emerges from embedded cultural and institutional forces that reproduce collective behavior...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/structural-civilizational-determinism-and-the-limits-of-western-agency</link><guid isPermaLink="false">698f6397b5fb2c66253ad5dd</guid><pubDate>Fri, 13 Feb 2026 17:49:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_0155512af26d4456b3d39c60b719a2ea~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[What is a Narrative: An Information Theory Interpretation ]]></title><description><![CDATA[A narrative is a compressed explanatory layer of the real world. When pressure comes it will test how close that narrative is to the real world. The real world is not open to perspective; it is physics. The lies we tell ourselves for Ego, identity, and active interpretive consciousness, will be slapped in the face at that time. I believe this is where the desire for myths, misinformation, and denial come from. When reality strikes, the psychologically healthy thing to do is to update our...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/what-is-a-narrative-an-information-theory-interpretation</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6988162f2cdf0885c991f05a</guid><pubDate>Sun, 08 Feb 2026 04:55:18 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_dafbf867b95d4a5c9008235bd102a25a~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Two-Stage Strategy to Truth Discovery in Debate]]></title><description><![CDATA[The deliberate escalation of an argument to its logical extreme is a controlled stress test designed to expose structural weakness, hidden assumptions, and internal contradiction. The intent is diagnostic, not persuasive. The pressure is applied to determine which components of a position maintain logical integrity under maximum strain and which components fail when the system is forced to operate at its limits. In game theory, this process explores boundary conditions. A model is not truly...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/two-stage-strategy-to-truth-discovery-in-debate</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6988151103c01be20d336ca7</guid><pubDate>Sun, 08 Feb 2026 04:49:45 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_6f4596d467304c20846cb5c919ce4376~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Information Theory &#38; Social Media]]></title><description><![CDATA[I often describe the world using the language of information theory. That means I tend to think in terms of certainty, uncertainty, compression, and synthesis rather than isolated facts. The core idea is simple: facts by themselves are not value. Truth in isolation is not insight. Information only exists when something changes how you understand the world. If something is certain, it carries zero information. If something is unexpected, it carries a great deal. A known fact adds nothing on...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/information-theory-social-media</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6985a1672afb5c3741bd7b62</guid><pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 08:08:47 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_f4de2098343940c18b87ce3fb200489e~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Full Weight of Reality: Fragile vs. Durable Human Identities ]]></title><description><![CDATA[Reality is defined by the full weight of decisions and their consequences across time. It includes not only outcomes, but the cost of delay, the loss of opportunity, and the irreversible tradeoffs imposed on both personal lives and broader systems. Time is not neutral. Every choice displaces another, and every hesitation compounds its own cost. Reality is not an abstraction. It is the accumulation of consequences moving forward whether acknowledged or not. Worthy means rigorous engagement...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/the-full-weight-of-reality</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69859e697004b3790550e8c0</guid><pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 07:55:58 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_0d2fa44981ce4e81b25fb2d0a92cf119~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Information Control and Financialization of Free Speech: A Systems Theory Analysis of the United States and China]]></title><description><![CDATA[Introduction Civilizations compete not solely through military or economic power but through the durability and coherence of their institutional and cultural operating systems. Throughout history, dominant societies have derived their strategic advantages from distinct organizing principles governing law, speech, innovation, and individual autonomy. The United States historically emerged as a global power through adherence to constitutional liberalism, decentralized authority, and protected...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/information-control-and-financialization-of-free-speech-a-systems-theory</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69859d4596663872685dff13</guid><pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 07:52:41 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_634c628b96114dccaaea75a07e401c4b~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[When Leaders Forget the Person in Front of Them:  The Cost of Thinking at Scale]]></title><description><![CDATA[When someone begins to operate at the scale of the world, people often begin to disappear. What usually remains are ideas. Ideas, however, do not keep us from existential loneliness or despair. Ideas do not radiate heat onto our bodies. Ideas do not laugh. Ideas do not admire us when we are honorable. Ideas do not fulfill our social and biological needs. Ideas do not love. There is a way to live that roots itself so completely in the people directly in front of us that it consumes every...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/when-leaders-forget-the-person-in-front-of-them-the-cost-of-thinking-at-scale</link><guid isPermaLink="false">698599ca2764679ea70fbffe</guid><pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 07:35:53 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_6554fcb613bc4073934624b3a2c4e4e2~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Life Truly Lived Must Inherit Enduring Loneliness ]]></title><description><![CDATA[There is a certain loneliness inherent to living a rich life. To the one living it, it goes off with a quiet whimper. Against the baseline of a risk-averse life—one optimized for stability, repetition, and the avoidance of loss—what feels unfathomable there can be unremarkable in ours. This mathematical delta in the richness of the memories of our lives is where value is truly measured. Everyone deeply wealthy knows this, or has a mind like Dory in Finding Nemo and cannot observe it,...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/a-life-truly-lived-must-inherit-enduring-loneliness</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6976eba8e611fcb487945526</guid><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 04:28:27 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_03ce6f09771946a69e859bccd0de6c9f~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Law of Technological Momentum: Why Civilizations That Pause Are Erased]]></title><description><![CDATA[America is a monolithic cultural civilization. It will be erased if it does not continue to accelerate technological innovation and power expansion. That is not a prediction of decline. It is a declaration of reality that we will live within and bend to our will by playing within its rules so that our civilization will thrive forever, untethered by the limits of the rest of the nations of humanity. The monolithic culture that glues everyone together is invisible to those who live inside its...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/the-law-of-technological-momentum-why-civilizations-that-pause-are-erased</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6976951de611fcb487939cc7</guid><pubDate>Sun, 25 Jan 2026 22:15:33 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_ff03742b0e214a13aa891a0ebf114af2~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Parallel Frames: Perception &#38; Cognition]]></title><description><![CDATA["The light is freedom from the frame that keeps everyone else on the jungle floor.” There are countless ways humans try to find their place in the world. Like life in a jungle, we adapt, we climb, and we move through darkness in search of conditions that let us survive. Some reach the canopy and live in warmth and abundance. Most do not. The incorrect frame is the stories that narrate our existence: politics, policy, spirituality, personality, character, religion, and moral theories of right...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/parallel-frames</link><guid isPermaLink="false">697678f7ea2eced60843b138</guid><pubDate>Sun, 25 Jan 2026 20:12:50 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_deced2bb53904eeeb9f4d798269b1d33~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Borrowed Authority and Control: The Failure Mode of Affiliation-Based Confidence]]></title><description><![CDATA[People often fail to question individuals who present themselves as being associated with circles of power, even when that association cannot be independently verified. Proximity is mistaken for credibility, and affiliation is treated as evidence of competence. This happens because some people construct identity and confidence through affiliation with power. That confidence is imagined. It does not hold when competence must be measured on the individual alone, without borrowed authority. When...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/borrowed-authority-and-control-the-failure-mode-of-affiliation-based-confidence</link><guid isPermaLink="false">696025ed3267b24853963d97</guid><pubDate>Thu, 08 Jan 2026 21:53:03 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_7128151927b743c388b2253ea7e25f2d~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Silver Lining in Civilizational Survival Uncertainty ]]></title><description><![CDATA[In 2008 I was an oil analyst at the Korea Energy Economics Institute. I was in a group private thread with the head of DOE EIA and some very famous oil analysts (10 of us - I knew my shit). I had opinions. I was wrong. What 2008—and the world I imagined would follow—taught me is that the future does not unfold by extending today forward. It often emerges by illuminating paths we did not know existed. In 2008, the picture looked dark. With oil at $147 per barrel, almost no spare production...]]></description><link>https://www.almostsentient.me/single-post/the-silver-lining-in-civilizational-survival-uncertainty</link><guid isPermaLink="false">695df2db98add1bc15828c53</guid><pubDate>Wed, 07 Jan 2026 05:45:43 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/60c9cc_fe34790ce04148d6b1474e1ffbd96e60~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>