# Key Points from IRC Discussion

• The LessWrong community has declined significantly since Eliezer Yudkowsky left to focus on AI risk work with MIRI, with participants describing the remaining IRC channel as "a cesspool of noise" rather than a venue for productive discussion.

• Concerns were raised about the future of transhumanism, questioning whether the Singularity is still on track given Vinge's prediction of 2005-2030 and Kurzweil's 2045 timeline.

• Kanzure proposed an experimental concept for selecting and breeding brain-dwelling bacteria in mice that correlate with improved cognitive performance, potentially enhancing cognition or preventing age-related brain deterioration.

• Participants discussed brain-infecting organisms like Toxoplasma gondii and Cordyceps that alter host behavior through epigenetic mechanisms, exploring their implications for potential engineered microbes targeting specific brain regions.

• Debian's implementation of reproducible builds across all packages was highlighted as a significant security improvement, ensuring software can be verified as unmodified (https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds).

• The conversation compared programming languages, with Rust described as a genuine competitor to C that prevents memory corruption vulnerabilities while maintaining performance, unlike other modern languages.

• Cambrian Genomics' controversial approach to DNA synthesis was critiqued, particularly their plan to restrict direct DNA shipping in favor of "virtualization centers" and their ambitious 10-year goal to "replace all natural organisms on the planet with better synthetic ones."