- Sam Altman reinstated as OpenAI CEO with a new board (Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, Adam D’Angelo), ending the weekend-long governance crisis; participants framed the reversal as the “least-bad” outcome for everyone except Microsoft.

- Neuralink opened a patient-registry portal (neuralink.com/patient-registry) targeting quadriplegia, paraplegia, vision loss, hearing loss, aphasia, and major-limb amputations—discussed as a broad, PR-friendly set of initial indications.

- DreamGaussian released a method for generating 3-D textured meshes from a single 2-D image (dreamgaussian.github.io), highlighted as a practical advance in rapid 3-D asset creation.

- The FTC announced compulsory-process authority for investigations into AI-related products and services (ftc.gov press release, 22 Nov 2023), interpreted by participants as a sign of looming regulatory scrutiny.

- Gwern’s long-form piece on maze-running rat experiments was cited, noting that the historical literature is largely undigitized and under-cited; discussion extended to the copyright barriers preventing online access to Richard Feynman’s archived papers at Caltech.

- A DIY genomics angle emerged: using low-cost collectible letters (e.g., Schrödinger, von Neumann, Wiener) as DNA sources for sequencing historical geniuses—proposed as cheaper per-sample than UK Biobank recruitment.

- EA Forum’s “Community Manifesto” (effectivealtruism.org post) and a Twitter thread by QiaochuYuan on rationalist psychological dissociation were shared, prompting debate on whether extreme “identity-small” norms constitute self-harm.

- Participants linked rationalist community introspection pieces from 2020–2021 (LessWrong posts on identity-small self-harm and Substack critique of post-rats) as evidence that the movement’s internal tensions are now public knowledge.

- Practical biohacking: nmz787 posted photos of mouse-proofing a workshop with mineral-wool and steel-wool insulation, illustrating low-tech but effective lab-space hardening.

- Closing meta-comment: fenn summarized the danger of “infinite good/bad” framing as a lever for arbitrary behavioral control, explicitly tying it to AI-alignment concerns.