Deleted tweets by Slava Akhmechet

spakhm-deleted.md

Deleted tweets for spakhm

The list below includes 7514 deleted tweets by spakhm.

Note: GitHub's rendered view of the Gist truncates the list. You can see the full content here, or by cloning the Gist locally.

There are also 4 tweets that are indicated as not currently deleted by the Twitter API that have been scraped from pages of deleted tweets (as replies, etc.). These possibly undeleted tweets are included for context and are indicated by a (live) link.

This report was generated by ✨cancel-culture✨, an open source project by Travis Brown.

You can create your own updated version of this document by checking out and configuring the repository and then running the following commands:

$ cargo build --release
$ target/release/twcc deleted-tweets --report spakhm

Please note that all tweets quoted here are sourced from the Wayback Machine and were not directly accessed through the Twitter API or any Twitter client.

• 9 January 2021: Between this, Apple considering banning Parler, Biden/Harris administration seriously discussing Patriot act style legislation to curb domestic terrorism, and one party rule over at least the next two years, America is rapidly becoming a very scary place.
• 8 January 2021: Rightwing politicians have been amping people up to make the last stand on Jan 6th for weeks. The people did exactly what they were told. Now the leaders call them despicable cowards. "We didn't tell you to do that!"
• 8 January 2021: This guy really does sound like basically everyone I ever met at Burning Man.
• 8 January 2021: Question about Signal app on iOS. It requires country code (+1 ...) in order to match phone contacts. But many phone contacts are stored without country code. Is there a way to enable more permissive matching, so it doesn't require the country code to match?
• 8 January 2021: Omg I did it! Convinced enough of friends and family to move to Signal that I can delete all other messaging apps! Special thanks to @elonmusk, couldn't have done it without him 😍
• 8 January 2021: Alternatively: quit being a pussy and do your fucking job.
• 8 January 2021: Only a crisis produces real change. When it occurs, actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until politically impossible becomes inevitable. - MF
• 7 January 2021 (live): Planning on it.
• 7 January 2021: After many years of usage I'm deleting WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. I strongly encourage you to do the same, and encourage everyone in your network to do the same.
• 7 January 2021: wow
• 7 January 2021: I’m gonna bet my American friends don’t know this reference. Any time there was political instability in Russia they blocked out comms and played Swan Lake all day on all TV channels. This blackout is a VERY big deal.
• 7 January 2021: Now is the time to forgive all sins (except direct bodily harm) and move forward as one nation. If not now then when?
• 6 January 2021: Twitter is deleting the tweets of the president of the United States.
• 6 January 2021: Shout out to the builders today! This product looks very cool, can’t wait to try it! 👇
• 6 January 2021:
• 6 January 2021: I wrote a post about all my Substack metrics. Should give you a realistic sense about what's possible on the platform.
• 6 January 2021: It’s extraordinarily difficult to think big and act small. Anyone can fall into the three remaining permutations, but this one is rare and beyond precious.
• 5 January 2021: Casting Giovanni Ribisi in Lost in Translation ruined an otherwise perfect film. It’s as if Bugs Bunny was one of the characters in Saving Private Ryan.
• 5 January 2021: Ok this book is excellent. Just the story of Mac distribution is worth the price of admission, and that's only chapter two.
• 5 January 2021: The Macintosh higher-education marketing group consisted of a grand total of four people at a time when annual sales on campuses were running $50 million a year.
• 5 January 2021: The door was opened by me. Say it!
• 5 January 2021: This metaphor doesn't quite work because I can be considerably more liberal with my clock than you.
• 5 January 2021 (live): One does not need to be a criminal to be a criminal defense attorney.
• 5 January 2021 (live): am the product of the times, unfortunately
• 5 January 2021 (live): You may not like it, but it's the correct answer in many circumstances.
• 5 January 2021: Started reading Steve Jobs & the NeXT Big Thing. Really excited about it, have been looking forward to it for a while!
• 5 January 2021: Finished Michael Lewis's The New New Thing. It's entertaining in the same way the TV show Silicon Valley is entertaining, and contains many facts. But I got zero information about what Jim Clark thought about anything. Don't recommend it.
• 5 January 2021: Out of every platform/network you’re on, where do you get the most signal for smart ppl doing interesting things?
• 3 January 2021: I'm fascinated by people who can construct simple, compelling, well thought-out models out of chaos. Daniel is such a person. Strongly recommend this post. I aspire to be able to think like this 👇
• 2 January 2021: On Liberty.
• 2 January 2021: This is all totally normal!
• 2 January 2021: It all of us tbh
• 2 January 2021: Should I be flattered or concerned about this whole thing?
• 2 January 2021: Yup, typical Saturday,
• 2 January 2021: No
• 2 January 2021: Me: do you like Zoom or irl? 8yo: Zoom because I don’t have to listen to the boring teacher and I can watch my iPad in secret and eat candy.
• 2 January 2021: Yes, unbelievable.
• 2 January 2021: 100% a carpet muncher, but absolutely not a lesbian.
• 2 January 2021: I am an arbiter of who is and isn't a lesbian. If you're ever confused about someone, just link me to them and I'll easily tell you.
• 2 January 2021: I would learn my lesson that I shouldn’t be a histrionic pussy and move on with my life.
• 2 January 2021: 😆🙏
• 1 January 2021: It's Jan 1st 2021, and apparently Apple is Auschwitz now 😂
• 1 January 2021: Having seen up close how people get on these lists, I assume it's all smoke and mirrors unless someone transfers currency from their wallet to yours. Female or male.
• 1 January 2021: Tell him to come back when he has 839 followers.
• 1 January 2021: I think they’re a 100% marketing tool. “Important person X wrote a foreword for this book, it must be worth buying”.
• 1 January 2021: Nothing yet, I just found out about it from top of HN.
• 1 January 2021: TabFS is an absolutely brilliant project. Regardless of its utility, it has conceptual beauty you rarely see in computing now. I believe strongly we should keep computing beautiful. Kudos to @rsnous, what a great piece of work!
• 1 January 2021: Happy New Year! Here’s to an amazing 2021!
• 1 January 2021: Incandescent light is the best.
• 1 January 2021: Ah yes, I forgot that little hotbed of reasonableness. - We just want reasonable healthcare - Ok, make it then - No, everyone must have it - Ok, how about this? - No, it must include tampons and abortion - Why don't you pay for that yourself? - No, everyone must have it or else
• 1 January 2021: Also, is there a name for an argument opposite to appeal to authority when you're losing a debate so you say "well, neither of us are experts, so you're wrong"?
• 1 January 2021: California could literally will a parallel healthcare system into existence. If current prices are 50x higher than median of developed countries, it would be trivial to compete. Can you imagine how well Tesla would be doing if Toyota cost $1m USD?!
• 1 January 2021: Maybe you should hire a sex worker.
• 1 January 2021: 🙏💃
• 31 December 2020: Kharcho looks beautiful!
• 31 December 2020: I say what I believe. If it rubs some (or most) people the wrong way, it's fine by me.
• 31 December 2020: No, we don't both know it because it's false. California has $3.2T GDP-- greater than Spain ($1.4T), Italy ($2T), Canada ($1.7T), England!! ($2.5T), and France!!! ($2.7T). It also has no meaningful republican opposition. Show us that spectacular liberal governance!
• 31 December 2020: You're welcome!
• 31 December 2020: Agree completely! But they also could be pushed over the edge. Nothing is guaranteed.
• 31 December 2020: Two years later and the orthodoxy is the left.
• 31 December 2020: No, they want submission. California already legalized marijuana and is bigger than most EU nations— they can set up whatever state healthcare they want. But that isn’t enough, is it?
• 31 December 2020: Даст бог никогда им не понадобится понять.
• 31 December 2020: The left wants complete dominion over you. They will push and push, until they discover a boundary you won't permit them to cross. They'll then convince themselves you are evil and must be defeated. They are constitutionally unable to accept a middle ground. There can be no draw.
• 31 December 2020: 🙄
• 31 December 2020: 🙏
• 31 December 2020: I didn't ask her to arrange a marriage for me!
• 31 December 2020: Ok, for the folks who care about this: substack configures IN-REPLY-TO and REFERENCES email headers in a way that lead gmail to bundle. I sent @cjgbest a bug report (and very subtly at'ed him here in public to nudge him to prioritize this 😁).
• 31 December 2020: omg that website exists!!!
• 31 December 2020: no that all happened after!
• 31 December 2020: @default_friend I think you saw my take, got jealous at how good it is, and started your smear campaign.
• 31 December 2020: our masculine nerds invent the bomb 💪☢️ -> we blow japan to kingdom come 🇯🇵💥 -> they replace sex with cartoons 👠📺 -> our nerds turn beta β & get hooked on their cartoons 🇯🇵📺 Coincidence? I think not.
• 31 December 2020: Ok, here's the book list. Plz give us the workaholics thread!
• 31 December 2020: Thank you, added Medieval Tech. Extension of man is $300!!
• 31 December 2020: I would lean into elitism. It's much easier to make the elite feel common than to make the common feel elite.
• 31 December 2020: One of my goals for 2021 is to learn more about history of invention. I put together two book clusters-- one for technological invention before computing, the other for the computing era. Here is the list. I’ll be updating it as I read. Enjoy!
• 31 December 2020: Yes.
• 31 December 2020: I think ppl don't mention it now for the same reason they don't mention gmail.
• 31 December 2020: No, it's the same in gmail.
• 31 December 2020: IMO yes.
• 31 December 2020: That's amazing but is not a modal experience. Most public sector employees are lifers.
• 31 December 2020: Anyone who writes on @SubstackInc and uses @Superhuman-- when multiple people reply to a newsletter email, they all get grouped into one conversation. This makes communicating with folks a nightmare. Has anyone found a solution to this problem?
• 31 December 2020: I mean that her compensation doesn't depend on her performance.
• 31 December 2020: How does that contradict what I said?
• 30 December 2020: Omg [[roam/templates]] is the bees knees 💃
• 30 December 2020: I think he was being sarcastic.
• 30 December 2020: Yep, same way crime in SF was always "down".
• 30 December 2020: Tell me the last three things you’ve done to improve your circumstance, then maybe you can complain about America.
• 30 December 2020: That friend sounds really cool actually.
• 30 December 2020: Yes and he did an amazing job precisely because under his leadership incentives mattered.
• 30 December 2020: The kids in Cupertino clearly missed the opportunity of the new technology. People have been getting rich for millennia, but the Medici, Louis XIV, Petr I, and Henry VIII couldn’t begin to dream of jerking off to hentai. Question is, why do Cupertino kids lack vision?
• 30 December 2020: I agree, but I’m talking about a different slice of the problem. Given the decentralized reality our government is still pathetic beyond belief. Suppose Patrick Collison ran NYC. We’d all be vaccinated by now.
• 30 December 2020: It’s a massive operation. But suppose you were somehow in charge of this, these questions came up in a meeting, it were up to you to get it done. I don’t even know you, but literally from reading your two tweets I have 100x more confidence in you than today’s leadership.
• 30 December 2020: Suppose you ran NYC. You could (relatively) trivially spin up vaccination tents in the parking lot of every hospital without exception, staff it, supply it, and send a cell phone alert informing everyone. The city did none of that. Why?
• 30 December 2020: Thank you! At some point (hopefully soon) I would love to.
• 30 December 2020: i try!
• 30 December 2020: damn, that's harsh even for sf
• 30 December 2020: You will not have to wait long!
• 30 December 2020: No, it's actually criminally underrated.
• 30 December 2020: This is a criminally underrated tweet 👇
• 30 December 2020: omg 😂
• 30 December 2020: Thank you, this is sufficient attention to hold me off for a few hours!
• 30 December 2020: I don't know about radical, but you definitely have the quality of original thought.
• 30 December 2020: CW?
• 30 December 2020: Your energy is sufficiently different from mine that I don't even get to agree or disagree with you on most things. That's why I follow you.
• 30 December 2020: There are degrees. As much as private sector bureaucracy sucks, government is in another galaxy.
• 30 December 2020: Yup :( That one is so bad they don't even bother coming in to work anymore.
• 30 December 2020: The problem with your argument is that social status in a government body is completely disconnected from job performance.
• 30 December 2020: Take a stroll through the streets of Singapore and through the streets of San Francisco and the question will answer itself.
• 30 December 2020: Nippon an exception to everything.
• 30 December 2020: Consider that one of the most effectively run governments in the world, Singapore, pays public officials market competitive salaries and compensation is based on performance.
• 30 December 2020: Yes, I can definitely do better here. Still getting better at writing 👇
• 30 December 2020: Twitter is exactly the opposite-- you get instantly compensated in proportion to the quality as perceived by the market.
• 30 December 2020: You're talking about elected officials, I'm talking about unelected federal, state and municipal employees.
• 30 December 2020: Wanted a softer takeoff.
• 30 December 2020: Government workers make exactly the same amount of money, keep exactly the same job, and have exactly the same chance of getting fired (basically zero) whether ten people get vaccinated or ten million. How is everyone surprised?!
• 30 December 2020: Very strongly disagree. Most great people I know have a lightness about them.
• 30 December 2020: Compare the Rogan/Willink philosophy with Napoleon’s quip that he liked lucky generals.
• 30 December 2020: 👇
• 30 December 2020: We fetishize suffering to buffer ourselves against failure.
• 30 December 2020: 🙏
• 30 December 2020: 🙏
• 30 December 2020: @basdvries 🙏
• 29 December 2020: We're specks of dust caught in a cultural hurricane. That's why people read Great American Novels. We're all living out the tragedy of The Great Gatsby in our private lives. 4/4
• 29 December 2020: I don't mean this in self-aggrandizing way. It is something Americans lord over other nations. In a sense we've earned it-- our circumstances are exceptional in the way Rome was exceptional. But boy is it hard on people. 3/4
• 29 December 2020: By the time the blow gets to Europe, it's considerably softened. Europeans have the privilege of enjoying processing these things in relative comfort. Almost all of them don't realize it. 2/4
• 29 December 2020: America is on a cultural frontier in a way most countries aren't. That means we're the ones on the front lines taking the brunt of cultural forces in our private lives. 1/4
• 29 December 2020: I'll exchange it for the workaholics thread!
• 29 December 2020: Really like this exercise!
• 29 December 2020:
• 29 December 2020: Thanks. I try to keep these short because in a world of endless content it's a big ask to write long exposés, especially of one's own inner world. Maybe the solution is to write longer posts and then break it up into multiple parts.
• 29 December 2020: I've learned to ask this too. It took a while because initially I thought I could/should jettison it, like a first stage of a rocket. But that's not the right model. It's more like a compass that's always there if you bother to look.
• 29 December 2020: Edema Ruh. New post.
• 29 December 2020: There is a difference between voluntarily choosing to persevere and being forced to by the state!
• 29 December 2020: Thanks, I hadn’t considered that. Need to think about it!
• 29 December 2020: (I hope I can use the Socratic method long enough to get to Lambda school/ISAs).
• 29 December 2020: Can I indenture myself?
• 29 December 2020: Why not?
• 29 December 2020: Should I be able to sell myself into slavery?
• 29 December 2020: It’s an intellectual gem in a sea of bullshit.
• 29 December 2020: "Marginalized groups" should be a banned abstraction in all discourses of the federal government.
• 29 December 2020: Using the nuclear option is against twitter's terms of service!
• 29 December 2020: I have confused feelings on that. Keeping people bound by a contract against their will is obviously inconsistent with the spirit of western civilization, but allowing no-fault divorces opened the door to its destruction. Not sure how to resolve this paradox.
• 29 December 2020: I really like this one!
• 29 December 2020: In my mind it's pronounced "rep-leet" because it rolls off the tongue, but really it's "repl-it". The "repl dot it" people are insane.
• 29 December 2020: I do use Beeminder and like it very much. I fluctuate in how many goals I have (rn quite few), but I've been a paying user for years.
• 29 December 2020: Somewhere between repealing sodomy laws and defunding the police there was a line we shouldn't have crossed.
• 29 December 2020: Yeah, they're hard to find, you have to look around. I believe I got most of them from here-- .
• 29 December 2020: Education shouldn't stop after college!
• 28 December 2020: I like teaching materials that build ideas from foundation up. Spivak does this really well IMO. I'll probably eventually do something else to better cover applications.
• 28 December 2020: He was truly ahead of his time 😲
• 28 December 2020: This takes ~90m/day; if you randomly skip one, ~60m/day. You can find the time if you want to.
• 28 December 2020: My 2021 goals. New post.
• 28 December 2020: No, I'm saying shit breaks and there will be no one to fix it.
• 28 December 2020: That would imply that their SREs just do nothing.
• 28 December 2020: How long after every netflix office is nuked do you think you can still ping ?
• 28 December 2020: It just is.
• 28 December 2020: 😍
• 28 December 2020: I originally thought it's quite good and then realized "activist" is only derogatory to you and me. To them it's a badge of honor.
• 28 December 2020: that's quite good
• 28 December 2020: SaaS companies are true cybernetic organisms. If every Microsoft office is nuked from orbit, I can still install an old Windows version on my computer. If every Netflix office is nuked from orbit, all that's left is a spasming shell on AWS.
• 28 December 2020: founder : techbro :: journalist : _______? Summoning @default_friend and @kaschuta, you guys have a super high verbal IQ.
• 28 December 2020: yes
• 28 December 2020: "Do not believe tears of a woman."-- Dostoevsky (don't remember which character, but it's from Brothers Karamazov, which appears to be lindy)
• 27 December 2020: That was before I knew you say “folx”.
• 26 December 2020: Obsess or die.
• 25 December 2020: phew!
• 25 December 2020: Cocktails aren’t Lindy.
• 25 December 2020:
• 25 December 2020: Sometimes!
• 24 December 2020: Anyone who non-ironically uses the word folx is an idiot.
• 24 December 2020: hyperbolic discounting is irrational, don't do it!
• 24 December 2020: Don’t do this, it’s really bad for you 👇
• 24 December 2020: I’ll take a hardcore capitalist authoritarian globalist over deBlasio :)
• 24 December 2020: Not me! Not quite fair for $600 because you need to buy food and a roof over your head, but I 100% agree for larger sums of money.
• 24 December 2020: 😂
• 24 December 2020: Andrew Yang running for NYC mayor is the best news I've heard in 2020 by far.
• 24 December 2020: 😂
• 24 December 2020: I grew up here, I just forgot it after living in SF for a bit.
• 24 December 2020: This is never going away is it? :)
• 23 December 2020: We can’t all be Parisians!
• 23 December 2020: Omg everyone in NYC is so much better dressed and just generally prettier! 😍
• 23 December 2020: My rule is that I can abandon a book before I’m 100 pages in but not after. Otherwise I fall in a trap where I never finish anything because I’m too excited about the next book to finish the current one.
• 23 December 2020: Thanks! Might eventually need to read Netscape Time to balance it out.
• 23 December 2020: I'm just a few chapters in but so far it reads like a caricature of Jim Clark to appeal to the broader normie market. Did you get this sense? And if so, does this get better deeper into the book?
• 23 December 2020: :(
• 23 December 2020: How much longer are we going to put up with this?
• 23 December 2020: Every mental illness, sexual orientation, and gender identity that people make up to advance the social hierarchy.
• 23 December 2020: 💯👇
• 23 December 2020: The rich pay almost all the taxes.
• 23 December 2020: It makes absolutely no difference. It isn't your money to spend.
• 23 December 2020: The voters are fickle and easily manipulated.
• 23 December 2020: Yup. I'm not talking about the people who are actually sick, obvs.
• 23 December 2020: I'm talking about young (and not so young) adults who invent disorders and sexualities because it's trendy.
• 23 December 2020: They praise defunding police but hire armed guards to protect their campuses; promote environmental BS and build datacenters with redundant power stations; hire diversity officers but their execs are white men. They're woke where it's cheap. They'd be good municipal managers.
• 23 December 2020: There is no going back with culture. The answer is always a new form. Whatever shape it takes, it should inoculate us from making up mental illnesses as a means of social advancement.
• 23 December 2020: There is no going back with culture. The answer is always a new form. Whatever shape it takes, it should inoculate people from people making up mental illnesses as a means of social advancement.
• 23 December 2020: Technologists are woke to so long as it doesn't interfere with their goals. Which is bad on the federal level but good on the municipal level, IMO.
• 23 December 2020: Stigma doesn't arise randomly. It's an adaptive cultural mechanism. Blindly dismantling adaptive cultural mechanisms has downsides that may be catastrophic. We're seeing some of those now.
• 23 December 2020: Restigmatize mental illness.
• 23 December 2020: A relatively small amount can buy us a lot of lobbyists, though. We don't have to become politicians.
• 23 December 2020: Renaming armed robbery to "wealth redistribution" was a very clever sleight of hand. But man, the audacity of dropping "involuntary", that's god level cultural engineering.
• 23 December 2020: You mean armed robbery?
• 23 December 2020: That part was cool! But then it dragged on and on and on.
• 23 December 2020: Me too. But lots of recommendations on this one from people I trust.
• 23 December 2020: it got very personal and it made the whole story work
• 23 December 2020: Very strong recommend 👇
• 23 December 2020: I will insist on phrasing it this way from now on!
• 23 December 2020: Starting to read The New New Thing. Really excited about it, heard good things 🤞
• 23 December 2020: 😂
• 23 December 2020: Ok, I take it back. The end of the book completely vindicates the rest. Definitely worth reading. I'd give it 4.5 stars. The beginning is great, the end is great, the middle is mostly boring. But the books works very well as a coherent whole.
• 23 December 2020: That's not a source, that's an agency. Where's the link to the report?
• 22 December 2020: Has there ever been a viable solution to poverty other than generating millions of entry level jobs?
• 22 December 2020: @paulg and @jesslivingston are the undisputed champions of this. The way they believed in people was incredible. Have never seen anyone else even come close.
• 22 December 2020: Where's Pussy?
• 22 December 2020: I also realized in 2020 why libertarians aren’t taken seriously, but my conclusion is different. It’s because if you live and let live, you’ll allow space for other structures to grow that will eventually break down your door and take your house.
• 22 December 2020: ☺️
• 22 December 2020: That’s awful and also true :(
• 22 December 2020: Imagine if government had decided to kill Coinbase. It’s not that crypto would stop existing, but it would have been a big blow. They can’t outlaw math, but they can outlaw products and services built on top of math.
• 22 December 2020: Exactly the same as my job now, court jester.
• 22 December 2020: They can’t eradicate it but they can cripple it!
• 22 December 2020: It’s very important that government bureaucrats stay out of crypto!
• 22 December 2020: Whose opinion do you trust more, Zack's or the guy with the rose in his name? 👇 (hint: if it's the latter you should re-evaluate your trust assessments)
• 22 December 2020: To all the EU friends, this is totally normal stuff. Just folks exercising their 1A and 2A rights, or what we in America call a Monday.
• 21 December 2020: These communes are gonna end up like burning man— overflowing with steampunk decorations but not enough water and bathrooms covered in shit.
• 21 December 2020: Sometimes life blows all your plans away and you just do what you can. How do you improve these loops with a family?
• 21 December 2020: San Francisco is like an alcoholic girlfriend. You fall in love with potential, you do all you can to help, she rejects it all for more alcohol, and it breaks your heart. In both cases it really sucks, but you get over it. You gotta take ‘em how you meet ‘em.
• 21 December 2020: It looks to me like a shoe, and I didn’t notice it until you pointed it out. That’s amazing!!
• 21 December 2020: ☺️
• 21 December 2020: It really is super idiosyncratic. It’s hard to hear what you actually feel rather than what everyone tells you you’re supposed to feel. It takes practice.
• 21 December 2020: Tinkering with the right and wrong types of comfort and stress can make a dramatic difference on your productivity and subjective experience. New post.
• 21 December 2020: And regulatory barriers to entry.
• 21 December 2020: Can't stop looking at this sketch 👇
• 21 December 2020: Hard tech always does that for me.
• 21 December 2020: Oh man, I was just thinking this. Sowell is so so underrated in a public eye. I honestly can't understand how he's not a celebrity, he reminds me of Feynman in terms of his ability to explain super complex phenomena in simple, compelling ways.
• 21 December 2020: Never read the book, but plan to!
• 21 December 2020: The only thing that will show scalable benefits for black children (same as any children) is returning power where it belongs-- to their parents. Which is why the overwhelming majority of black families support school choice, and the overwhelming majority of liberal hacks don't.
• 21 December 2020: @ChrisSpoke I actually haven't read that many, on a kick now. Masters of Doom was great. How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis too (despite the title). I remember I looooved Walt Disney bio, but don't recall which one. I have a stack I'm reading now, will report back!
• 21 December 2020: Oh god I hated that book, mainly because of writing style.
• 21 December 2020: Are you gonna try to get my past employers to fire me? 😁
• 21 December 2020: It's more philosophical/poetic FYI.
• 21 December 2020: Zero to One and How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis (ignore the dumb title) are both excellent.
• 21 December 2020: Is Lean Startup : Process :: Zero to One : Vision? (i.e. is it the best in the process genre? If not, which one?)
• 21 December 2020: Depends on the genre/area of interest!
• 21 December 2020: Yes, but I got the gist of his crises after the first third of the book!
• 21 December 2020: Definitely, but I kinda got the gist after after the first 150 pages.
• 21 December 2020: People on the internet aren't humans, they're a probability distribution.
• 21 December 2020: My contrarian review of Shoe Dog. It's a boring ass book because selling plastic shoes is a boring ass business. Don't buy it, way better books out there!
• 20 December 2020: Presumably many quiet voices coordinate to form one loud one.
• 20 December 2020: That's sad. When I was growing up in Ukraine (we left in '96) there was a lot of fucked up shit due to the economic collapse, but at least politeness was a really strong shared value in all ex-Soviet countries. Sad to see that go down the drain :(
• 20 December 2020: Is that actually factually true?
• 20 December 2020: Damn that's really fucked up. The russians can be very racist and are huge soccer fans, but I can't even imagine them doing that. Wtf
• 20 December 2020: 😲 where do people do that?!!
• 20 December 2020: From all my travels, this seems true. I always find it amusing when EU countries accuse us of racism. Talk about throwing stones at glass houses!
• 20 December 2020: What's true about America that everyone thinks is a lie?
• 20 December 2020: oh man I should have kept my (poorly informed) opinion to myself to avoid priming you!
• 20 December 2020: No :( I tried, but I could never get past the first 3-4 episodes. It just seems soooo childish. Should I give it another try?
• 20 December 2020: I guess not surprising but I definitely didn't expect it!
• 20 December 2020: You know, literally everyone I met from uchicago has been an awesome person. Not a small sample at this point! What's going on over there?!
• 20 December 2020: I have no idea. Someone mentioned GPT3 and AlphaFold, both very strong contenders.
• 20 December 2020: I think in ten years covid will be a footnote.
• 20 December 2020: Sadly people forget fast. Very fast. I think the right approach is to prevent conditions friendly to communism from arising rather than depending on the collective memory. Good on Romania, though!
• 20 December 2020: An unexpected consequence of this tweet 👇: about a dozen emails from young women in tech all saying something to the effect of "I'm sick of everyone blowing smoke up my ass, I know you have a sense of humor and tell the truth-- could you give career advice on X?"
• 20 December 2020: flywheels are a crazy thing
• 20 December 2020: It's kind of crazy that twitter still doesn't let you see a list of unread DMs.
• 20 December 2020: My problem is that I don't understand the global financial system. I have two more things to study for the next month or two, and then will move onto that.
• 20 December 2020: I don't know. You can imagine a "clone" feature for example.
• 20 December 2020: Thanks, I'll consider writing an essay on it.
• 20 December 2020: Don’t think so.
• 20 December 2020: It’s nothing like AWS in the same way Basic/DOS were nothing like IBM.
• 20 December 2020: seems vastly, vastly underrated to me. I can imagine a future where it overtakes AWS. They've solved a problem that hundreds of startups and all the behemoths failed to solve-- they've made deployment fun. That's worth 10^5x more than people think.
• 19 December 2020: The most important event in 1998 was the founding of Google. You didn't hear about it on the news, didn't read it in newspapers, didn't see it discussed online. (They were all busy talking about Bill Clinton and Monica.) What makes you think you understand 2020?
• 19 December 2020: It's actually an interesting question-- how would you set up education if it were only for pleasure, and how different would that be from what we have now.
• 19 December 2020: But learning things is playing in nature!
• 19 December 2020: I take these ideas seriously enough to make considerable changes fwiw.
• 19 December 2020: Assuming this is true, how should it change the decisions you make today?
• 19 December 2020: This is the correct answer! ☝️
• 19 December 2020: What’s your favorite country in the world that you’ve traveled to and why? (other than your own)
• 19 December 2020: I'd add @iAWriter.
• 19 December 2020: Very sorry for your loss Ray ❤️
• 18 December 2020: ~5/week on average. I want to get to 1 dan at Go, so I study almost every day deliberately.
• 18 December 2020: I would be extremely on board with these features.
• 18 December 2020: I love the idea of the app, but the rooms are dominated by people in love with their own voice, which I... dislike. Like, just say the thing and let others speak. I don’t want to hear your monologue for ten minutes every time you decide to say something.
• 18 December 2020: Source?
• 17 December 2020: I grew up in a culture where marriage was an initiation into the next phase of a communal life. Imagine being a 40y/o man still living with your wife at her parents’s house. It all fell apart because people hated it. The only way out of our problems is through.
• 17 December 2020: We used to build highways, split atoms, start towns, put up dams, try insane engineering and construction projects just for the fuck of it. Now a bike lane takes two decades and a quadrillion dollars.
• 17 December 2020: That’s my answer too. It’s called Whig historiography.
• 17 December 2020: 😳
• 17 December 2020: The love languages model is useful because in our culture it's hard for like 90% of the couples to say something like "hey, could you cook for me more/hug me more/blow me more/buy me gifts more, I really like that". Calling it a love language suddenly makes it accessible.
• 17 December 2020: I feel vindicated! I'd always be like "how do you call needles, tents, awful transportation, no housing growth, and no diversity a world class city?!!" And everyone was like "you just don't get it, it's awesome". Turns out I did get it and ya'll had Stockholm syndrome.
• 17 December 2020: What is the biggest lie implicitly taught to you in K12 that you realized is false decades later?
• 17 December 2020: "I say struggling with a great question is better than definitively answering a trivial one."
• 16 December 2020: Oh wow, that didn't occur to me. That's a really good (and important) observation!
• 16 December 2020: Hey @hamishmckenzie the new Substack Discover feature is off da hook. Exactly what I wanted! You guys rock!
• 16 December 2020: I know :(
• 16 December 2020: Congrats! Well...?
• 16 December 2020: Math book authors who slip unproved properties into lemmas and then mention it a few pages later should be summarily shot. “Hey, did you notice we slipped this in, haha!” Yes, I did notice, and it made me quadruple check what the hell I’m missing for the last hour!!!
• 16 December 2020: How would you rank them?
• 16 December 2020: 🙏
• 16 December 2020: My fetish is doing that, but with a tinge of suspicion that she might not genuinely feel the same way. It’s the best.
• 16 December 2020: exit > voice
• 16 December 2020: You got that wrong, I'm the expert on product-market unfit.
• 16 December 2020: Will never happen.
• 16 December 2020: Anyway, if Alex the investor is 1/10th of Alex the founder, you want his money. I would have loooooooved someone like that helping me. If I had to guess, he's an amazing coach to founders. If you're raising money, reach out! /fin
• 16 December 2020: Then Alex tells me the story of Clearbit. Insane grit, execution, instincts, industry knowledge. And you could tell by walking around the office that everyone loves working for the company. It was obvious how much every employee cared.
• 16 December 2020: All right, I think to myself. These guys must be bozos wasting investor money. But then Alex explains the business and shows me some upcoming product designs. I remember being blown away-- how could someone who made such a cozy office also be so crazily competent?!
• 16 December 2020: I remember visiting @clearbit before the pandemic. I show up at the address, start looking for the office. Can't find it-- all I see is a really cozy bar/cafe. So I go in to ask. Turns out it's @clearbit's office!
• 16 December 2020: If I were raising, I’d definitely want Alex on my side. Super nice, gritty, hard working, and competent. And the fund is named after Picard’s favorite tea, I assume, which certainly can’t hurt!
• 16 December 2020: You read all of these?!!
• 16 December 2020: Since you've read them all, how would you rank/review the rest?
• 16 December 2020: Thanks!! (never heard of it until now)
• 16 December 2020: 🙏 not yet
• 16 December 2020: ping @katgleason since you probably read all of them
• 16 December 2020: If you could recommend only one of these four books, which would you recommend?
• 16 December 2020: "Maybe I'm a fool? Maybe this whole damn shoe thing is a fool's errand?" -- Phil Knight, founder of Nike, when he couldn't get a $20k loan to fund Nike's growth
• 16 December 2020: Been playing around with the Copilot App and it's really good. Best I've seen in the personal finance genre.
• 16 December 2020: "My accountant is a jew. I'd love to go to a black accountant instead, but you know, I gotta eat." -- actually said by someone on CH; sums up CH culture pretty well IMO
• 15 December 2020: Alternatively, the IPO was three days ago, and they’re just publishing this now. They’re slipping up! 😂 (feeling optimistic today for some reason)
• 15 December 2020: There's never a shortage of people ready to spend someone else's money.
• 15 December 2020: I think Apple card just lets you text a person. It's a slightly premium product, but not all that much, given that it's free. Might be much harder for Comcast, though.
• 15 December 2020: Best rap battle of this century is Keynes v Hayek (part 2). By a pretty huge margin. Sorry 8 mile. (Seriously, incredibly creative use of the medium, and everyone I know who's even a little into econ is a huge fan)
• 15 December 2020: Not an expert, but from the little I've read they aren't linear.
• 15 December 2020: A very Patrick Collison way of saying "censorship is bad" 👇
• 15 December 2020: Yes. They all claim they can’t wait to go back, but they won’t unless forced to.
• 15 December 2020: I don’t think you’d be that angry if I were simply wrong.
• 14 December 2020: It appears the "gathering storm" ad wasn't nearly as stupid as we all thought.
• 14 December 2020: Not so simple! They’ll want to teach remotely and make the school districts hire cheap ununionized babysitters to stay with kids in the classrooms.
• 14 December 2020: It’s reasoning a priori. Getting paid to stay home is more appealing than getting paid to go to work, and teachers get paid either way.
• 14 December 2020: Most teachers and districts are in the middle. Also I think you underestimate the power of incentives!
• 14 December 2020: Async voice isn’t my thing, but I can see it working for a huge swath of customers!
• 14 December 2020: Yes!!
• 14 December 2020: 99% of customer support should work over text messages.
• 14 December 2020: My spin on a classic
• 14 December 2020: They get paid regardless whether they're on their feet all day taking abuse from kids, or sitting at home in their pajamas while the kids are completely distracted on zoom. With these incentives, why would they go back to work? The vaccine is irrelevant.
• 14 December 2020: Baby steps!
• 14 December 2020: That's probably pretty close to what they'll propose, and there is no way in hell parents will accept it. It will be the beginning of the end of the teachers unions, and they'll have no one to blame but themselves.
• 14 December 2020: Prediction for Fall 2021: teachers refuse to go back -> unions propose hybrid model, claim it's better -> at last they overplay their hand, parents go bonkers -> teachers go back, unions weakened, parents don't forget -> support for vouchers ⬆️📈 -> school choice in ~2025 💃
• 14 December 2020: Nobody who gets paid to sit at home and do nothing wants to go back to the salt mines. Of course they all claim they do.
• 14 December 2020: 😲
• 14 December 2020: You don't sound defensive at all.
• 14 December 2020: thanks!
• 14 December 2020: thank you
• 14 December 2020: Fucking finally-- competitive governments 😍
• 14 December 2020: Yup, they all say that, but revealed preferences tell a different story.
• 14 December 2020: Because they can.
• 14 December 2020: Hybrid I can believe.
• 14 December 2020: Teachers will never get back to meatspace unless parents force them with pitchforks.
• 14 December 2020: Easy to miss how innovative this is. There is a good chance Studios will become as big a differentiator for Lambda as ISAs 👇
• 14 December 2020: In fairness, most accounts with pronouns in their bio are extremely aggressive about enforcing wrongthink rules. Many people get this reaction because every time they're harassed on twitter, the account has pronouns. See Elon's tweet today about this:
• 14 December 2020: In his case, make an exception.
• 14 December 2020: Prioritize strengths. New post.
• 14 December 2020: Strongly recommend you follow @ThorHalvorssen.
• 14 December 2020: Ok @default_friend, the answer is clear-- most people don't know who you are because you're changing your avatar too often.
• 14 December 2020: me too
• 14 December 2020: Elon 😍👇
• 14 December 2020: My high touch is quite a bit softer.
• 14 December 2020: When I go high, I go soft 😁
• 14 December 2020:
• 14 December 2020: I agree, but you don’t tell the customer they’re an idiot! You let them think they’re smart, but design your product so they can’t help but fall in the pit of success. Kinda how people pay $50 for $20 worth of food on DoorDash.
• 14 December 2020: You don’t tell them!!
• 13 December 2020: Yeah definitely!
• 13 December 2020: I use Twitter this way as a millennial. It’s the most natural thing, using it to project an image sounds miserable.
• 13 December 2020: Yes, but those signals are way cheaper to send if you have high IQ.
• 13 December 2020: Ah! My guess would be it’s a small effect, no?
• 13 December 2020: I read about that (not decades though). Or are you thinking or smtg else?
• 13 December 2020: Harvard is a group of very high IQ people who recruit very high IQ people to fashion very high IQ arguments for why very high IQ does not exist.
• 13 December 2020: If you’re interested, this is incredibly good. All about that era. Only caveat is that I read in Russian, don’t know if the translation is good.
• 13 December 2020: Dr Jill Biden should stop calling herself "Dr" because her bullshit mickey mouse degree in education is embarrassing, not because she's a PhD. If I had that degree I'd take it off everything to make myself seem more credible.
• 13 December 2020: I genuinely believe gas has a very high creepiness factor, but it may just be me.
• 13 December 2020: Very fair!
• 13 December 2020: They had 60 years to develop!!
• 13 December 2020: @AlexMartynov All music genres are mostly awful everywhere.
• 13 December 2020: I'm a jew with "mosque" in my last name. The world truly is a magical place.
• 13 December 2020: Ukraine. Not 100% sure but one story I heard is that Tatar people would periodically take over and kill everyone who didn't convert, so some people outwardly converted but maintained their faith in secret. Last name means white mosque.
• 13 December 2020: Oh they will. But then we're arguing about words.
• 13 December 2020: I 100% believe people want a high quality matchmaking service (in fact, I believe it so much I would seriously consider joining such a startup). But that isn't the same as an arranged marriage service.
• 13 December 2020: Also keep in mind I thought Facebook, Twitter, AirBnB and Instagram are stupid (and still think that for FB, AirBnB and Instagram). But my best guess is that people aren't signing up for an arranged marriage. They're signing up to get a good marriage prospect. Big difference.
• 13 December 2020: They do, but it does not follow that they want the service in its current form.
• 13 December 2020: I can definitely see many paths for it to morph into a service people want.
• 13 December 2020: You guys should combine your individual powers and launch a service that ppl actually want, which is dating.
• 13 December 2020: I think it's a great accomplishment, but I promise you if I could be a GP at benchmark at 29 (or now) I would turn it down.
• 13 December 2020: It's a really good post.
• 13 December 2020: Then neither.
• 13 December 2020: Depends what vibe you're going for!
• 13 December 2020: No it isn't.
• 13 December 2020: Yeah but that doesn't show up on my TL and confuse me, so I don't care!
• 13 December 2020: Is @default_friend changing her avatar too often?
• 13 December 2020: I wish google filtered out quotation sites that don't give precise source info (which means all of them).
• 13 December 2020: If you cannot enforce, do not command.
• 13 December 2020: I never claimed I’ll be helpful!
• 13 December 2020: I’m going to go ahead and bet that there aren’t gonna be mainstream kpop performers in Russia in the next 50 years.
• 13 December 2020: Gas executions have the baggage of WW I and the holocaust. Too awful to contemplate.
• 13 December 2020: No it doesn’t. There is something special going on. There is no Russian kpop, for example.
• 13 December 2020: My personal favorite.
• 13 December 2020: Considering how deeply rooted hip-hop is in black American experience, it’s absolutely amazing to me that it’s exportable. Some Russian hip-hop is really good. There is something very special about American experience that we don’t fully understand.
• 12 December 2020: 😍
• 12 December 2020: From the wording of your tweet even you still haven’t learned. Look how you’re anthropomorphizing them!
• 12 December 2020: I thought so too, extremely signal-dense sentence!
• 12 December 2020: This tweet is fine art 👇
• 12 December 2020: And who the fuck are you?
• 12 December 2020: Plausible deniability.
• 12 December 2020: Where do you guys live? (Or do you have a bar + plates at home?) Gyms closed in SF :(
• 11 December 2020: Post pmf only!!
• 11 December 2020: yes
• 11 December 2020: I honestly don't know.
• 11 December 2020: Congratulations Ale! You guys look amazing, onwards with the adventure!
• 11 December 2020: "What does YC really have? Dropbox, AirBnB, maybe Stripe. That's it. Don't listen to them." -- a partner from a traditional VC firm, circa eight years ago
• 11 December 2020: I agree.
• 11 December 2020: 😂
• 11 December 2020: Idk much about how different chemicals work, but I generally don't trust the state with executions. Too kafkaesque.
• 11 December 2020: Not everyone can leave. And those people have limits too.
• 11 December 2020: 🙏
• 11 December 2020: It is crucially important to get de Blasio, Boudin, Gascon, and the rest of these wackjobs out of office because if these feelings ever spill out onto the streets there may be no stopping them. And I really, really don't want to live in that future. 4/4
• 11 December 2020: And this really worries me. People are running out of patience. I will not act on these feelings, but a hell of a lot of other people might. And honestly, even I have a line. Everyone does. 3/4
• 11 December 2020: But here's the thing. I'm noticing myself not giving a shit anymore. Needles and tents on the streets, people shooting up in the open, burglaries up, robberies up. What do I give a shit about a monster who killed in cold blood. Throw him in the colosseum for all I care. 2/4
• 11 December 2020: Here's what really concerns me. I've always been against the death penalty. Not for ethical reasons-- some crimes are so heinous that the right punishment is obviously death. But I didn't trust the state to execute people, and still don't. 1/4
• 11 December 2020: That doesn’t answer my question. (The answer is that everything is contextual because people haven’t thought it through; I like to play with those contexts to put it on display)
• 10 December 2020: some day
• 10 December 2020: 😋
• 10 December 2020: You won’t have to. When they find themselves on an even playing field for the first time, they’ll immediately tell you themselves.
• 10 December 2020: Rappers say the most awful shit about women and win the VMA award to universal acclaim. I post a jocular theory and everyone goes insane. Why?
• 10 December 2020: 😁
• 10 December 2020: The evidence supporting my theory keeps mounting.
• 10 December 2020: Anyone can go on a water fast and lose 10 pounds. You don't really care about toxicity unless you start cutting. Pics of thigh scars or gtfo, Timnit.
• 10 December 2020: Because I don't want this to be my full time job :)
• 10 December 2020: Definitely.
• 10 December 2020: Key companies seem overpriced. If that corrects, the whole market will crash because ppl are crazy.
• 10 December 2020: everything seems overpriced
• 10 December 2020: Thinking of selling all the stocks I own for a while.
• 10 December 2020: Extremely underrated insight 👇 Fork has been an important forcing function for the quality of open source projects (and closed source projects by association). Having this mechanism in money, assets and governance may turn out to be a leap of unprecedented magnitude.
• 10 December 2020: 🙏
• 10 December 2020: btc @ $1m usd
• 10 December 2020: Started reading Phil Knight's Shoe Dog. Honestly not sure why I'm reading a book on plastic shoes, but got half a dozen recommendations from trusted friends. Let's see what happens...
• 10 December 2020: Positive. Gold is $60k/kilo, hardly irrelevant!
• 10 December 2020: good but not as good sorry
• 10 December 2020: I can’t get this tweet out of my head. I had a dream about it last night. This might be the most important and enduring insight I read on Twitter in 2020.
• 10 December 2020:
• 10 December 2020: Not reinventing. Recreating!
• 10 December 2020: There are two parts— text only and abstract identities. I’m very bullish on the former. The latter is just an interesting experiment, not sure how it would work.
• 10 December 2020: Had to learn. A very painful lesson.
• 10 December 2020: I do feel for Michelle. I love NYC the way she loves SF. But I have no sympathy for cities hellbent on destroying themselves. If this were a hurricane I’d stay and work my ass off to rebuild. But I’m not sticking around when my neighbors willingly decided to walk off a cliff.
• 10 December 2020: I have zero loyalty to any structure that has zero loyalty to me. If SF wants to destroy itself out of its own stupidity, fuck ‘em. I’ll happily move to Austin or Miami or one of a dozen places that wants me and doesn’t have lobotomized residents. Enjoy the utopia you wanted!
• 10 December 2020: 👇😍
• 10 December 2020: @SteveD3 And mailing lists.
• 10 December 2020: Finished reading David McCullough's The Wright Brothers. Incredible story of quintessential American inventors. Very strong recommend. Everything feels like a 1900 version of Founders at Work-- surprisingly similar!
• 10 December 2020: Congrats @Austen!!
• 10 December 2020: Yup that’s another thing that surprised me. People actually look good in them. The reason it’s mind blowing is that there is no way on god’s good earth that I could pull it off and not feel ridiculous.
• 10 December 2020: Ok but when I was in Austin I was blown away by how many people non-ironically wear cowboy boots. It's a real thing!
• 10 December 2020: I lost a bet :( (sort of)
• 10 December 2020: If nobody is there to experience a hot woman’s heat, is she really hot?
• 10 December 2020: me neither
• 10 December 2020: In a moment of weakness I sold this tweet for $5 :(
• 10 December 2020: I agree 💯
• 10 December 2020: This isn't over, Default Friend.
• 10 December 2020: My primary’s boyfriend has been really aggressive about me wearing a cock extender during our play sessions. Anyone have any tips on keeping it from sliding off?
• 10 December 2020: Amazing, thanks for the recommendation!
• 10 December 2020:
• 10 December 2020: NYC was awesome before DeBlasio got here.
• 10 December 2020: Can you give some examples? (And possibly sources to read)
• 9 December 2020: 😂
• 9 December 2020: exactly
• 9 December 2020: Someone would be heading the company
• 9 December 2020: You can either wall it off to a small number of people, or use crypto.
• 9 December 2020: You can have chat warrooms. I think it might be good enough.
• 9 December 2020: @hashjoin me too
• 9 December 2020: Linux kernel was built this way, a project of immense complexity.
• 9 December 2020: Linux worked out ok.
• 9 December 2020: An interesting experiment would be to start a 100% remote company with no Zoom/VC. Text comms only. Use handles instead of real names. Completely abstract identity away and see what happens.
• 9 December 2020: We’re all trapped in F=ma camps :(
• 9 December 2020: F=ma
• 9 December 2020: This guy’s a nutjob. If I tweeted 1% of what I do now, Stripe would have... “encouraged” me to stop. They certainly don’t need me standing up for them, but p&j are the most reasonable people you’ll ever meet. If that’s not enough for him, best of luck to his woke utopia.
• 9 December 2020: 🙏
• 9 December 2020: 😂
• 9 December 2020: Also your comment inspired this astute cultural commentary 👇
• 9 December 2020: Wokes hate jews for the simple reason that our victimhood moat is unassailable. We're the mainframes to your fancy new macs. Every important piece of cultural technology up the stack runs on our victimhood substrate. We're too different to subsume and too entrenched to displace.
• 9 December 2020: jewish follower reporting in
• 9 December 2020: Tinder barely costs anything. They can charge $20k per marriage, which would mean they'd only need to scale up to 5k marriages to reach $100m in annual revenue. There are over 2m marriages in the US annually. If the product works, the unit economics here are insanely good.
• 9 December 2020: @ytegle @default_friend @KarapetOfTiflis @tundranaut @jtroller50 @0x49fa98 @jmrphy That's absurd-- tinder barely costs anything. They can charge ppl $20k per marriage, which would mean they'd only need scale up to 5k marriages to reach $100m in annual revenue.
• 9 December 2020: The hobble skirt-- created by Paris designer Paul Poiret after he saw Edith Berg, the first American woman to go up on an airplane, tie a rope around her skirt to avoid the wind blowing the dress up.
• 9 December 2020: I see no evidence in that tweet that she has a depth problem.
• 9 December 2020: What's wrong with that tweet? She doesn't allow things to get sloppy and runs a tight ship. This is exactly the person I want arranging my marriage.
• 9 December 2020: 😁
• 8 December 2020: wait till I use @aifdn to scale up my dumb takes
• 8 December 2020: Or worse, a liberal 😱
• 8 December 2020: I don't know as I haven't had to manage startup capital for a while, but if I raised a round now, 90% chance I'd go with Mercury.
• 8 December 2020: Boy was SV bank asleep at the wheel.
• 8 December 2020: Have you ever taken tests at ? Ppl have very different gut feelings on purity. (For example, do you believe in irreversible states? Like, if a man sleeps with a man once, he's gay forever? Some ppl feel that very strongly, others think it's ridiculous)
• 8 December 2020: It’s definitely work, but the essence of a plumber going to work to plumb every day is that it’s work; the essence of a porn star going to work to have sex with strangers every day is that she’s a whore. I like the name for a thing to reflect its essence.
• 8 December 2020: I view it regularly but would not want my daughter to grow up to be a porn star. I used to tell people who’d (correctly) point out it’s hypocritical to call the cops, but now they want to defund them all, so that’s out.
• 8 December 2020: Congrats Delian!!
• 8 December 2020: I don't understand why people are calling these high cost. It's made for consumers who drop $1k+ on headphones. If anything, these are a bargain buy.
• 8 December 2020: I feel a certain distaste for attempts to include people into things.
• 8 December 2020: Let the record reflect that I'm very sex positive within the constraints of serial monogamy. All behavior outside those constraints became normalized after I was an adult, and is therefore blasphemous.
• 8 December 2020: The word is overloaded-- it describes both behavior and commodification depending on usage. The fact that prostitutes, porn starts, and strippers are all different is the reason why "whore" exists. Not everyone is interested in discussing the finer points.
• 8 December 2020: My reading comprehension is 💯 "Sex work" is 100% sanitizing, are you kidding?!
• 8 December 2020: they clearly took my advice
• 8 December 2020: Deleted because I intended to put like three layers of obscure commentary in there that nobody will pick up on. Made it a standalone post. To answer your question, high class whores are clearly different from low class whores in various ways, but both are still whores.
• 8 December 2020: We need to stop calling whores "sex workers". Everyone knows it's a euphemism, and the whores are liable to get confused.
• 8 December 2020: A feature I desperately want in Superhuman— splitting conversations.
• 8 December 2020: .@default_friend @spiral_virus and @jmrphy are building new cultural technology 😍👇
• 8 December 2020: idk sometimes there the joy of actually doing it too
• 8 December 2020: "future"
• 8 December 2020: Breaking: Katherine Wright, Wilbur and Orville's sister, was antisemitic. We need to ground all planes until we figure out what's going on.
• 8 December 2020: Hi, you may be confused about what performance review systems are for.
• 8 December 2020: we need more evil villains
• 7 December 2020: ok but is there a fit?
• 7 December 2020: ❤️
• 7 December 2020: I love this.
• 7 December 2020: ❤️
• 7 December 2020: do you have product market fit?
• 7 December 2020: Also very curious about the results 👇
• 7 December 2020: Yup, I keep hearing this too.
• 7 December 2020: We need to sabotage one of these cities so we can have an undisputed Schelling point for the next tech hub.
• 7 December 2020: What’s the TL;DR on where they went?
• 7 December 2020: What specifically is visibly different that impresses you? Is it the lower UX latency?
• 7 December 2020: it really is
• 7 December 2020: Luther Beard, managing editor of the Dayton Journal.
• 7 December 2020: "I used to chat with them in a friendly way and was always polite to them because I felt sorry for them. They seemed like well-meaning, decent enough young men. Yet there they were, neglecting their business to waste their time day after day on that ridiculous flying machine."
• 7 December 2020: "History was being made in their bicycle shop and in their home, but the making was so obscured by the commonplace that I did not recognize it until many years later." -- Milton Wright, the nephew of Wilbur and Orville Wright, who often hung out with them as they were working.
• 7 December 2020: Part of Patrick's secret (but certainly not all of it).
• 7 December 2020: 😂
• 7 December 2020: Heh, the entire western culture needs it. Check out this if you haven’t already 👇
• 7 December 2020: Yes and yes.
• 7 December 2020: Prefer comedy over tragedy. New post.
• 7 December 2020: Me too. Every state should be a swing state.
• 7 December 2020: Your art is beautiful. And I’m not prone to complementing people on shitty art “because all art is beautiful”. When I say it, I mean it.
• 7 December 2020: I think it may not be quite as bad.
• 7 December 2020: There were many, but no one like pg.
• 7 December 2020: Of course I was right, I’m brilliant.
• 7 December 2020: It is if you believe in limited government, as I do. The danger isn't nearly high enough for the government to get involved. But I do think it's a serious cultural issue.
• 7 December 2020: The Wright brothers needed a gasoline engine for their airplane, but no manufacturer had one light and powerful enough for their needs. So their bicycle shop mechanic, Charles Taylor, made one from scratch, in six weeks, with zero prior experience building engines 🤯
• 7 December 2020: No it's more like "ohhh, I FEEL my feelings, they're all there is, this moment is all there is, I'm just going to lie down on the ground because i'm the kind of girl who lies down on the ground when she feels feelings" etc
• 7 December 2020: Having a Marilyn Monroe moment.
• 7 December 2020: why are you laying on the ground?
• 7 December 2020: wouldn't want to be known for this either
• 7 December 2020: Austen is a great role model for thinking from first principles. He makes it seem easy and fun. Great person to follow to learn how to do it. (Still not happy about single mom hairdressers flooding tech, but I’m not beneath learning from my enemies 😁)
• 7 December 2020: Gotta say, this house is pretty much the opposite of what I would build if I were a billionaire. I’d be sooooo miserable living in this thing.
• 7 December 2020: Having Twitter notifications turned on sounds psychotic.
• 7 December 2020: (a) it's a multi-year conversation; relax (b) why are you worried about making a bad impression to them? they should be worried about making a bad impression to you
• 7 December 2020: It's been brought to my attention that netflix&chill doesn't mean pot&sex as I thought it did, it just means sex.
• 7 December 2020: (I feel I should clarify: occasional Netflix and chill is great. A culture built on Netflix and chill isn't.)
• 7 December 2020: I know this is the accepted narrative, but I don't believe that.
• 7 December 2020: That's because there is a long period prior to legalization with no enforcement, so it looks like legalization makes no difference. I've read the studies, I just don't believe them. In any case, I support legalization. But as fun as netflix and chill is, it's not a good plan.
• 7 December 2020: who's masha and slava?
• 7 December 2020: Legalization will absolutely increase consumption. It would be crazy if dramatically higher availability didn't impact consumption numbers.
• 7 December 2020: 😯
• 6 December 2020: Yes of course. The real wisdom is MR’s “average is over”.
• 6 December 2020: Power law, exhibit one. Don’t be second best.
• 6 December 2020: I agree it’s a much better plan than coping with opioids. But it’s still not a super good plan.
• 6 December 2020: That’s true, and I’ll gladly take half a loaf of bread.
• 6 December 2020: Marijuana legalization seems like a no-brainer, but I gotta say, half the country being high half the time to cope doesn’t sound like a super good plan.
• 6 December 2020: Must you shoot a dead body?
• 6 December 2020: I lost this exchange :(
• 6 December 2020: That was back when it cost $5 per semester, though.
• 6 December 2020: There is no context switching, no one listens to what they are saying.
• 6 December 2020: This tweet is bad for climate change, it takes extra energy for people to parse 😁
• 6 December 2020: If you're just founding, all we have is a strong hypothesis.
• 6 December 2020:
• 6 December 2020: ooph, tough but fair!
• 6 December 2020: Too much Expanse?
• 6 December 2020: But I’m a cartoon person!!
• 6 December 2020: love it
• 6 December 2020: There are two types of people— those who can tell the difference between front office and back office (real decisions vs bureaucratic process), and those who can’t.
• 6 December 2020: True :(
• 6 December 2020: Don’t do the anon bullshit. Reply to the thing!!
• 6 December 2020: ...
• 6 December 2020: ...
• 5 December 2020: Thanks! (Idk why but Japanese is like catnip for me every time I run into it)
• 5 December 2020: Thanks, I might give it a shot again!
• 5 December 2020: How does the vocab work? Is knowing the kanji insufficient to gather the meaning?
• 5 December 2020: How far in are you (which level) and how long have you been doing it?
• 5 December 2020: Damn, hour+ daily is a substantial commitment.
• 5 December 2020: Your contract is still up. Don’t mess with me, Default Friend.
• 5 December 2020: What’s the average amount of time you’d have to spend on it daily if you’re diligent (ie don’t skip days)? Also, did they add an option where you can skip a few days and not be inundated by hundreds of cards?
• 5 December 2020: How is WaniKani working for you? Recommend?
• 5 December 2020: 😍
• 5 December 2020: The specific issue on the video is a state and municipal matter, not a federal matter.
• 5 December 2020: Randomizing lets you build up a clear picture with fewer samples.
• 5 December 2020: This seems actually doable!
• 5 December 2020: This is why the commies are wrong, the invisible hand is everywhere!
• 5 December 2020: You've lost all credibility once you caved to liberal elites and joined the fake news media.
• 5 December 2020: We're like three messages down the thread, nobody is going to read that far. (is meta gaming ok?)
• 5 December 2020: Default Friend has always been terrible & unfair, just like most of the Fake News substack writers, but I’ll still play the game. The people know! How’s your loose vagina doing?
• 5 December 2020: jesus people use metal for this?! 😲
• 5 December 2020: May be some of you are being too open about your life on Twitter 🤔
• 5 December 2020: indeed
• 5 December 2020: I'll get you back when you least expect it, Default Friend.
• 5 December 2020: Only if it's @micsolana.
• 5 December 2020: he's right it's a hard limit
• 5 December 2020: I love cuddles but hate being touched by strangers. Also, it doesn't help that everyone who's into cuddle puddles voted for Biden.
• 5 December 2020:
• 5 December 2020: I'm similar-- one thing I always have time to talk shit about is flying pigs.
• 5 December 2020: Millions of people are getting hurt. Watch the video with sound on 👇
• 4 December 2020: According to the bio I’m reading they looked like extremely enterprising cranks to common people. Scientists took them a little more seriously.
• 4 December 2020: 😂
• 4 December 2020: "Not in a thousand years would man ever fly." -- Wilbur Wright, completely demoralized after months of failed experiments.
• 4 December 2020: This is promising!
• 4 December 2020: You installed one at your house?
• 4 December 2020: What would be a good way to build an htop and/or perf for your brain (with current tech)?
• 4 December 2020: show your abs to compare P.S. amazing!
• 4 December 2020: more on the process of doing it plz!
• 4 December 2020: Locally, in this isolated case, you're right. But if everyone says what they don't mean culture turns into a nightmare. It's the opposite of hurt pride-- he cares more about his legacy than about honesty.
• 4 December 2020: That doesn't negate that it's insane to apologize for retweeting that tweet.
• 4 December 2020: It's insane to apologize for retweeting below: "My gratitude goes out to men and women of law enforcement who risk their lives to serve & protect ALL of their citizens fairly. Police brutality against people of color is a widespread crisis, but it is not universal".
• 4 December 2020: Sonya this is excellent.
• 4 December 2020: 😍
• 4 December 2020: Must balance these things. Two weeks of neoliberal catnip (insightful charts on covid deaths or global warming or smtg), lull them into complacency, and then BOOM, slay a woke cow. If you just kill cows all day, nobody cares.
• 3 December 2020: They always had their sister around, don't know if that counts.
• 3 December 2020: A really short and thought provoking read. Very strong recommend 👇
• 3 December 2020: Thanks for linking. This post is excellent.
• 3 December 2020: The David McCullough one.
• 3 December 2020: The Wright bros bio is crazy. Just 100 years ago- no indoor plumbing or heating, everyone nearly dies from typhoid, Wilbur has a multiyear depression from face injury, getting materials basically impossible, live for months in a tent at Kitty Hawk in brutal cold and heat, etc.
• 3 December 2020: How well do you understand what you want?
• 3 December 2020: is the book good?
• 3 December 2020: This is amazing strong recommend 👇
• 3 December 2020: Mothers, hide your daughters, silicon valley’s foremost misogynist is here!!
• 3 December 2020: Anecdotally it does seem to be true that people tend to have more fulfilling sexual relationships with partners who are shitty in other areas of life. I wonder if there is literature on this with good data.
• 3 December 2020: source?
• 3 December 2020: Can't shake the feeling that 2020 isn't a weird year but a weird decade.
• 3 December 2020: Great coding music too, I think!
• 3 December 2020: Just tweet whatever comes to mind, sooner or later you'll make someone offended enough to elevate it.
• 3 December 2020: Ilhan clearly hasn't seen GMU's Hayek vs Keynes rap battle 👇
• 3 December 2020: the struggle is real
• 3 December 2020: with hard work and determination, anything is possible!
• 3 December 2020: oh :(
• 3 December 2020: P.S. @dalanmiller you can denounce me or express support for denouncing me any time. I’ll even amplify it. You’re legitimately an angel.
• 3 December 2020: Hi Daniel and @mglukhovsky. I do not express views or endorse policies on Twitter. What you see here are momentary glimpses into my id. I’ve glimpsed your ids; moral indignation from you is laughable and publicly denouncing me on this issue is hypocritical for obvious reasons.
• 2 December 2020: It's because you have a political science degree, not because you're a woman. Get through Cormen & Leiserson and your life will get 100x easier. You can keep your vagina and everything.
• 2 December 2020: don't know how ppl live without a sense of humor, that sounds awful
• 2 December 2020: Ok, wasn't gonna retweet these anymore, but this one's really good. The kids are alright! 👏👇
• 2 December 2020: Jason is the real prince ☝
• 2 December 2020: it's a process
• 2 December 2020: 😍
• 2 December 2020: I'll totally retweet good memes of this, but not when you take a really good one, and make a worse derivative.
• 2 December 2020: Very easy online though!
• 2 December 2020: Not sure if this was the case, but keep in mind that some of these people are actually bots.
• 2 December 2020: Congrats @amasad, that's amazing progress!
• 2 December 2020: All the Go players:
• 2 December 2020: 😉
• 2 December 2020: 😂
• 2 December 2020: happy birthday!
• 2 December 2020: stop thinking of yourself as a minority
• 2 December 2020: @taylorlorenz @MikeIsaac you should vote!
• 2 December 2020: the ultimate supervillain showdown 👇
• 2 December 2020: can one steal memes?
• 2 December 2020: this is top notch work! 👏📈👍
• 2 December 2020: obligatory
• 2 December 2020: A mind virus that incapacitates sense of humor 🧠🦠
• 2 December 2020: You’d use your own mother as collateral if you could get into a hot deal.
• 1 December 2020: welcome
• 1 December 2020: it's ok, I have alts
• 1 December 2020: Thank you. I aspire to this level of mastery.
• 1 December 2020: The memes are top notch 💯👍😂
• 1 December 2020: i'm a fan of yours. Got a screenshot in time, one sec
• 1 December 2020: The memes are 💯👍😂
• 1 December 2020: Also I personally think I'm on the right side of the line between misogyny and irreverence/sarcasm. If someone disagrees, that's fine, they have that prerogative. I don't expect everyone (or even most ppl) to get my sense of humor.
• 1 December 2020: I didn't harass anyone despite what the vultures may want to fabricate. If I have regrets about how I treat ppl, I make it right with them. If some randos on twitter don't like something, then, well, fuck 'em. I can sleep at night fine, that's all I care about.
• 1 December 2020: The greatest legacy is honesty. I am what I am and I do what I do. So long as I can sleep at night, I don't care how ppl see my bio. No one is really thinking about it anyway.
• 1 December 2020: art can never go too far
• 1 December 2020: Bay Area tech startups should get their engineers an @OnlyFans subscription as a free perk.
• 1 December 2020: 🤔
• 1 December 2020: NYT company has a different take though. Who's right? 🤔
• 1 December 2020: in your case, yes probably
• 1 December 2020: you guys this is a town square you can just ask me
• 1 December 2020: 😂
• 1 December 2020: math doesn't care about their pronouns
• 1 December 2020: Hot girls are our sacred cows. (h/t @fake_knews)
• 1 December 2020: this is kinda hot
• 1 December 2020: don't overthink it, model it as a virus that infects ppl and changes their behavior
• 1 December 2020: ok you have two options: disavow me completely, or tell them to fuck off. They're zombies basically, you can't change their mind and more than you can convince zombies to stop eating brains. (I'd be ok with both options, I won't hold it against you)
• 1 December 2020: link?
• 1 December 2020: you can't confiscate math
• 1 December 2020: I was successful in expectation!
• 1 December 2020: Roses are red Violets are blue Crypto will create an economy Not subject to you
• 1 December 2020: Your DMs are closed Chelsea.
• 1 December 2020: Employment discrimination laws for small businesses make zero sense. You don't see black ppl working at chinese restaurants or chinese ppl working at black barbershops for a very good reason.
• 1 December 2020: if it helps, I was a fluke
• 1 December 2020: there are much worse things than a harmed career
• 1 December 2020: Said the man who invented UML diagrams 😂
• 1 December 2020: I am also not sure I agree with my position here (but that's true about most of what I say)
• 1 December 2020: yeah idk what's going on, I think twitter algorithms are malfunctioning
• 1 December 2020: I didn’t realize it was unacceptable to talk about hot girls. I apologize. Lol, just kidding, next time I’ll imitate @TaylorLorenz and post about big naturals.
• 1 December 2020: can confirm, that's good advice, don't do it!
• 1 December 2020: get rid of that hideous green sweater and you just might be
• 1 December 2020: doubt it
• 1 December 2020: Was going to build a title VII case against you, but you did all the work for me tbh
• 1 December 2020: That's all 1->n shit. 0->1 shit is more like starting a band. You don't create magic by diversifying, setting standards enforced by managers and being professional.
• 1 December 2020: begin at the beginning!
• 1 December 2020: I don't blame a stone for rippling water, that would be a category error.
• 1 December 2020: Sex is one of the most powerful forces on earth, and adding a flirty hot girl to a team of young male engineers is like throwing in a thermonuclear bomb. I'm not the crazy one here, it's everyone else who's pretending this doesn't exist.
• 1 December 2020: disagree with your first boo, begrudgingly agree with your second
• 1 December 2020: Is there some sort of penalty box I can voluntarily check myself into?
• 1 December 2020: Oh no I'm getting mean messages on twitter whatever shall I do!
• 1 December 2020: hmm just had to refollow you. It really sucks that twitter drops follows like this, wtf.
• 1 December 2020: discrimination laws don't apply to tiny companies (by design)
• 1 December 2020: that's fair, we all make mistakes :-D
• 1 December 2020: adorbs
• 1 December 2020: oh :(
• 1 December 2020: @webdevMason @sonyasupposedly @Daniel__Thunder me too sonya's the best
• 1 December 2020: Fuck that. That's the cowardly bullshit that led to all these vultures getting as much power as they did. If everyone just stood up under their real name, we wouldn't be here in the first place.
• 30 November 2020: I don’t actually think about how tweets will be received before I tweet them (you probably knew that 😂)
• 30 November 2020: I don't have a soundcloud, but while you're here-- IQ is real, bio sex is real, 0wn the libs, Hayek/Friedman ftw, 4 more years for DJT
• 30 November 2020: yeah for sure
• 30 November 2020: because ppl don't control falling in love
• 30 November 2020: qualified
• 30 November 2020: so long as it's channeled into shipping, I'm game!
• 30 November 2020: do I get a prize?
• 30 November 2020: no, I hired a hot girl and then fell in love with her, so this is definitely not the reason
• 30 November 2020: this is definitely not the reason, speaking from experience
• 30 November 2020: Wrong. Small startups are not equal opportunity employers.
• 30 November 2020: oh no
• 30 November 2020: You mean easier in a sense that a high value female hire is less likely to wreck group dynamics?
• 30 November 2020: yup, definitely think it's way less important (if at all) in the remote world
• 30 November 2020: i do curse a lot, trying to do less of that
• 30 November 2020: (Post product/market fit the equation changes obviously, let them enjoy office sex!)
• 30 November 2020: which part?
• 30 November 2020: That too, but you abso-freaking-lutely have to account for sexuality when building small teams. It's an insanely powerful force and it doesn't care if you pretend it doesn't exist.
• 30 November 2020: I was gonna qualify but it would have made the tweet less pithy. This largely applies to low value roles, not worth the hassle IMO. For high value roles, only hire if you're willing to fire if she wrecks group dynamics.
• 30 November 2020: You'd think that, until your 24y/o horny engineers fall over each other to get her to like them and ship shit half as fast. (Probably much less relevant in the remote era, though)
• 30 November 2020: Gotta weigh it with how much her presence wrecks engineering productivity. If she's smart, she'll use her hotness to get engineers to compete on how fast they get features in. In which case she gets a raise.
• 30 November 2020: In some contexts, definitely serious. Re original tweet-- if you hire a hot young office manager, best of luck getting your engineers to focus on the company's mission.
• 30 November 2020: omg this fucking app is insane about race. Sometimes I think I've gone mad-- I still hold the antiquated belief that you shouldn't treat ppl based on their skin. Future thanksgivings will be so weird. "Mom, the weird old non-racist uncle is saying non-racist things again!"
• 30 November 2020: this is bad advice
• 30 November 2020: Startup advice: don't hire a hot young girl before you find product market fit.
• 30 November 2020: Hope you feel better. Let us know if you figure out what it is.
• 30 November 2020: Kinda both. All my immigrant normie friends who have kids + still have a community due to their immigrantness are doing great. So if you can reprogram yourself back into that world somehow, you'll probably feel fine again. If not, well then, welcome to modernity.
• 30 November 2020: Have children. In the absence of that, SSRIs.
• 30 November 2020: never been :(
• 30 November 2020: Didn't mean to be patronizing. I'll try to carve out some time and listen to that link, thx!
• 30 November 2020: I don't of course. The only thing I can say is that it's been replicated by different researchers from different cultures in different cultures over a long period of time.
• 30 November 2020: happy birthday!
• 30 November 2020: I'd strongly encourage you to read the literature on it. It's legitimately fascinating. The TL;DR is that some people have more of everything we want, and some people have less because nature is a bitch and life isn't fair. It's pretty gloomy stuff.
• 30 November 2020: The thing that's super surprising about it is that you can invent lots of different ways to measure intelligence, and they all strongly correlate. They also correlate with height, attractiveness, health, and lots of good stuff we all want. It's quite shocking actually.
• 30 November 2020: It's an experimental result, not axiomatic. We tested a bunch of these things across cultures and it appears they (a) strongly correlate, and (b) are normally distributed. So working memory correlates with speed correlates with spatial awareness, etc. and follows the bell curve.
• 30 November 2020: It can’t be taught. People have tried it on super remote uncivilized tribes in Africa and South America and it still works. It just needs a tiny amount of adaptation for those societies.
• 30 November 2020: Please find a way.
• 30 November 2020: Thanks for building it!
• 30 November 2020: Good morning. Hope everyone has a great week! If you’re a founder, angel investor, scientist, inventor, early employee— thank you for moving humanity forward! If things are tough, especially if things are tough, know that we’re all rooting for you!
• 30 November 2020: This is one of the few areas of psychology that actually replicates. We can redo the analysis (and people have, many times) but this area is really well established. Id love to disrupt it and make everyone smarter. That would be amazing.
• 30 November 2020: It was defined that way because when people tested components of g (speed, working memory, etc) in population samples they observed results to be normally distributed (similarly how we observe human height to be normally distributed).
• 30 November 2020: The explanation is horrendous liberal policies that replaced kinship and community trust networks with dependence on the state.
• 30 November 2020: What is your explanation for why black-on-black crime was non-existent in the 1960s but is an epidemic now, all while overall crime rates dropped dramatically. Have the institutions gotten more systemically racist?
• 30 November 2020: Outcomes are subject to power law, not bell curve. Bell curve is an appropriate model for human talent; lots of evidence for that (eg IQ is literally defined as a bell curve). Agree re your third point.
• 30 November 2020: Fuck off.
• 30 November 2020: 👇
• 30 November 2020: I don’t know what to tell you, you seem conservative 99% of the time, and then expose a hardcore liberal belief.
• 30 November 2020: People in a relationship with an addict or someone with a mental illness know you can pour all your love, energy and resources into them for years, and it won’t make an iota of a difference. If a loving partner can’t help, what makes you think a government bureaucrat can?
• 30 November 2020: Yup. You have a hard conservative shell. Or at least a convincing costume.
• 30 November 2020: Also omg! I’ve been following you this whole time and until now I didn’t realize you’re basically a liberal deep inside. Like, you believe the government can make shitty families less shitty. Hi! 👋
• 30 November 2020: I agree that getting dealt this hand fucking sucks. But I’ve seen no empirical evidence the government is capable of helping people in these circumstances. “Institutional support” is exactly what destroyed black families and communities, for example.
• 30 November 2020: It is a continuum of nearly infinite resolution. It isn't a binary thing. Making being disadvantaged an identity pretty much dooms people to failure, IMO.
• 30 November 2020: It’s tempting to be polite and acquiesce, but this doesn’t seem right to me. Can you give a few examples of these limiting factors? (Not that they don’t exist; my argument is that most people who complain do it because we told them to, not because they have real limitations)
• 30 November 2020: Respectfully, if you’re in America and you have your health, the whole notion of being disadvantaged is ludicrous. The only reason this abstraction is real is because we keep repeating it so people keep buying into it. (If you don’t have your health, different story)
• 30 November 2020: Idk, all this smells of external locus of control to me. The more we perpetuate it, the more it becomes reality. People should be taught that they're in control of huge parts of their lives, because for the most part they are.
• 30 November 2020: If you assume a bell curve (which seems reasonable), most people will pull themselves up ok, some will do a really good job, and some will just fail. So it might be a lie for some people, but it's generally true for most IMO. Very few people can't adopt this philosophy.
• 30 November 2020: But like, it's actually bullshit. Wikipedia says median number of male partners reported by US women is four (I saw similar numbers in other surveys). Hardly a cock carousel. And ugliness is symmetric across genders. Dating is a market. The whole thing is nonsense on stilts.
• 30 November 2020: yes
• 30 November 2020: Lifting yourself up by the bootstraps is most definitely not a lie. Telling people it's a lie is a lie.
• 30 November 2020: It's unconvincing on so many levels! It tells me I can never get laid so don't even try. That's strike one. Women are evil something something cock carousel something, which is objectively false. Strike two. Third, they're all super unhappy. No thanks. I'll try anything else.
• 29 November 2020: Try ordering them now.
• 29 November 2020: also Kleiner Perkins environmental fund
• 29 November 2020: it's not the biggest, but there is Color
• 29 November 2020: Yes, but you can generally sense the general direction of an ideology.
• 29 November 2020: It's interesting that many of these invariants are very strongly correlated. You just need two or three, and you will have implicitly gotten all the others.
• 29 November 2020: Agree. This one is embarrassing almost.
• 29 November 2020: I have a small set of invariants that allow me to reject any political philosophy without further study or consideration. Here is one: a political philosophy shall not incentivize able bodied men and women to live at other people’s expense.
• 29 November 2020: hmm
• 29 November 2020: They're all already doing this anyway. Their bias is wokism.
• 29 November 2020: Anything you want. We want many startups, each with a homogenous and unique culture. Not many startups with a bias-free culture, but all the same.
• 29 November 2020: I mean that we're already seeing post-Christian religions develop at different scales (environmentalism, wokism, scientology, effective altruism, AI apocalypse, etc.) Unlikely the only stable solution is nihilism.
• 29 November 2020: Early stage startups should do hiring in exactly the opposite of conventional wisdom-- by accruing biases rather than eliminating them.
• 29 November 2020: Considering that some non-trivial number of people seriously panicked about Roko’s Basilisk, this sounds unlikely. These things just take centuries.
• 29 November 2020: Lorena, have you ever heard Thomas Sowell speak? Would you consider listening to a few of his talks and share what you think about them?
• 28 November 2020: Not sure. I prefer being on the second floor. That’s my thing.
• 28 November 2020: Totally agree with Preethi. High rises make me feel awful. And I grew up in NYC.
• 28 November 2020: Maybe. If we did that all along, The Godfather wouldn't exist. It's hard to weigh these things.
• 28 November 2020: Idk how your value system works, but this would make me over the top happy.
• 28 November 2020: I think they gave you something up front, rest as a percentage of the settlement. You’re probably thinking of the sign on “bonus”.
• 28 November 2020: I only skimmed but the tone/feel and general facts seem accurate. I do think addon charges (extortion, links to old world Russian corps) are probably invented by overzealous prosecutors, but I’m not sure.
• 28 November 2020: It was definitely not $2-3k per person, that wouldn’t have been worth it. Re TV ads— yes, I mean personal injury ads, except much more blatant.
• 28 November 2020: I was personally surrounded by this (mostly word of mouth). Constantly getting recruited to get into accidents and make money (I never did). I don’t know if anyone wrote about this, but it’s worth a book for sure. It was an insane time.
• 28 November 2020: This gold rush lasted from ~1992 to ~2000. About a decade, give or take. News were that insurance co losses were in the billions. Good times for all. (Please stay tuned for part II next week -- the wonders of large scale medicaid fraud) 11/11
• 28 November 2020: Eventually the way insurance cos pull it off is that they give large contracts to russian immigrant PI companies. They compensate per hour + upon producing evidence of fraud. That's what unravels the whole thing. The invisible hand strikes again. 10/11
• 28 November 2020: Word around the grapevine is that there is a crackdown. But the biz doesn't slow down at all. End user would get $20-30k/accident. Lawyers/doctors would probably split as much. That's really good unit economics to shut it all down. 9/11
• 28 November 2020: The insurance cos realize something's wrong. They're bleeding money in a small area of Brooklyn. They get investigators on the case. But now what? Everyone is Russian. Lawyers/doctors/limo cos all know each other. The "customers" don't speak any english. 8/11
• 28 November 2020: Eventually it got really out of control. Dozens upon dozens of offices, competing with each other on experience and price. They also get Russian limo companies in the game. Rent two limos, fill them with 16 ppl each, crash them into each other. Boom. 32 clients. 7/11
• 28 November 2020: But they need clients. So they start advertising it on local russian TV and radio stations. Because the ads are in russian, they pretty much tell you how the thing works straight up. Trust and language barriers provide plausible deniability. 6/11
• 28 November 2020: By then there were enough russian lawyers and doctors. They start building law/medical offices dedicated to accident insurance. The lawyers deal with court cases, the doctors provide necessary paperwork and fake the evidence. Vertical integration means more $$$$. 5/11
• 28 November 2020: But of course they had to deal with lots of American middle men-- doctors, accident lawyers, etc. That's a lot of money on the table. Why not cut the middlemen out and take all that money themselves? So they start building out the fraud infrastructure. 4/11
• 28 November 2020: All right. So they figure out that if you get into a car accident, you can claim pain and it's impossible to medically verify. They start doing that. Fake light fender benders, claim pain, six months later get a settlement. 3/11
• 28 November 2020: First, something people don't realize-- immigrant communities have higher levels of trust within than they do with the host. People will trust criminals in their own community more than they trust local institutions. Language and cultural barriers play a huge role. 2/11
• 28 November 2020: In the 1990s the Russian immigrant community in NYC grew by orders of magnitude. One thing the newly imported entrepreneurs quickly figured out is that America is extremely vulnerable to large scale fraud in almost every sphere of life. Story time! 👇 1/11
• 26 November 2020: I really envy minority founders. I got every door slammed in my face hundreds of times because I sucked, but had nothing to blame it on. Not only am I not black, I’m not even a woman :(
• 26 November 2020: :-D
• 26 November 2020: listen to your gf
• 26 November 2020: Who’s intimidating whom?
• 26 November 2020: Exactly
• 26 November 2020: This is like an abusive relationship where your spouse is doing horrible shit to you, and the moment you say no, accuses you of breaking the agreement. NYT broke the agreement long ago when they switched to their fake racism extortion business model. Face the consequences now.
• 26 November 2020: Enjoy the cafeteria though, that’s the good part!
• 26 November 2020: Like syscalls? 😂
• 26 November 2020: Best of all worlds!
• 26 November 2020: me too
• 26 November 2020: Mike’s mind is blown (whether he knows it or not) because this norms violation on the part of Coinbase is symbolic. Nobody cares about the New York Times company’s rules anymore. They’re just another BuzzFeed now, but in denial about it.
• 26 November 2020: You still do. There is pressure on your customers not to work with “racist” vendors.
• 26 November 2020: Me too. Not a hyperbole. I had to completely re-evaluate how I see people (and Americans in particular). Extremely disillusioned by this, I really thought America is different.
• 26 November 2020: It’s about influence, not money.
• 26 November 2020: If I can help it, I will never get myself into a situation where I consistently have to think one thing, and say/do another. So I’d be at $1B. Of course the hope is that I could fight my way through it.
• 26 November 2020: But you want to be in the game.
• 26 November 2020: Unfortunately by the time you get to $100B, you will have compromised all the fire away. Unless you’re Elon.
• 26 November 2020: You can have (i) a $10B company, but you gotta put up with PR bullshit like woke NYT hit pieces or (ii) a $1B company but you get to tell everyone to fuck off. What do you do?
• 26 November 2020: I do for the best ones, but I miss a lot because can't copy paste. Sorry for being passive aggressive about it! :)
• 26 November 2020: Your quote tweets are great but they’d be soooo much better with sources 😅
• 26 November 2020: Source?
• 26 November 2020: I’m more of a PC person so I have no idea, but some friends are ready to hold Walmart and Sony leadership hostage over this launch :)
• 26 November 2020: When apple is short, they take your order and ship first come first serve. Dramatically better experience.
• 26 November 2020: Sony’s PS 5 launch is back in stone ages. Massive shortages. Holidays coming and no one can buy it. Retailers like Walmart are dominated by bots that snipe the stock the moment it appears. There is no order queue. It’s unimaginable for e.g. Apple to have this launch experience.
• 25 November 2020: Thanks this is cool!
• 25 November 2020: I meant left wing populists.
• 25 November 2020: All the “so just like ‘economics’ in the west” comments made me feel incredibly sad about the education system. Like, how did we produce so many people who have no intuition for reality whatsoever?!
• 25 November 2020: Also there will be others. A new AOC can show up tomorrow.
• 25 November 2020: Bernie will just die. I don’t know how to combat AOC. If her past is clean (and probably even if not), she’s unassailable.
• 25 November 2020: I disagree here. It’s accepted among the establishment but not the populist wing (which draws power from sources the establishment can’t kneecap). The nutjobs aren’t going away.
• 25 November 2020: I know what you mean. But the idea that the elites are “caretakers of American decline” and stance on China is all Trump/Bannon. The change seems subtle but it’s there. And the implications are immense.
• 25 November 2020: Kinda blown away how every mainstream politician is now running on Trump’s program and nobody seems to notice.
• 25 November 2020: Trump changed US politics forever. Marco Rubio — “no more American decline!” Joe Biden — “it will all be made in America!” They’re all running on Trump’s program now.
• 25 November 2020: Thanks for keeping me honest!
• 25 November 2020: Usually it’s telling me, for a millionth time, that neuroticism is heritable and that I need more xanax.
• 25 November 2020: 😂
• 25 November 2020: !!!
• 25 November 2020: 😍
• 25 November 2020: This is embarrassing but with convex and concave, I can never tell which is which. I have to look it up every time.
• 25 November 2020: Throwing spaghetti at the wall is the winner IMO!
• 25 November 2020: Ok I declare this the winner. It resembles the spirit of the Russian one 100% IMO. It’s perfect.
• 25 November 2020: Hmm what’s the difference between convex and concave tinkering?
• 25 November 2020: We definitely need more trying random shit and less box checking in labs/unis. I was talking more about people trying random shit but claiming hard facts. Politicians and bureaucrats do that way too much.
• 25 November 2020: I still find him funny. As for the rest, I was ok with the asymmetry before people started burning buildings and making employees sit through white fragility seminars. I’m not ok with it anymore.
• 25 November 2020: You’re stating it as fact, but a huge number of perfectly kind and reasonable people don’t hold that view. (I do agree with the “proud” thing, but that’s because in that context “black” means ppl with shared suffering and “white” means skin color.)
• 25 November 2020: I did. Imagine a white comic giving an equivalent performance but inverting the jokes (70% making fun of black ppl, then giving holier than thou conservative talking points). He’d be ripped apart. Dave is celebrated because he’s picking on the correct demographic.
• 25 November 2020: In 50 years his comedy specials will seem insane. They’re like 70% making extremely racist jokes about white ppl (which I’m cool with) followed by holier than thou social commentary (which I’m not). He’s extremely talented so ppl don’t notice, but he’s basically a racist asshole.
• 25 November 2020: I should have said selectively woke (ie only when it suits him)
• 25 November 2020: A woke Mark Twain.
• 25 November 2020: Yup, can find a bunch of references in Russian. This is not exactly right, but this might be a reasonable seed: .
• 25 November 2020: Yeah, it’s surprising that people would go during the roaring twenties, but I think they were basically all idealists. It wasn’t a matter of economic opportunities. I’ll Google around in Russian to see if I can find anything.
• 25 November 2020: Not sure. I learned about this growing up from various "received view" sources.
• 25 November 2020: a fuckton of ppl, apparently
• 25 November 2020: Gonna read skunk works and idea makers. Thanks! (already read the others, great recs)
• 25 November 2020: This suggests a solution to the current predicament. Buy a piece of land from a few states. Grant it special status (like DC). Start a credible communist project there. All the commies will move. Once they start the gulags, move in, clean it up, and dissolve the whole thing ∎
• 25 November 2020: Fun fact: in the 1920s thousands of idealistic American communists moved to the Soviet Union to help build their utopia. Eventually they were accused of being bourgeois spies and sent to the gulags, where they were tortured and killed.
• 25 November 2020: 💯😔👇
• 24 November 2020: The best! 😂
• 24 November 2020: Методом научного тыка.
• 24 November 2020: There is a Russian phrase that roughly translates to “method of scientific poking.” It means trying random shit, but under the guise of scientific terminology and credentials. We need a pithy phrase for it in English because that’s been going on a lot.
• 24 November 2020: Very cool, hope people find it useful! If you’re ok with it, I’ll link to it from the post (can’t right now, but in a few hours)
• 24 November 2020: Trust the one that doesn’t have the word “science” in it. Easy peasy.
• 24 November 2020: Big question whether we stay together or split up. I don’t see how we can do the former without coercion, but who knows.
• 24 November 2020: We can deal with cloud vs on-prem debate once we figure out the uploading part!
• 24 November 2020: Tech optimist vs transhumanist is mushrooms vs cocaine. I’m with team cocaine. We can always clean up the oceans and sing kumbaya once we figure out how to upload to the metaverse.
• 24 November 2020: I never got to season 7, but great reference!
• 24 November 2020: Me. Also, you’re in way too deep.
• 24 November 2020: User feedback is great for refinement.
• 23 November 2020: Definitely agree. Though I think many people can’t reach flow at all anymore because of hyper stimulus.
• 23 November 2020: Because that’s how Fortune 500 CEOs think. About half of that way of thinking is extremely useful. Just don’t be 100% constrained by it.
• 23 November 2020: Thank you. Now power down your phone!!
• 23 November 2020: Completely agree.
• 23 November 2020: The greatest legacy is honesty.
• 23 November 2020: The Bay Area has been an uneasy collaboration between the underdogs, the 1%, and the neo-bourgeoisie for a long, long time. Arguably that’s what makes it work. I mean, have you spoken with a median Google or Facebook employee? :)
• 23 November 2020: I think physical rituals/spaces really matter. In a cafe there are no distractions from anyone you know. I left my phone at home. I never really went to cafes to browse the internet, so it set me in a “working” state. That’s why different physical laptops also work.
• 23 November 2020: You need to read 👇
• 23 November 2020: Since about a month into the start of the pandemic. I started because I couldn’t go to a cafe, and kept getting distracted at home.
• 23 November 2020: Productivity advice. New post.
• 23 November 2020: I see your rosy fingered Dawn and raise you wine dark sea!
• 23 November 2020: Gotta say though, if I read about some slave girl washing someone’s feet in olive oil ONE MORE GODDAMNED TIME, imma blow a gasket. And I say that as a huge fan of ancient warrior/hero epics.
• 22 November 2020: Ok but linear programming is math.
• 22 November 2020: I am not saying it’s valid or useful (obviously). I’m saying the people doing it we’re much smarter.
• 22 November 2020: And still none of those people have the chops to get through Rudin.
• 22 November 2020: The idea that one needs to find a good family spot “where it’s safe” is precisely why people are leaving. It should be safe almost everywhere. (Well it should be safe everywhere but let’s not shoot for the stars here)
• 22 November 2020: People comparing this to modern economics have no idea.
• 22 November 2020: I’m sure they exist, but I haven’t.
• 22 November 2020: I don’t think it’s entirely fair. They paved the way and inspired generations. They still build incredible tech (we have satellites orbiting Mars!) They’re at the mercy of politicians that see at most 6-8 years out. I agree roughly, but you’re being too harsh IMO.
• 21 November 2020: What do you think are the biggest trends (beyond remote work)?
• 21 November 2020: Can tell from experience: climbing out of that abyss is worse than your worst nightmare. But reminding people about it all the time is sociopathic. Fingers crossed their ground will never crack. And if it does, they’ll cross that bridge when they get there.
• 21 November 2020: We’re starting to get a lot of ideological constraints too.
• 21 November 2020: Here is why this cartoon is stupid and you shouldn’t let the diversity mania infect your life: the green and blue shirts will lose money, and probably the yellow shirt too. The market doesn’t care about your bigotry or your virtue.
• 21 November 2020: ahhh
• 21 November 2020: He said “every American”.
• 21 November 2020: I don’t follow :(
• 21 November 2020: No, communist economics was at least plausible on the face of it, and you had to pass analysis to do it.
• 21 November 2020: Little known fact. The Soviets had an academic discipline called “communist economics”. With textbooks, complicated formulas, PhDs, papers, new discoveries, peer review, well funded departments, grad students. The whole shebang. Except it was all bullshit.
• 21 November 2020: Why stop when the crisis is over?
• 21 November 2020: Everyone who liked this tweet is now on AOC’s shit list.
• 21 November 2020: "Eastern European turned western colonizer scum" is a t-shirt I'd probably buy and wear.
• 21 November 2020: Ah yes if course, white universalism. I completely forgot of thousands to millions of Cambodians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cubans, and Ethiopians, among others, murdered under communist regimes. Silly me with my white privilege.
• 21 November 2020: My own view is that this is precisely why we have courts of law, and that internet mobs aren't the proper venue for verdicts. But if I for some reason had to choose with the information I have now, I'd give him a slap on the wrist for being an idiot and send him home.
• 21 November 2020: I know what you mean. But the center left view is that if you show up in a different neighborhood, to a riot, with a firearm, and shit happens, it’s kind of on you. You can disagree with it, but I think it’s a reasonable view to hold. The attackers weren’t on his front porch.
• 21 November 2020: Ah yes if only Stalin didn’t tarnish the good name of communism.
• 21 November 2020: This seems like negligent manslaughter to me. More likely than self defense because he kinda came looking for a fight. But nuanced enough that I can see it argued both ways. Race-motivated murder seems like an entirely fabricated narrative, though.
• 21 November 2020: 1. Build a new social media platform based on voice 2. Show people rooms with people they follow 3. Get accused of segregationism and white supremacy 4. Change the algorithm to show rooms with a bunch of randos 5. ...?! It's like CH is trying to commit suicide.
• 21 November 2020: Would it be legal to explicitly exclude people from a city? Like a city with admissions requirements? (I know you could implicitly disincentive them, but if the answer to the former is in the affirmative, it opens up all sorts of possibilities)
• 21 November 2020: Always has been to have a fuck ton of babies, not the middle america part :-D
• 21 November 2020: Probably the right play rn is to move to some nondescript suburb in middle America where they put people in witness protection program, and have a fuckton of babies.
• 21 November 2020: I thought that after I posted it :)
• 21 November 2020:
• 20 November 2020: We get nervous because we don’t want America to become Venezuela. Commies interpret it as “they’re nervous because they’re losing power”. Yes, but I’m also losing power every time Bezos gets richer. I’m not nervous about that because his plan isn’t to destroy the known universe.
• 20 November 2020: Dude, there is no way a linter for diversity speak is a good idea. That’s an opinion you arrive at through tyranny of small compromises.
• 20 November 2020: TBH I'm not sure how much it matters. It also correlates with Google getting big. Big cos already have thousands of processes slowing down high performers. So now it will be one thousand and one.
• 20 November 2020: And mistresses. Let's not be sexist here.
• 20 November 2020: I think that's what the document illustrates (wrongthink turns red).
• 20 November 2020: it's alarming to me
• 20 November 2020: From an Amazon whistleblower. A collaboration between their Divesity Programs and Engineering Excellence, called "Inclusive Tech". Conveniently injects a button in your text editors so you can check your documents for wrongthink.
• 20 November 2020: This is only a real problem on Twitter.
• 20 November 2020: They create a support ticket for humans every time someone tries to unsubscribe from their email list!!!!!
• 19 November 2020: exit > voice
• 19 November 2020: yes, it's pointing to a deep hole in your soul/life, you just have to listen (i mean, i don't, but others should)
• 19 November 2020:
• 19 November 2020: You don't need to be a part of "the scene", and you don't need them all to like you. You just need one. A market where you buy just one instance of a product forever, and there is a huge variance in preferences is a really weird market. It's not like buying eggs or orange juice.
• 19 November 2020: "Don't invalidate my experience you mansplaining internet asshole!" caveats apply, etc. etc. :-D
• 19 November 2020: I don't buy the market metaphor because humans aren't a commodity-- we're multidimensional, and buyers genuinely have diverse preferences along each dimension. We're also not fungible (which is why breakups hurt). And I say that as someone with econ in the marrow of my bones.
• 19 November 2020: Some ppl like girls who are a little bit fat, fyi.
• 19 November 2020: hell five days ago
• 19 November 2020: Assuming you're straight: talk/act liberal but carry yourself conservative. In SF it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
• 19 November 2020: 👇💯
• 19 November 2020: This tweet ☝️ is like this tweet 👇
• 19 November 2020: which translation?
• 19 November 2020: way too much. Smart woman.
• 19 November 2020: Symbolism is relevant.
• 19 November 2020: Ok, but then The Count of Monte Cristo would be one unsatisfying book.
• 19 November 2020: Nah, that's a completely different thing. Bullshit twitter revenge on strangers is on a different planet from real revenge on someone close to you who betrayed you.
• 19 November 2020: if this doesn't get hundreds of twitter followers, I don't know what does
• 19 November 2020: Spoken as someone who never experienced the joy of revenge.
• 19 November 2020: Why not you?
• 19 November 2020: I am extremely not adapted to politics. I'm much better with systems and machines than people. If I had to call donors all day and give impassioned pointless speeches in some legislative body, I'd kill myself.
• 19 November 2020: You can laugh, but one out of five black men voted for Trump in 2020-- higher ratio of black vote than any republican candidate got basically ever.
• 19 November 2020: I mean, Ron Paul (and maybe Rand) did that, but you'd be really hard pressed to argue this is the position of the GOP. Nobody cared about Ron.
• 19 November 2020: lol no they weren't. Until djt got there they were known as the white party for a reason.
• 19 November 2020: are you subtweeting anyone? 🤔
• 19 November 2020: I don't care about donts and cants. The alternative is an existential threat to the country. They need to get off their ass and get it done.
• 19 November 2020: For example, the kkk still operates. Nobody ever bothered to shut them down.
• 19 November 2020: djt got elected in 2016. What were they doing for the last 50 years?
• 19 November 2020: That's precisely my point. It's currently the white party. It needs to be the rights party.
• 19 November 2020: The GOP needs to wake the hell up and start ruthlessly enforcing individual rights of black Americans. Today the most compelling path for the African American community is Marxism, because the only other political party hasn’t even bothered to offer an alternative.
• 19 November 2020: I am talking about more individualism from our current standpoint, not more individualism from the standpoint of humans in caves. Obviously you need some collective action.
• 18 November 2020: At the hearing Zuck said censorship coordination happens only on security matters: terrorism, child exploitation, cyber attacks by state actors. Turns out “COVID misinformation” counts too. How about censoring the NYPost article?
• 18 November 2020: Because they aren’t on here?
• 18 November 2020: The solution is to bust trash collectors’s union.
• 18 November 2020: 😂
• 18 November 2020: It’s not like you press a button on the lender’s web portal and you’re done. You have to go to court and the judge has to approve it.
• 18 November 2020: 😁
• 18 November 2020: Ah cool, I heard Obama talk about it.
• 18 November 2020: “I locked the poet inside in solitary confinement forever, whatever’s left writes code” 😁
• 18 November 2020: Do you often find yourself needing to spell my last name? 😁
• 18 November 2020: This is a much better question for @Austen
• 18 November 2020: It tells me they got into it for prestige.
• 18 November 2020: wait but you spelled it correctly
• 18 November 2020: Any time someone proudly proclaims "I'm a Software Engineer!" I know they suck. Every hacker I've met who's any good just says "I program computers".
• 18 November 2020: ha yes! (I didn't notice this bit of irony until now)
• 18 November 2020: What is one word you couldn't spell if your life depended on it? Mine is "beuracracy" (which is ironic, considering how much I despise them)
• 18 November 2020: Also they were in on the heist, they should bear the burden.
• 18 November 2020: I think I'd be ok with legislation that explicitly forbids considering parents's score (I'd have to think on it more).
• 18 November 2020: I haven't heard anyone discuss it, but here is the part of the hearing where they talk about it:
• 18 November 2020: 👇
• 18 November 2020: Maybe. Universities operate on longer time scales that other institutional structures. Having a lineage in a cocoon is worth funding and preserving. Just not the dogshit they're doing now.
• 18 November 2020: What specifically do you think will change as a result of this change?
• 18 November 2020: Extremely on point insight. Your best I've seen, I think.
• 18 November 2020: I'm not sure it's a technical issue. We'd need a massive culture shift for that. Unless we're talking about AGI.
• 18 November 2020: If we could bust Standard Oil, we can bust faang.
• 18 November 2020: My hero was @ID_AA_Carmack.
• 18 November 2020: I didn't know about it. We have 2-4 companies controlling all information flow online, and now we learn they're collaborating. That is an astonishing degree of power that deserves proportional public scrutiny. (For example, they all likely colluded to block the NY Post article)
• 18 November 2020: Came out in hearings today. Zuck said it only happens on security matters (child porn, terrorism, botnets from nation states). That sounds reasonable, but is COVID misinformation security, since it can kill pill? How about climate change?
• 18 November 2020: I don't think anybody is suppressing it. It's just that nobody cares.
• 18 November 2020: the numbers give me hope
• 18 November 2020: Today we learned that twitter, facebook and google have a shared user activity database to coordinate content enforcement. How is this not the biggest story since the election?!
• 18 November 2020: Do you pay for OnlyFans?
• 18 November 2020: let's do it!!
• 18 November 2020: individualism != laissez faire
• 18 November 2020: That would have been true if they actually wanted to improve the lot of disenfranchised people rather than using them as a means to acquire power.
• 18 November 2020: and culture
• 18 November 2020: Don’t think so.
• 18 November 2020: This isn’t a talk. It’s an hour and a half of the most pleasing and beautiful music you have ever heard.
• 18 November 2020: 🔥
• 18 November 2020: The same way a product isn’t used by a million people. It’s only ever used by one person at a time, a million times.
• 18 November 2020: The solution to collective problems is more individualism.
• 18 November 2020: There are downsides. Unscrupulous actors can take loans, graduate, and immediately declare bankruptcy. Lenders less likely to lend, so some smart ppl who look shitty on paper will miss out on good education. Etc. Still, we should do it.
• 18 November 2020: For those, school should eat them. Except it would annihilate the sector.
• 18 November 2020: I love the classics. But here's how I view it: - the humanities deps are corrupt; they don't teach humanities anymore - if we don't do this, it will ALL go, because the communists will poison everything - true tradition will live on; we'll personally fund it if we have to
• 18 November 2020: I would allow bankruptcy retroactively for sure. Then the lenders and the colleges can hash it out in the courts. They were both responsible.
• 18 November 2020: extremely not surprising they want free college
• 18 November 2020: allow student loan discharge in bankruptcy -> lenders only finance profitable majors -> STEM stays roughly as is, the rest plummets -> bullshit unis go out of business, the rest tighten belts -> drastic cuts to woke admins and departments -> 👋 bye cultural marxism ☭🔫☠️⚰️
• 18 November 2020: I’ve never used stories before today (crazy, I know). Maybe I’ll get used to it. But that five second progress bar + tap/hold UI is annoying as fuck. Just let me swipe like tinder.
• 18 November 2020: Honestly I can’t see it objectively because I’m too close to it. You probably see it more clearly.
• 18 November 2020: Tbh I never read the review. But knowing SSC probably not :)
• 18 November 2020: Yes, most informative book I read in the last five years probably.
• 18 November 2020: Also why is it always the libras? Maybe there is something to this whole thing after all.
• 18 November 2020: friendlier*
• 18 November 2020: originally just said “love you! ❤️😁” but then thought could be construed as harassment so changed it to be friendly. Rough decade 2020 it is
• 18 November 2020: oh hai @katgleason (love you anyway though ❤️😁)
• 18 November 2020: hi im a libra divide milliseconds since epoch of my birth by distance from moon to sun at equinox to get next week’s lottery numbers
• 18 November 2020: 👇 smart people - well adapted cultural heritage = ridiculously stupid ideas with sophisticated packaging
• 18 November 2020: Watching the big tech hearing today, it sounds like Zuck has had it with woke employees and wants regulatory action so he can unequivocally tell them to fuck off.
• 18 November 2020: In Mexico the system is fucked but the culture is energetic. The opposite in the US (though we’re working overtime on wrecking the system too).
• 18 November 2020: Big fan of Turner thesis. I don’t think we should learn to govern as Europeans. Let them eat their biscuits and drink their wine. We are the frontier.
• 18 November 2020: Yup agreed. But NYC, SF, LA and Chicago are decaying. Let alone rust belt cities.
• 17 November 2020: In terms of first derivative, probably Austin.
• 17 November 2020: Worse than third world countries. When you go to e.g Mexico City you get a distinct feeling that everything is reaching toward the future (construction, energy, street sellers, etc) Major U.S. cities feel like decay. Very different (and sad) feeling.
• 17 November 2020: Are fleets a good idea?
• 17 November 2020: Because Clubhouse is doing a really good job killing itself?
• 17 November 2020: Signal boost. Follow @MoBotan. He’s awesome.
• 17 November 2020: I think you may be thinking of emergent systems.
• 17 November 2020: “Clubhouse founders were so scared of being racist, they accepted every single POC and ended up creating a more racist platform.” Anon from my DMs (but I 100% agree with the assessment).
• 17 November 2020: 🤔
• 17 November 2020: 💯👇
• 17 November 2020: The only way to make progress is to judge individuals by the content of their character, one person at a time.
• 17 November 2020: That's not systemic racism, that's just racism, and the woman is clearly an awful person.
• 17 November 2020: were you a notetaker in college?
• 17 November 2020: there is a very good reason why that is (symbolically)
• 17 November 2020: sorry, missed this somehow. My take: - audiobooks don't work for me at all - I do single books a lot, but for pleasure reading. For subject learning I do it in super structured way. - I'm 50/50 on notetaking. What does it get you?
• 17 November 2020: is it? I see folks like @Aella_Girl and @BretWeinstein seriously engage with them at face value with 400+ ppl listening, when the only approach is to crush their institutions like LKY, de Gaulle, and Reagan did. People are still looking for a synthesis.
• 17 November 2020: Trying to help the oppressed by taking wokism at face value is like trying to cure zombies by reasoning with them.
• 17 November 2020: Total failure gotta redo another time
• 17 November 2020: Where did they learn all this communist shit?
• 17 November 2020: Gotta say though @bria_backwoods is awesome and welcoming to all. The rest of the speakers are a bunch of racist marxists who openly hate white people.
• 17 November 2020: Wow I’m in this room rn and it’s the most racist shit I’ve ever heard, wtf
• 17 November 2020: Do a google search on good newsletters to subscribe to— first three pages all about how to grow newsletter traffic. Big digital nomad vibe.
• 16 November 2020: Don't want to say on twitter! I think people should discover these on their own.
• 16 November 2020: There is never a shortage of people ready to spend someone else’s money on someone else.
• 16 November 2020: 👇
• 16 November 2020: Your sources of information have enormous influence on what you think, how deeply you think, and how you solve problems. New post.
• 16 November 2020: Feedbin.
• 16 November 2020: Example hypothetical scenario: we could have had far more serious clashes between far left and far right post election. People could have died. Escalating riots. National guard everywhere, curfews, etc. Why didn't it happen? Resilience or luck?
• 16 November 2020: I happen to agree, but reasonable people disagree on the elites thing, and that's fine. I can respect that. But nobody should agree with wokeness. It is far more dangerous than Trump could ever be.
• 16 November 2020: I don't think that part would have mattered much (if anything it would only embolden them IMO). But it would have scared the shit out of centrists, and they would have pulled out all the stops to get the squad the hell out of office.
• 16 November 2020: This is why I thought it was so important for Trump to win and for the people to totally repudiate the radical left. Whatever you think of Trump, he's a temporary phenomenon. In four years he would have been gone forever. But the leftist mob will be here 5, 10, 20 years from now.
• 16 November 2020: Ah I didn't know that, thanks!
• 16 November 2020: That wasn't (and still isn't) preordained. I think it will take some time to determine to which degree it's the resilience of the system, and to which degree we just got lucky.
• 16 November 2020: Check out Frederick Turner's frontier thesis.
• 16 November 2020: FYI, consider Feedbin + actions. You can automate the filtering.
• 16 November 2020: I'm not bothered by the reasoning (I honestly haven't looked into the data, and I trust Tyler's judgement). It's more that ~50% of MR post volume is now covid related.
• 16 November 2020: 🙏
• 16 November 2020: The same psychologists that give little girls testosterone on first visit? :)
• 16 November 2020: I used to religiously read Marginal Revolution, but recently it's become the Coronavirus Revolution.
• 16 November 2020: Ok just checked sushi. Yup, might as inject sugar into my veins.
• 16 November 2020: They used to before we made it illegal to discharge student loans through bankruptcy.
• 16 November 2020: Watching SpaceX launches is such a breath of fresh air. Thank you @elonmusk and thousands of people who make it happen.
• 15 November 2020:
• 15 November 2020: I’ve always had it. Still can’t quite tell if it’s a curse or a blessing, but I’ve always really enjoyed it.
• 15 November 2020: (I should add that I’ve never seen this friend get as mad at anything or anyone else, except maybe Trump)
• 15 November 2020: FYI, French fries/potatoes are totally fine for me, don’t spike glucose at all. It really is individualized, pretty incredible. (Haven’t tried sushi yet)
• 15 November 2020: E.g. I really don’t like communists but there is no way I’d completely lose my shit and start yelling at someone over it irl.
• 15 November 2020: I had a hard left friend (who’ve since stopped talking to me because I’m a nazi) who went INSANE over Curtis’s ideas. Completely bonkers. Originally this is why I read them. I figured if they trigger someone that much, good chance there are valuable insights.
• 15 November 2020: I have very clear memories from when I was maybe 4 or 5. Guests would come to our house and I would want to say “why are you patronizing me, could you please talk to me like I’m a real person?” I was too shy to do it, but I definitely thought it.
• 15 November 2020: Go team SpaceX! 😍
• 15 November 2020: They do have a leaderboard. Better discovery would be better for smaller authors.
• 15 November 2020: I learned about nRX from a friend years ago. Then Scott Alexander wrote about it. Then after a few years MSM started vaguely writing about Curtis without having any tea idea of what his thesis is.
• 15 November 2020: 🙏
• 15 November 2020: I don't think so. People want fact checking for other people, but nobody wants to see them themselves. If they keep shoving it down our throats, it won't be long until you see major competitors. Parlor and Substack already have massive success.
• 15 November 2020: I want a gmail filter that lets me apply labels based on email sentiment. E.g. label angry emails as hate-mail.
• 15 November 2020: People will stop watching.
• 15 November 2020: "If cracker jack was made of popcorn and dogshit and half the people threw out the popcorn, popcorn should wanna know why."
• 15 November 2020: because people aren't nearly as stupid as they think
• 15 November 2020: subtweeting this
• 15 November 2020: How long until news media as we know it collapses?
• 15 November 2020: bye
• 15 November 2020: i don't know what that means
• 15 November 2020: And then you get a cargo cult version of that plus political spin. No thanks.
• 15 November 2020: find experts and skip the middleman
• 15 November 2020: 🙏
• 15 November 2020: News has been commodified a long time ago.
• 15 November 2020: Except the content sucks.
• 15 November 2020: Why do we listen to journalists or read their opinion pieces at all? They don’t know anything.
• 15 November 2020: firecrotch
• 15 November 2020: Discovery would be all about new stuff.
• 15 November 2020: Who cares? Their income doesn't depend on journos liking them one iota.
• 15 November 2020: She hosted a couple of antisocialist discussions where she invited immigrants from ex-socialist states. She strikes me as a reasonable person.
• 15 November 2020: Felicia must be aware of the irony of this
• 15 November 2020: 😍 @hamishmckenzie please let me in?
• 15 November 2020: Something I would love love love to see Substack build: better discovery.
• 14 November 2020: Somehow 85% of active Clubhouse users are hardcore communists. Who was patient zero?
• 14 November 2020: Huh didn’t know about Pasteur
• 14 November 2020: At this rate I’m gonna end up on a list with Newton and Liebniz soon :)
• 14 November 2020: Last time we hung out on his private island he was writing a simulation for girardian mechanics. (J/k, how would I know?!)
• 14 November 2020: A pretty large number of people, surprisingly.
• 14 November 2020: my childhood
• 14 November 2020: check your email :)
• 14 November 2020: Hundreds of thousands of followers, tens of thousands of likes, etc.
• 14 November 2020: Dude, it's a joke.
• 14 November 2020: Parler already has unbelievable scale.
• 14 November 2020: My favorite was this one in the primaries. Jeb Bush: my mother is the strongest person I know... Trump (interjects): maybe she should run. People legitimately underestimate how sharp he is because of the bravado.
• 14 November 2020: You should consider modeling democrats and republicans as amoral agents optimizing for votes. When I started doing that, politics finally made sense.
• 14 November 2020: Hopefully not enough to behead old ladies during Sunday service.
• 14 November 2020: In fairness Eric is probably also high (and definitely in pajamas).
• 14 November 2020: .@BretWeinstein is indefatigable. Doing god’s work explaining why communism is bad to kids. Next stop is to teach them about pigouvian taxes.
• 14 November 2020: We've had ~250 year history of people showing up to cast their ballots. That was changed a few months prior to the election to mail in ballots at mass scale under pretense of COVID. It's a brilliant move that turns the election into a ground game, which Trump lost.
• 14 November 2020: No I mean the timeline.
• 14 November 2020: I agree with everything in your tweet, and nothing in it is inconsistent with my tweet above.
• 14 November 2020: Australia.
• 14 November 2020: Not what happened. Nobody is saying “ok let’s do an audit, this way we can all be sure.” Anyway, the real steal was using mail in ballots under the pretense of COVID. That makes the election an operational matter. Trump lost the ground game and has only himself to blame.
• 14 November 2020: It’s the denial that’s an existential level threat. “We have nothing to hide, let’s do the recounts and proper audits, fully transparent to the public” is the correct attitude here.
• 14 November 2020: The newsfeeds don't just show updates from the people you follow.
• 14 November 2020: There isn't really linux on mobile though. Android is Linux in the same way OS X is BSD.
• 14 November 2020: Apple must drastically redesign iOS (software, app store policies, best practices, everything) to give the consumer sophisticated control over incoming information. Social media is orders of magnitude worse than email, and we have no spam filter.
• 14 November 2020: I don't think the election was stolen, but this argument doesn't seem quite right. The public stance of senior republican legislators is a keynesian beauty contest. They'll figure out where the wind blows and say that. (Note they aren't saying it wasn't stolen either)
• 13 November 2020: Very easy to understand if you sit down and code for a day.
• 13 November 2020: It’s not technical debt, it’s organizational rot. There isn’t anyone in the org who understands the codebase well enough to make changes.
• 13 November 2020: Same reason they add pronouns.
• 13 November 2020: oh hey you must be new here
• 13 November 2020: I don't think so.
• 13 November 2020: This is the most important talk I've watched in the past four years. Easily.
• 13 November 2020: Do you like who you've become?
• 13 November 2020: Does anyone actually use Safari?
• 13 November 2020: 😍 Thanks! I will definitely give this a try.
• 13 November 2020: Just bought Abigail's book. I almost certainly won't read it because I'm not particularly interested in the subject, but I'll buy banned books on principle. You should too.
• 13 November 2020: I like if (a) the product is next level, or (b) I already know and like the people and want to be a "codesigner" with them. Otherwise yeah, I'm on the same page as you.
• 13 November 2020: congratulations!!
• 13 November 2020: Being an early beta user of products is the best feeling.
• 13 November 2020: I love the internet.
• 13 November 2020: An empty screen with a blinking cursor is a hell of an adversary.
• 13 November 2020: I just saw a demo of something really really cool 😍
• 13 November 2020: I'm more of an ascetic cyborg tbh
• 12 November 2020: Set up levels. Reminds me of playing Deus Ex as a teenager. The era of cyborg has begun.
• 12 November 2020: Send them this (self plug):
• 12 November 2020: I don’t support ignoring results. I think he should concede.
• 12 November 2020: Everything by Stripe press is worth buying. So excited about this book!
• 12 November 2020: We don’t need to break them up. We just need to scare them.
• 12 November 2020: Monopolies aren’t just private companies. There are all sorts of ways in which they’re treated differently (as they should).
• 12 November 2020: Enough so that people can understand precisely how their attention is being manipulated.
• 12 November 2020: I'd force them to open source the algorithms.
• 12 November 2020: We used to do trustbusting in the industrial era. We should do it again in information era.
• 12 November 2020: Wokeness is the comparable strategy on the left.
• 12 November 2020: Competition doesn't work because these companies are operating in a winner takes all market dynamics. You get monopolistic competition, but that's not good enough.
• 12 November 2020: You can maybe make that argument (I disagree with it). But they've been tipping the scales for years now. It must stop.
• 12 November 2020: It hasn't occurred to me to juxtapose the two. Good framing.
• 12 November 2020: trustbusting...
• 12 November 2020: Tech cos must be regulated. We cannot allow a world where a small cabal of companies make political opposition disappear.
• 12 November 2020: Falling in love.
• 12 November 2020: You can't make yourself fall in love.
• 12 November 2020: Conviction.
• 12 November 2020: And could you be happy without them, in hindsight?
• 12 November 2020: This is Sally. She is a woman of color. This is Bob. He doesn't think Sally should earn the same amount for the same job as a cis white man. Go fuck yourself Ward Q. Normal. Glad you read this far.
• 12 November 2020: Very good advice 👇
• 12 November 2020: What are the changes (especially attraction, super interesting)?
• 12 November 2020: You don't want a government, you want a dad.
• 12 November 2020: He started a lot earlier. I think it was an estimate of how much is left.
• 12 November 2020: Yes, definitely!
• 12 November 2020: Sorry, can't leak info.
• 12 November 2020: early version
• 12 November 2020: She brings us together!
• 12 November 2020: A really competent friend started a company. End of June I asked him to try the alpha. He said "a couple of weeks". It's ready now. His estimate was off by 5x. Zero to one is god-level hard.
• 12 November 2020: Julia is like a bright star in a dark night. Rational, reasonable, kind, optimistic, yet doesn't shy away from difficult problems and doesn't stick her head in the sand. So excited she's back!! This genuinely makes me feel like life just got better.
• 11 November 2020: No idea, but I'm not a target customer for that.
• 11 November 2020: get out of my head!
• 11 November 2020: glad to have earned yours!
• 11 November 2020: Because you end up like this guy 👇
• 11 November 2020: Because you end up like this guy 👇
• 11 November 2020: Disagree. It's normal to have a pathetic dependence on one's audience.
• 11 November 2020: The operations team at Superhuman is 💯💯 It's not just the product. Everything they do (even customer satisfaction surveys) are infused with tremendous attention to detail, and they have the team/processes to do it at scale. I haven't seen this attention to detail since Apple.
• 11 November 2020: The best theory I heard on this is that internet just polarizes people. So don't think it's Obama's fault exactly.
• 11 November 2020: Yes those would work too!
• 11 November 2020: I’m gonna give naming this a try: adderall futurism vs mushroom futurism. Personally I’m on team adderall on this one.
• 11 November 2020: Nothing more powerful and clarifying than putting names to what you sort-of kind-of were thinking about already.
• 11 November 2020: Ah Michelle you great unifier you
• 11 November 2020: If he gets closer, there will be plenty of protests to join. Right now it's way too far-fetched.
• 11 November 2020: The latter is more difficult.
• 11 November 2020: Nobody cares because nobody believes it will work.
• 11 November 2020: I'm making a statement of fact about what high status people are willing to entertain, not a statement of fact about the results.
• 11 November 2020: Without that one, there isn't much left.
• 11 November 2020: Still is IMO.
• 11 November 2020: I'm not appealing to anyone, I don't believe there is widespread fraud.
• 11 November 2020: This was more a statement about high status people, not a statement about the validity of the election. My personal view is that there isn't any more fraud than usual, which is to say probably quite little.
• 11 November 2020: No direct evidence, just less faith in the system.
• 11 November 2020: I am very optimistic about substack.
• 11 November 2020: Election integrity is the last taboo.
• 11 November 2020: I don’t know enough about Mitch, other than he’s obviously competent given how much the liberals hate him. Same for Pelosi.
• 11 November 2020: They don’t have concrete evidence. These aren’t ppl who know there is fraud. They just think it’s way more likely than they’re publicly willing to admit.
• 11 November 2020: The former.
• 11 November 2020: No.
• 11 November 2020: FYI: way more high status people are seriously entertaining the possibility of election fraud than you think. The ones you applaud for their public stances. They just won’t tell you because they don’t want to be crucified.
• 11 November 2020: That’s true only if you believe X is net positive (in which case I agree).
• 11 November 2020: Ah interesting, I haven't considered that. Thanks!
• 11 November 2020: dude my current self doesn't agree with me
• 11 November 2020: don't tell me what to press!!
• 11 November 2020: The question is, which one is useful to analyze events. Historians seem to think examining morality isn't useful at all, because everyone thinks their actions are moral.
• 11 November 2020: I didn't mean it as an argument about the likely outcome of the challenge. Just that it's really surprising we're split so evenly down the middle. From a messaging perspective, you have to get shockingly good at targeting to get to such small margins.
• 11 November 2020: I know the gap is bigger in popular vote, but the fact that we're split so evenly down the middle is super interesting. I don't know what to make of it yet.
• 10 November 2020: Wow so that’s like Woodbridge, NJ deciding the election outcome for the whole nation.
• 10 November 2020: ❤️
• 10 November 2020: Ah, I agree that Trump is a catalyst for accelerationism. That’s why so many voted for him. I’d rather burn down all of institutional press than see Anderson Cooper’s face on TV another time.
• 10 November 2020: Say you have a gf who flirts with everyone in sight. But you love her, so you make excuses for her and ignore it. Then one day you come home and she’s fucking Bill. No doubt Bill is a bad person, but if you’re blaming him for her betrayal, your anger is misplaced.
• 10 November 2020: And yet when forced to choose respondents are six times more likely to pick power over morality tale.
• 10 November 2020: I think you’re operating under the assumption that Trump hypnotized half the country to throw out working institutions. IMO that’s wrong. My assumption is that half the country were already convinced the institutions were rotten, and saw Trump as an opportunity to reform them.
• 10 November 2020: Historians interpret events as sectarian struggle for power. News interpret events as a battle of good v evil. Which is it? Are you liberal or conservative?
• 10 November 2020: Writing is exorcism.
• 10 November 2020: Consider that it it’s the institutions themselves that hammered the last nail into their own coffin. - Epidemiologists: protests are ok because racism is a health crisis. - Media: enjoy a psyops campaign for four years. - Tech: are you sure you want to see this evil tweet?
• 10 November 2020: If I were running a startup, based on the balance of probabilities I'd assume the other course.
• 10 November 2020: The most painful aspect of Joe’s victory speech was the knowledge that the rioters and the looters got to watch it on their brand new flat screen TVs.
• 10 November 2020: Lol no. It’s because of the riots and municipal governments refusing to restore order. So everyone bought guns to defend themselves, and now good luck restricting 2A.
• 10 November 2020: I'd easily take it at 1:8.5, that seems way too high. In fact, brb.
• 10 November 2020: I'd easily take the other side of that bet because 12% seems way too high, but it's not entirely crazy. As a thought experiment, suppose we cloned our universe a thousand times. In how many of those does the election get reversed? I'd have trouble putting it at zero.
• 9 November 2020: But a mnemonic is an algorithm?
• 9 November 2020: Yes. Way easier now.
• 9 November 2020: Should I read this? I hear about it a lot.
• 9 November 2020: You read the accounts? Or watch/listen to interviews?
• 9 November 2020: I read fiction for pleasure, that I do like a normal person :)
• 9 November 2020: No, that never occurred to me, actually. I'm really curious about them now.
• 9 November 2020: Twitter is great for that! My recommendation would be anything by Hayek (The Road to Serfdom in particular)
• 9 November 2020: Ha! I never actually read anything on him. Does The Power Broker have a bibliography?
• 9 November 2020: How I read. New post.
• 9 November 2020: It's wonderful that your daughter is doing well!
• 9 November 2020: But also, don’t be a pussy.
• 9 November 2020: The really short summary of what you're saying is that the data is compressible.
• 9 November 2020: Pop quiz. If you're drawing a random number between 1 and 10,000 then 8,888 is just as likely as any other number. Can you formalize why it looks special to humans?
• 8 November 2020: I don't. It just occurred to me that if the organization primarily charged with defending children looks at it with skepticism, you at least have to seriously consider that possibility.
• 8 November 2020: I once went to a "challenges of polyamory with kids" workshop. They were all talking about how to get around the fact that CPS kinda sorta sometimes considers it child abuse. Me: have you considered the possibility that it may be child abuse? Them: ... It did not go well.
• 8 November 2020: If that’s not enough for you (which I sympathize with), if we allow retroactive bankruptcy, I suspect lenders will sue colleges to recoup some of the losses.
• 8 November 2020: Ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy means lenders stop lending to people who can never pay back (which is most non-STEM majors). Which means those people can’t pay $50k/year for Mickey Mouse majors. Which means massive drop in school revenues going forward.
• 8 November 2020: Yes. So much wasted on associate communication degrees from a community college near you.
• 8 November 2020: If I actively supported a group that burned down buildings, assaulted people, ostracized their friends, and “cancel” everyone who thinks different, I’d apologize too.
• 8 November 2020: No, because all of that is spin. I only apologize for my own actions.
• 8 November 2020: It does. Revenue dropping 3x overnight isn’t nothing.
• 8 November 2020: It’s just such a trivial problem to fix. Allow discharge in bankruptcy. I’d do it retroactively too. The lenders knew what they were doing.
• 8 November 2020: Congratulations! Hope it’s all up and to the right from here.
• 8 November 2020: Michael's project isn't about archiving. If you look into it, it's a fishing expedition.
• 8 November 2020: Will you (the collective you) apologize for calling us deplorables, racists and white supremacists for four years for the crime of having a different political view?
• 8 November 2020: We got it @Facebook, you can disband the psy ops division now.
• 8 November 2020: Whatever it is, it’s super close.
• 8 November 2020: Well, you just lectured all of us. But go ahead, be sanctimonious tho.
• 8 November 2020: Doesn’t surprise me— I can easily pass the ideological turning test, but very few of my liberal friends can.
• 8 November 2020: See, this is why I want to destroy the liberal apparatus. The argument is that society as a whole (or more specifically its representative the government bureaucrat) will make better decisions on average than parents. It's telling ppl how to live their life. (And I'm an atheist)
• 8 November 2020: Surely you realize these questions are symmetrical. Do you understand why so many in SV voted Trump?
• 8 November 2020: Battlestar Gallactica.
• 8 November 2020: "really x I thought you weren't an idiot" is a good way to end a conversation
• 8 November 2020: Who cares? Kids with low parental involvement already get horrendous education. They can barely read. It can’t get any worse.
• 8 November 2020: Compared to the total cost of education, transportation is cheap. If that’s a dealbreaker for you, we can include it in the voucher. It’s a trivial problem.
• 7 November 2020: The court's priority is legitimacy over the next few decades. I don't think they'll sacrifice it. But yes, it would be epic if it happens. (My bet is against; I don't think even Trump can pull this off)
• 7 November 2020: Depends who writes the story.
• 7 November 2020: try again
• 7 November 2020: Of course they do. But it's not up to you, and not up to government bureaucrats. It's up to the parents.
• 7 November 2020: Here is my advice: ignore absolutely everything Trump says, and listen to a few hours of interviews with Steve Bannon on YouTube with an open mind. Then go back and listen to Trump. It will make dramatically more sense to you.
• 7 November 2020: I wonder about it all the time, and continually decide that it is. You're just used to the world as is, so it seems normal. Nothing about the disinformation campaign over the last few months ("peaceful" protestors, insane wokism, etc.) is normal.
• 7 November 2020: The left opposes school choice on the grounds that it will disadvantage poor kids. If you suspend moral considerations (which in politics is correct because it's all will to power), the right thinks leftists are fighting vouchers to maintain state control of child indoctrination.
• 7 November 2020: Private schools cost the price of private school, and the taxes you pay for public school. Very few can afford that. Leftist bureaucrats run public schools, indoctrinate kids. School choice (vouchers) frees every family from public education and therefore leftist indoctrination.
• 7 November 2020: Congratulations to president-elect Joe Biden. As you know this wasn’t my choice. I’m disappointed, but I genuinely wish him luck and success in this awesome responsibility. The American experiment carries on. Godspeed!
• 7 November 2020: No school choice -> indoctrination of children. Critical race theory in unis -> media / law / tech pipeline in tact. Continue assault on 2A to disarm the citizens. We continue drifting left.
• 7 November 2020: 🙏
• 7 November 2020: thank you!
• 7 November 2020: No D&I bullshit on my threads plz
• 7 November 2020: Andrew.
• 7 November 2020: I agree, but you can't survive on strategy alone. You need at least a summary of what's happening on the ground.
• 7 November 2020: I can anchor it to public figures-- Joe Rogan is center, Jordan Peterson is right of center.
• 7 November 2020: Exactly
• 7 November 2020: Request for newsletter with the following properties: - weekly or daily (not sure) - smart, reasonable author - right of center - distills twitter discourse / culture wars to higher order bits Something like @micsolana's Pirate Wires maybe, but also uses paragraphs 😁
• 7 November 2020: Finally we can be more like Denmark, thank you AOC! 😍
• 7 November 2020: I was told this was supposed to be socialism as in Denmark, not socialism as in Cambodia 🤔
• 7 November 2020: In precisely the same way they destroyed Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia, Venezuela, and pretty much every other country they’ve ever touched.
• 7 November 2020: Because the left is a cancer that will destroy America and the world, and Trump was the only crazy enough motherfucker to actually fight it (rather than give lip service to fighting it like everyone else).
• 7 November 2020: It's really simple, actually. We're repulsed by the other side more. That's all there is to it.
• 7 November 2020: It isn't about denouncing a person. It's about pressuring high status people to say what they think, because that's crucial for a free society.
• 7 November 2020: I’m from the depths of Brooklyn, can confirm. Also don’t forget SI. Love me Italian Americans.
• 6 November 2020: I hear you, but also I say what I mean.
• 6 November 2020: .@mwseibel
• 6 November 2020: Hey @paulg @jesslivingston @sama @tlbtlbtlb. The alumni of your organization are starting drumhead trials against their political opponents. You said you care deeply about liberty and justice. Will you make a statement denouncing this? @mbsimon
• 6 November 2020: Maybe after the dust settles.
• 6 November 2020: Nah bro. I can lose a fair fight fine. I can even lose an unfair fight, because there is no such thing in love and war. But “friends” calling me a Nazi and a racist, and coworkers ostracizing me for the crime of having a different political stance? I’ll never forgive or forget.
• 6 November 2020: (Trying to read up on the best American presidents, obvs.)
• 6 November 2020: Ah got it! :)
• 6 November 2020: ?
• 6 November 2020: From the perspective of American left, who are the worst presidents in U.S. history?
• 6 November 2020: I don't know, liberals accomplished a hell of a lot that way.
• 6 November 2020: I haven't thought of that. I agree!
• 6 November 2020: They don't run because it's an absolutely sociopathic job that would crush a normal person before they ever got there. You can never solve that problem, it's inherent to our system of government.
• 6 November 2020: Thiel said somewhere that we're in a race between politics and technology. That encapsulates all of this so perfectly.
• 6 November 2020: The issue is that if you're a well-adjusted person you can't take on the machine because you'll go insane from the pressure. Trump's buffoonery is also what gave him the will to take it as far as he did. It's a packaged deal, can't have one without the other, I think.
• 6 November 2020: Meaning that this angle of attack will just disappear?
• 6 November 2020: Someone must pick up the torch...
• 6 November 2020: we do have a conservative scotus
• 6 November 2020: Thanks for linking! This is a good start, but abstract. I'm having trouble compiling it to a set of practical steps that I can take tomorrow morning when I wake up.
• 6 November 2020: I understand how to live in a low-trust state. I just don't want to go back to one.
• 6 November 2020: Australia is a vassal state.
• 6 November 2020: 1. where? 2. I don't want to give up on America :(
• 6 November 2020: So... how do we dismantle The Cathedral without Trump?
• 6 November 2020: I think the "fraud" was using unprecedented scale mail in voting under the pretense of COVID. (Except it's not actually fraud, just a brilliant, if cynical, strategic move).
• 6 November 2020: I don't think so. He just simply has no appeal.
• 6 November 2020: Trump Jr has zero chance IMO.
• 6 November 2020: Like who?
• 6 November 2020: de facto monopolistic status*
• 6 November 2020: Sorry, agree to disagree. I do not want Twitter to control which information I am and am not allowed to see. I don't think companies that enjoy de facto monopolies due to network effects get to police the public square.
• 6 November 2020: That's absolutely not the point.
• 6 November 2020: Absolutely unconscionable. A video of a man at the voting center claiming corruption, and Twitter makes the video disappear! I sometimes can click on it, sometime can't. They're literally filtering political communication.
• 6 November 2020: I wonder if they're going to start a bidding war now.
• 6 November 2020: I was trying to figure out what Cruz is doing and it made no sense to me whatsoever. Until this 👇💯
• 6 November 2020: Let me turn this around. Suppose they kick you off for something you said, and maybe a bunch of your friends too. You disagree. What process would you like to see that wouldn't feel too unfair in that scenario?
• 6 November 2020: Nationalization-- absolutely not. Regulation (or possibly antitrust)-- yes. I already called for it before explicitly.
• 6 November 2020: I wish the votes turned out differently. But. The Democratic Party threw their values out the window and got in bed with the most dangerous elements of society. Trump couldn't get over his own ego. The American people punished both, and they have nobody but themselves to blame.
• 6 November 2020: I wish the votes turned out differently, but... The Democratic Party threw their values out the window and got in bed with the most radical, dangerous elements of our society. Trump couldn't get over his own ego. The voters punished both. They have nobody but themselves to blame.
• 6 November 2020: 😲
• 6 November 2020: Absolutely love @SpanbergerVA07's speech. Worth listening. Would be very happy with her at the helm.
• 6 November 2020: Strong disagree, it's extremely unclear here. He was careless, but to me he was obviously being rhetorical. (Not saying he was, just that it seems that way to me; he later said he was rhetorical) This is precisely what due process and oversight is for.
• 6 November 2020: Thanks for linking!
• 6 November 2020: For public figures I would have built a transparent process with independent oversight years ago.
• 6 November 2020: Not up to me to define a limit for public figures, and not up to some Google employee either. There needs to be due process with oversight.
• 6 November 2020: The process for important public figures has to be different. It cannot be done completely in private with no oversight or input from anyone whatsoever.
• 6 November 2020: he had a live youtube stream that google shutdown right before the speech
• 6 November 2020: We have courts and law enforcement for that. We cannot allow tech cos to shut down public figures without oversight.
• 5 November 2020: But "burn the pigs" is ok?
• 5 November 2020: A few seconds ago YouTube shut down Steve Bannon's live stream just as they were about to explain Trump's legal strategy in various battleground states. What. the. fuck.
• 5 November 2020: Drain the swamp.
• 5 November 2020: If you watch Bannon interviews before the election, they were 100% ready for this. He predicted the current situation with startling accuracy.
• 5 November 2020: it's probable cause
• 5 November 2020: I agree, we should use a more precise phrase "activist news".
• 5 November 2020: I would have happily voted for him. I voted for Obama before. Not firmly denouncing the riots and flirting with critical race theory/communism is an absolute showstopper for me. There is just no way I can support that.
• 5 November 2020: Well, it’s out of our hands now anyway. The chips will fall where they may. Re institutions: Trump just accelerated the inevitable.
• 5 November 2020: Not sure what you mean.
• 5 November 2020: You’re not considering the possibility that they staged a coup in cooperation with Republican elders.
• 5 November 2020: I mean if he wins— not all states are done counting.
• 5 November 2020: It’s a weak spot because of voter suppression (which realistically isn’t actual suppression, but soft barriers to voting which I bet end up mattering in some elections). And also those digital voting machines with no trail are shady.
• 5 November 2020: (I mean secure the process in general, not this election in particular)
• 5 November 2020: Some of these numbers are really close. I agree it likely isn’t a problem, but we should still secure it so there can’t even be a shadow of a doubt.
• 5 November 2020: If, by some miracle, Trump manages to take this thing, he is going to go absolutely apeshit on the Republican leaders because they aren’t supporting him right now. It will be extremely unpleasant for them, and for us.
• 5 November 2020: The argument is that there will always be corner cases that slip through the cracks.
• 5 November 2020: I think they do check.
• 5 November 2020: Ahhh got it, thanks!
• 5 November 2020: Why does it matter that there is a 1959 Bradley? When you search for the vote status you input that birthdate.
• 5 November 2020: I agree, I guess the difference is that I've already accepted the fact that the government is simply unable to fix these things.
• 5 November 2020: You know where counties generally lean. In contested counties you can just throw them out.
• 5 November 2020: Can you agree how absurd it is that people catch these cases as well as cases of voter suppression every election? Or how republicans used super shady electronic machines that were trivial to hack? This slowly erodes confidence at every election. We should just fix this.
• 5 November 2020: I think gridlock is good honestly. They don't get to do anything, and we get to go on living our lives.
• 5 November 2020: Yes.
• 5 November 2020: searched*
• 5 November 2020: Just double checked it, it works. (I search the social security death registry at -- you have to create an account which is a bit of a pain)
• 5 November 2020: This isn't evidence of fraud, this is evidence that there is no security baked into the system whatsoever. If you were responsible for designing a system to transfer anything valuable, you would never in a million years design anything that looks like this.
• 5 November 2020: There are degrees to this. It's unquestionably less true for in-person voting. But yes, we should just solve this and never worry about it again.
• 5 November 2020: The fact that there are any questions in anyone's mind about the integrity of the election is unconscionable.
• 5 November 2020: This isn't evidence of fraud, this is evidence that there is no security baked into the system whatsoever. If you were responsible for designing a system to transfer anything valuable, you would never in a million years design anything that looks like this.
• 5 November 2020: sadly
• 5 November 2020: This isn't evidence of fraud, this is evidence that there is no security baked into the system whatsoever. If you were responsible for designing a system to transfer anything valuable, you would never in a million years design anything that looks like this.
• 5 November 2020: In California you wouldn't do it for the presidential election. You'd do it because there are billions of dollars riding on the props.
• 5 November 2020: You absolutely cannot because every polling station has a large number of observers, from both parties as well as neutral. You yourself would never transfer anything of value this way; why would you argue this is a good idea for ballots?
• 5 November 2020: How do you know they didn't incinerate the ballots?
• 5 November 2020: That there is no integrity to the system at all.
• 5 November 2020: This isn't evidence of fraud, it's evidence that integrity of the system in CA is non-existent. (As to why-- because there are billions of dollars riding on the props, for example. It's not all about the white house.)
• 5 November 2020: Would you collect bags of money this way?
• 5 November 2020: Yes!
• 5 November 2020: How about this
• 5 November 2020: This is insane
• 5 November 2020: Consensus from twitter DMs (all asked to stay anon): there is massive voter fraud on both sides. The question is which side cooked enough ballot batches to outmaneuver the other. That still remains to be seen, game not over yet.
• 5 November 2020: Consensus from twitter DMs (all asked to stay anon): there is massive voter fraud on both sides. The question is which side cooked enough ballet batches to outmaneuver the other. That still remains to be seen, game not over yet.
• 5 November 2020: I've been talking privately to people familiar with election mechanics, and they think there is lots of voter fraud going both ways.
• 5 November 2020: I'm riffing off the political narrative, not making any claims.
• 4 November 2020: If Biden's team claimed fraud, yes.
• 4 November 2020: That's assuming they were mailed out in advance. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.
• 4 November 2020: You'd have to organize it across 2-3 states and multiple counties in each state. It's tens of thousands of ballots. I don't know how many people it would take, but I think it'd be a fairly sophisticated operation.
• 4 November 2020: Anonymous poll. In your heart of hearts, would you look the other way if voter fraud helped your side win in this election? Be honest! (with us and with yourself)
• 4 November 2020: Not one bit.
• 4 November 2020: Why wouldn’t they have pre-printed? Also running this kind of operation would require cooperation of hundreds of people. It would be very difficult to keep it a secret.
• 4 November 2020: Your best guess, is there large scale ballot fraud in battleground states?
• 4 November 2020: I don't know their process for counting; this sounds somewhat plausible.
• 4 November 2020: Sorry for going down this path, but does anyone have a model for how there could be a batch of >23k votes "all for Biden"? Does this not seem extraordinarily strange?
• 4 November 2020: Now do “people of color”.
• 4 November 2020: Communism.
• 4 November 2020: Reducing socialist and radical tendencies within cities wouldn’t be a patch, it’d be a solution. There isn’t one rn (and one may not even exist).
• 4 November 2020: Tacitly, yes.
• 4 November 2020: I mean, I know you think that, but roughly half the country disagrees with you.
• 4 November 2020: Or setting up a bailout fund for looters and arsonists.
• 4 November 2020: Because it’s a patch to the fundamental flaw in liberal democracies that they move left over long periods of time.
• 4 November 2020: A lot of us aren’t voting for, we’re voting against.
• 4 November 2020: Dems: supported rioters and looters, called to abolish police, flirted with communism, race baited, got people fired, accused people of -isms at a drop of a hat. Also dems: how could all these people be voting for Trump?!
• 4 November 2020: It certainly looks like the American people rejected identity politics and communism tonight.
• 4 November 2020: No tyranny of the majority.
• 4 November 2020: How are you feeling Jacqueline?
• 4 November 2020: Fine isn't strong enough. The current system is genius.
• 4 November 2020: And their insane racism.
• 4 November 2020: I think you should consider being a little less sanctimonious towards us.
• 4 November 2020:
• 4 November 2020: source?
• 4 November 2020: Voter participation.
• 4 November 2020: The biggest sporting event on the planet 🌎
• 4 November 2020: Yep. And the title is fitting.
• 4 November 2020: Reading Masters of Doom for the next few hours.
• 4 November 2020: You're treating red scares not panning out as if it were predestined. The historic reality is that events were extremely volatile, and the scares didn't pan out due to very hard work and a lot of luck.
• 3 November 2020: No.
• 3 November 2020: Don’t think so. I think he hates wokism as much as I do. He’s just wrong about thinking Biden won’t accelerate it.
• 3 November 2020: Have to read up on it.
• 3 November 2020: I’m your man, then!!
• 3 November 2020: People keep arguing about “how to do it”, but it’s an absolutely trivial problem. Put a big “No wokeism” sign on the door, and kick out everyone woke who manages to slip through.
• 3 November 2020: Wokism is a mutated strand of communism.
• 3 November 2020: You can make all sorts of sophistic arguments, but The fact remains: YC is breeding ground for wokism, and PG failed to keep it out.
• 3 November 2020: That’s probably true, but he’s still a hell of a lot better than random.
• 3 November 2020: I believe it's the exact opposite.
• 3 November 2020: You followed the same strategy for YC and now it's completely and irreversibly overrun with wokism. Why do you believe it would be different for America?
• 3 November 2020: Note that PG followed the same strategy for YC and now it's completely and irreversibly overrun with wokism. Is that the outcome you want for America?
• 3 November 2020: Appeasement will only encourage this behavior in the future. It's like appeasing terrorists-- you may win the battle, but ultimately this strategy leads to losing the war. 2/2
• 3 November 2020: I do not view it this way. Democracy is civil war. We've established rules to harness it for the betterment of all (influence through campaigns, choose during elections, etc.) The left didn't like the last result, and went outside these rules-- riots, shaming, etc. 1/2
• 3 November 2020: Вы не видите что тут творится.
• 3 November 2020: 🙏
• 3 November 2020: Today it runs mostly on x86 and ARM. But there were dozens of competing groups architectures, big and small. This predates me; Google “unix portability”, or smtg in that direction.
• 3 November 2020: Sort of. Got through about 1/3 of things hidden since the foundation of the world. Then gave up and read the cliff notes.
• 3 November 2020: Yes.
• 3 November 2020: So they introduced spawn, which can be implemented everywhere, but only supports the second use case (spawn another process). Wait just blocks until some process is done.
• 3 November 2020: Fork predates threads. It efficiently clones the heap (using copy on write). People used it to simulate threads before there was thread support, and separately to start other processes. But it’s not possible to implement on every architecture. 1/2
• 3 November 2020: That's a wildly optimistic scenario :)
• 3 November 2020: 🤔
• 3 November 2020: Yep.
• 3 November 2020: He’s a very similar figure to Watts in some ways and completely the opposite in others.
• 3 November 2020: Jordan Peterson is the modern Alan Watts.
• 3 November 2020: Me too!
• 3 November 2020: Willingness to break ties with your friends over ideological abstractions is a hallmark of every communist revolution. DO NOT wake up in a communist utopia on Wednesday, knowing you haven't done all you could. Vote, vote, vote Trump tomorrow 🇺🇸🗽
• 3 November 2020: I never read anything by him, but Montesquieu refers to a bunch of his maxims in Persian Letters. That's where I picked it up.
• 3 November 2020: That's an excellent essay, thanks for linking!!
• 3 November 2020: I don't have a phrase for you, but it reminds me of a Rochefoucauld maxim: "those who concern themselves too much with small things, ordinarily become incapable of big ones."
• 3 November 2020: Also super performative (possible same as your con). Rather than saying the thing people attempt to say it in the most impressive way possible.
• 3 November 2020: Thank you Swathy!
• 3 November 2020: 🙏
• 3 November 2020: A peaceful transition of power!! Hope we do the same :-D
• 3 November 2020: That's a great question! Just a conservative president, definitely no. Conservative president + congress, possibly-- I'd have to think about it.
• 3 November 2020: A change was inevitable (as it always is). Bolsheviks were not.
• 2 November 2020: Nothing. In that video everyone has the same end.
• 2 November 2020: Who is fucking whom in this family, @Facebook?
• 2 November 2020: Yes, but that’s not how we use it. “Employees crave status” is a euphemism for envy.
• 2 November 2020: It isn’t predestined. You have to fight authoritarianism with everything you’ve got.
• 2 November 2020: Keep the Bolsheviks the hell away from our institutions. Vote Trump 🇺🇸🗽
• 2 November 2020: Silicon Valley runs on envy. New post.
• 2 November 2020: It could have been the sort of thing where he was on his way out and someone yelled out "Barack, one more shot!" and passed him the ball.
• 2 November 2020: Short-term loss of followers is noise.
• 2 November 2020: What do you mean how far? They know the outcome of Nov 3rd election with a probability so high, it's indistinguishable from 100%.
• 2 November 2020: The data is there. The outcome is trivial to compute and is immensely, ridiculously, insanely valuable. The temptation is too great. They've done it.
• 2 November 2020: Yes, but I also think they literally know.
• 2 November 2020: They totally do. Top top secret.
• 2 November 2020: yeah that essay is beautiful!
• 1 November 2020: I haven't. But internally they have insanely high resolution on this stuff.
• 1 November 2020: Facebook and Google already know the outcome of the election.
• 1 November 2020: That’s an incredibly good photo. I can easily see it on a billboard with a “shot with an iPhone 12” tagline.
• 1 November 2020: Looks like they’re not saying that in France anymore.
• 1 November 2020: Hey remember when Barack and the Democratic Party told us no-go zones in France don't exist and the assimilation problem is imaginary?
• 1 November 2020: (in feathers)
• 1 November 2020: Can't wait to see you!
• 1 November 2020: I think there will be apps, just not on the phone. Neurolink maybe.
• 1 November 2020: Interesting. I always felt like I'm on a different wavelength than they are.
• 1 November 2020: You're also thinking too small. Why have a body?
• 1 November 2020: I feel very uncomfortable around people who never curse. Like a scifi story where you change something in the past, come back to the present and sense something isn't right. A very creepy feeling.
• 1 November 2020: Some day, when we get much better at biotech, you'll choose your haircut in an app, and your hair will naturally grow to the right length in the right places. It's still the early days.
• 1 November 2020: Me too.
• 1 November 2020: But the word doesn’t entirely not fit either, right? 😁
• 1 November 2020: And then his campaign immediately set up a fund to bail out looters and arsonists.
• 1 November 2020: What's not crashing?
• 1 November 2020: Domestic enemies.
• 1 November 2020: Exchange rate with euro. Doesn't seem to be the case (unless the euro is also crashing)
• 1 November 2020: I know what you mean. But I thought he was a good president, charisma aside. He executed well on what he was elected to do.
• 1 November 2020: I voted for him and was happy with him as president. I disagreed with many of his policies, but he seemed like a patriot who genuinely cares about America and its future. (But I agree with your general point)
• 1 November 2020: Obama has insane charisma. More than I think any other politician on my memory (including Bill Clinton).
• 1 November 2020: China is communist in name only.
• 1 November 2020: Yep 😞
• 31 October 2020: Assuming we win, do you think it’s the last battle against the communist plague, or will it come back again?
• 31 October 2020: They’re not against immortality, they just think/signal they’re against immortality. Revealed preferences (e.g. do all you can to save my 97y/o grandma doc, size of plastic surgery market) indicate the exact opposite.
• 31 October 2020: This is “in prehistoric environment” sense, it doesn’t necessarily translate to modern culture directly.
• 31 October 2020: you have a way with words
• 31 October 2020: I was talking about westerners that hate the west. How could that feeling exist?!!
• 31 October 2020: Republican Party already reinvented itself in 2016. It’s going to have to keep moving. I don’t think it’s game over.
• 31 October 2020: This likely isn't sufficient. I don't know what the full inoculation looks like. But I think we haven't exhausted our options.
• 31 October 2020: The problem isn't that it's prohibited, but that it's government funded. You chip away at it piece by piece-- school choice, only private loans for universities that can be discharged through bankruptcy, etc.
• 31 October 2020: I'm talking about westerners hating the west, not other cultures.
• 31 October 2020: In that case: they think liberal democracies are fundamentally doomed. I do not. I just think they need to be inoculated against the leftist plague.
• 31 October 2020: Sorry, I won't interact with an account that's indistinguishable from a slightly advanced version of Eliza.
• 31 October 2020: which books is this?
• 31 October 2020: The closest I know of is neoreactionary, though I oppose large aspects of that ideology. What difference does it make what the label is?
• 31 October 2020: Anti-communist.
• 31 October 2020: It works extraordinarily well. See LKY in Singapore, de Gaulle in France, etc.
• 31 October 2020: Dismantle every institution that propagates leftism. E.g. severely curtail public schools in favor of vouchers, defund humanities, revoke access to leftist press. Deport non-citizens out of the country if they're on social programs for longer than two years.
• 31 October 2020: (The art is beautiful though!)
• 31 October 2020: Break up Facebook for shoving political ideology down our throats.
• 31 October 2020: Where did you choose to live?
• 31 October 2020: They never criticize Iran for hanging gay ppl from cranes or looking the other way when families burn girls for extramarital sex, but want a discussion about how France creates conditions to cause street beheadings. Call it what you want, I call it hate for western civilization.
• 30 October 2020: I'm talking about people born here.
• 30 October 2020: My god sailing ships are beautiful.
• 30 October 2020: France doesn’t have to (and must not) give anything. If it cedes any ground, it will be due to misguided charity of French people.
• 30 October 2020: The answer is to eradicate the wokes and kick out the barbarians.
• 30 October 2020: The left is the opposite of multicultural. Culturally AOC and Ilhan come from completely different roots, but they might as well be the same person. What unites them isn’t love of different cultures, it’s hatred for the west.
• 30 October 2020: They allowed people in who never should have been allowed in. It’s really not that complicated.
• 30 October 2020: No, this is absurd. You have people cut people's heads off on the streets in France, and the critics criticize France. If that's your critical state of mind, you need to adjust your state of mind because it's completely divorced from reality.
• 30 October 2020: It is their achievement! It was built by their ancestors; it's natural for humans to have pride for their ancestors's achievements. Plus they have the education and opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants and build on top. How could the feeling of hatred even arise?!
• 30 October 2020: That's a beautiful quote.
• 30 October 2020: Can't wait to get it in print.
• 30 October 2020: That's only true if the criticisms are grounded in reality.
• 30 October 2020: Do you plan to publish on paper?
• 30 October 2020: I still can’t understand how it’s possible for smart, educated, relatively well-off people to hate the west. I just don’t get it. How can one possibly hate such a magnificent achievement?
• 30 October 2020: Trump's reelection.
• 30 October 2020: .@jack is a textbook hands off CEO. His "trust & safety" department is constantly censoring political opposition and he opens with "calls for transparency". Who's the VP on this? Fire his ass, and appoint someone else. You can fix this in two weeks.
• 30 October 2020: Thanks, mine is fixed now too.
• 30 October 2020: Translation: people are gonna fuck your woman and you should be ok with it. Never gonna happen.
• 30 October 2020: thanks!
• 30 October 2020: Could you expand on the gradient descent? Super interesting and something very challenging for me personally. Would love as much detail as possible.
• 30 October 2020: I have eyes.
• 30 October 2020: You realize that vote by mail as a whole falls under your criteria of not changing the rules before the election?
• 30 October 2020: Or nothing. People are too used to threats of looming disaster. I’ll be ok with either outcome, but I think my preferred outcome would be better.
• 30 October 2020: Thanks, will watch!
• 30 October 2020: No thanks.
• 29 October 2020: I should have said oppose rather than not support. That’s more accurate.
• 29 October 2020: I definitely do not support any aspect of white nationalism, both wrt his presidency and in general.
• 29 October 2020: After it became clear it’s affecting the polls. But yes, that’s a good point too.
• 29 October 2020: 👇
• 29 October 2020: The Democratic Party crossed all lines and tacitly supported violence to try and win an election. Remember, you’ll be sending a message to them too. They went way further in disregarding norms. IMO.
• 29 October 2020: Vote Trump.
• 29 October 2020: I have a bunch of stuff installed but notifications are all off.
• 29 October 2020: OP plz deliver
• 29 October 2020: 🙏😊
• 29 October 2020: Lol, I asked because I was genuinely curious. The repetition here perplexes me as much as it perplexes you. Incidentally, I’m still waiting on the answer.
• 29 October 2020: I have zero problem with insta, fb, linkedin (people get addicted to that?!) Twitter's hard, it's a perfect drug for me.
• 29 October 2020: I wonder if in thirty years social media notifications will be viewed like cigarettes are viewed today.
• 29 October 2020: 😂
• 29 October 2020: Not there yet, I wonder if that's where I'm headed!
• 29 October 2020: Thanks for supporting me! LMK if there is anything specific you'd like me to write about (over DM if it's sensitive).
• 29 October 2020: I like how you cleverly included personal rights into a statement about group selection to confuse the mob :)
• 29 October 2020: Can't wait to publish them.
• 29 October 2020: Ah, that makes sense!
• 29 October 2020: When I started writing a month ago I was concerned I'll run out of things to write about. Now I have a longer list of ideas than I know what to do with. Action begets action.
• 29 October 2020: I dunno “we fixed it” -> “they’re still banned” -> “they have to delete and repost” -> “why” -> “because we fixed it” sounds kind of bad.
• 29 October 2020: Ah! I don’t forget threads, but I don’t index them by date.
• 29 October 2020: Which one was the Sep 30th thread?
• 29 October 2020: I see very strong correlation. Let's get the crowds involved! 👇
• 29 October 2020: In your experience, which group is more excited about Halloween?
• 29 October 2020: I like the product a lot, but there are definitely pretty serious stability issues.
• 29 October 2020: Seeing an issue in @RoamResearch where I can't edit any of the note titles. Anyone else?
• 29 October 2020: Hmm, I find that competition is considerably increased at things like desert festivals.
• 29 October 2020: Society dictates the terms of appearance for married women as well (possibly to a greater extent), yet married women don't seem to care about Halloween nearly as much.
• 28 October 2020: Wow, @jack's performance here is comically bad. It doesn't help that he seems to think he's Lao-Tze.
• 28 October 2020: Social norms are temporarily modified and you're permitted to dress sluttier.
• 28 October 2020: I think the interesting aspect is that you can't do it normally because you'll get slut-shamed, but on this day everyone collectively agrees not to slut shame. That last part is really interesting, the agreement to temporarily change social norms.
• 28 October 2020: Ok, consensus from DMs seems to be that it's an enormous and rare opportunity to attract a higher quality mate.
• 28 October 2020: I can take it.
• 28 October 2020: I mean just one day a year when all social rules go out the window. Yeah, this hypothesis makes a lot of sense, but I think there may be quite a bit to unpack there.
• 28 October 2020: I think what's different is the intensity with which they care.
• 28 October 2020: But there are much easier ways to do that. Why is "the purge"-style festival particularly attractive? Why cosplay? Why choose one day to be less selective than normal?
• 28 October 2020:
• 28 October 2020: They're upset if they aren't doing anything on Halloween, they put a lot of effort into costumes, they're very curious who else is going and where, they're excited to find out which costumes others are wearing, they want a better costume than friends, etc.
• 28 October 2020: tl;dr: the whole thing is a mating ritual. But why cosplay?
• 28 October 2020: From an evo psych standpoint, why are unmarried women so obsessed with Halloween?
• 28 October 2020: Both Obama and Trump have principles. They were elected. The electorate senses principled people too, I think.
• 28 October 2020: Is Tom Wolf trying to get Trump reelected?!
• 28 October 2020: I appreciate that very much 😊 Currently trying to write my way out of... whatever this is, and into a mission.
• 28 October 2020: flattery will get you everywhere!
• 28 October 2020: (I obviously don't mean this number literally, but it is how I think about it in broad strokes. If I compare with direct experience, 1 in ~50 doesn't sound crazy).
• 28 October 2020: About 2%. The reason it's that specific is that to get that high up without having to play these games you have to be exceptional, which roughly starts at 3+ standard deviations right of mean. That's slightly more than 2% by definition of standard deviation.
• 28 October 2020: Nearly everyone above middle management.
• 28 October 2020: California propositions TL;DR: would you like to create an advisory board that provides non-binding recommendations to another board that oversees a department in charge of another department? Also, could we have more money?
• 27 October 2020: I know, it's hard to believe. You read soviet history and go "they did what?! why?! wow, those early 20th century russians were in another universe." Nope. They were perfectly regular people like you and me and this woman here. Model wokeness as a mind virus, and all makes sense.
• 27 October 2020: Happy birthday!
• 27 October 2020: It really feels like demonic possession sometimes.
• 27 October 2020: Еще лучше системное программирование в открытых проектах. Если вам платят за работу в Linux, вы, вероятно, проработаете долго.
• 27 October 2020: Some of us grew up on it!
• 27 October 2020: Oh wow, reading that thread from the US it looks like people are way more insane about masks in the UK than even the leftiest of lefties here.
• 27 October 2020: Both sides don't accept the results.
• 27 October 2020: If this tweet could move you to change an institution like SCOTUS, you were probably already there before the tweet.
• 27 October 2020: :'(
• 27 October 2020: Me too.
• 27 October 2020: ACA as written? It’s legitimately debatable whether the federal government forcing the citizens to pay a fine for not buying a service is constitutional. I don’t know that it definitely requires an amendment, but that’s not inconceivable to me.
• 27 October 2020: The election is in one week. Are we fucked?
• 27 October 2020: I wish we could show this video (narrated by @neiltyson) every morning in congress before they get to the day's business. I rarely agree with every word of something, but I agree with every word of this. Thanks for sharing Cameron.
• 27 October 2020: They see your new photo, click on it, and then browse through your timeline. Source: am a man.
• 27 October 2020: I actually thought that after I posted it :)
• 27 October 2020: Taiwan has a competent government.
• 27 October 2020: Maybe your method of leadership differs from mine, but kicking a bunch of whiny kids out of your company and supplying a genocidal maniac with jets, ain't the same ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fucking sport.
• 27 October 2020:
• 27 October 2020: I think it's mostly a Silicon Valley thing. In other parts of the US it's closer to what you describe, but in SV people go all in.
• 27 October 2020: Yes, nothing beats a mission, if you can find it (or rather, if you let it find you).
• 27 October 2020: Someone on HN pointed out that for many engineers this might have the opposite of the intended effect 😂
• 27 October 2020: I heard so much about that book. Will bump it on my list!
• 27 October 2020: Oooh this isn't an easy one to write. I'll see if I can make it come together.
• 27 October 2020: Will @elonmusk live to see the day when a human steps on the surface of Mars?
• 27 October 2020: Happy birthday Ivan!
• 26 October 2020: If you’re raising money, you’d be lucky to work with Ilya. He’s 💯👇
• 26 October 2020: 😍
• 26 October 2020: The software industry burns through people. Thoughts on how to get past that. New post.
• 26 October 2020: Happy birthday!
• 26 October 2020: My impression is that in the US the insurance companies don't seem to have the incentive to keep prices under control, but I don't quite understand why.
• 26 October 2020: Agree in general, but it's more complex-- in many cases you can bundle insurance with maintenance because covering maintenance lowers expect payout for insurance.
• 26 October 2020: Government bureaucrats game incentives too. So it isn't a matter of good incentives vs bad incentives, it's a matter of shitty incentives vs shittier incentives. Passing a bill in congress doesn't magically make for good healthcare. (I do cautiously support public option)
• 26 October 2020: Ukraine. Bread lines were real.
• 26 October 2020: "many of you would be happier as mothers than PMs"
• 26 October 2020: I'm not arguing against every possible system except the one we have now. I'm arguing against implementing that one.
• 26 October 2020: I (very) cautiously support a public option.
• 26 October 2020: I recovered fully and we didn't have to pay a penny. It's outrageous that we have to pay for medicine and dentistry here in America. Why can't we have the same system Soviet Union had thirty years ago? #MedicareForAll /fin
• 26 October 2020: My terrified parents thank her profusely. But she's more terrified than all of us-- her face is completely pale and covered in sweat. She takes a deep breath. "I guess I did ok." My dad looks at her and goes "you did amazing." We thank her again and go home. 9/10
• 26 October 2020: She picks up the tweezers and digs around inside my gum. This part was quick-- she quickly finds the chunk and pulls it out. I'm not entirely sure what happens after that, I think she performed some other small procedure, but that was quick too. 8/10
• 26 October 2020: Well, no way back now. She takes a lever and jams it between the gum and whatever is left of my tooth. Presses down. No luck. Apparently that's pretty hard to pull off too. She keeps trying. There is a crack. Part of the tooth comes out, but a chunk is left inside. 7/10
• 26 October 2020: She takes dental pliers and starts pulling. After a few minutes it becomes obvious that she's not strong enough to pull the tooth out. She keeps trying. And trying. And trying. After about twenty minutes of this the tooth breaks. She can't grab onto it with the pliers now. 6/10
• 26 October 2020: Turns out they don't have anesthetics stocked. Whoops. They do have the thing they use to numb your gum before the injection, they just don't have the injection. So she numbs me with that as best she can. It's go time now. 5/10
• 26 October 2020: She takes on look at me and goes "well, shit". She's completely unprepared for this situation, and there is no one else to call. She knows what to do, but has never done the procedure. But no choice, she's got to do the job. So she gets me in the chair. 4/10
• 26 October 2020: But in some situations, like mine, there was nobody to bribe. This was urgent and the emergency shift wasn't well staffed. We get there and the clinic has one person-- a dental student. She must have been about 22 years old. 3/10
• 26 October 2020: In the Soviet Union medicine was free, including dental. "Free" meant that you had to have a doctor in your network and you had to bribe them with quid pro quo gifts to get a reasonable standard of care. Otherwise they gave you their version of Tylenol and send you home. 2/10
• 26 October 2020: When I was around 6 y/o I had an infection in my molar. On Saturday night fever went up, cheek ballooned to the size of a small orange. Parents took me to the emergency dental clinic. Socialized medicine story time! 1/10 👇
• 26 October 2020: Yup, I wouldn't be surprised if it's in the millions/year.
• 26 October 2020: For new yes; early subscribers are mostly offering their support (which I'm extremely grateful for). As I get better at this and the community gets larger, I'll start writing private essays and increase the ratio of private to public.
• 26 October 2020: Already signed up. I'm mainly fascinated with biosensors, we're in nascent stages. Wanted to try it out.
• 26 October 2020:
• 26 October 2020: You’re very handsome (in a totally platonic way)
• 26 October 2020: Crossed 100 paid substack subscribers today. Thanks for your support! Feels like I'm paid to go to therapy, which is both flattering and terrifying. I plan to give you a lot more interesting stuff as I get more comfortable with doing therapy in public!
• 26 October 2020: I can tell in general. When I say "curiosity" I don't mean people passively curious about what you do. I mean curiosity driven hackers who just love hacking, vs people who want to accomplish a goal.
• 26 October 2020: You just kind of have to know. Once you make the mistake once, you can tell curiosity apart from conviction in a few seconds.
• 25 October 2020: Out of invites rn, but happy to when I get the next one.
• 25 October 2020: Does anyone have invites/access to @levels who could hook me up? 🙏
• 25 October 2020: Don’t think that’s a good test. People will put in enormous effort for curiosity’s sake.
• 25 October 2020: 👇
• 25 October 2020: You have to work toward an outcome for people outside the company. We worked for the joy of working.
• 25 October 2020: I had too much curiosity and it crowded conviction out.
• 25 October 2020: An outcome for people outside the company.
• 25 October 2020: Recruiting for curiosity was an enormous mistake I made in my last company. (Of course I was curiosity rather than conviction driven myself)
• 25 October 2020: It also helps if the work is good :)
• 25 October 2020: Not sure about the bandwidth (probably right), but definitely agree with the misidentification part.
• 25 October 2020: Unlike wealth, status economy is zero sum.
• 25 October 2020: Lesson 1: don’t take advice from people unless you want their life.
• 25 October 2020: Microsoft Project :(
• 25 October 2020: Regulation is downstream from culture, and you can definitely feel cultural malaise. The Chinese stamp cities into the ground and build thousands of miles of high speed rail while we bicker. We couldn't self-organize to do the Apollo mission today, for example.
• 25 October 2020: Well, America is a nation of extremes and I suppose this isn’t an exception. Futuristic reusable choreographed rocket landings? No problem! Build some housing so 40 year olds don’t need roommates? Sorry, no can do!
• 25 October 2020: You could be talking about a long term technological vision for humanity, or the best way to dice tomatoes for a greek salad. The woke will alway find a way to participate. (Fortunately they only ever have to think one thing)
• 25 October 2020: Are there example breakthroughs coming from China, or is it too early?
• 25 October 2020: And then there is Elon Musk.
• 25 October 2020: Are we in a technological and spiritual malaise?
• 24 October 2020: "Provoke patriots to expose themselves to the masses in a reckless manner"?? Last I checked we aren't in a dictatorship yet. Say what you mean and have no fear!
• 24 October 2020: I think what you want is for the military to be able to veto, maybe? Civilians are much more reluctant to send people to fight than military people, generally.
• 24 October 2020: Is the view you develop of me over Twitter sufficient to make this work? There are super important areas of life that I don’t tweet about at all (sex, for example).
• 24 October 2020: Maybe their search infra miraculously went down...
• 24 October 2020: If you do a search, Twitter claims the following link was only shared five times. Given how many friends shared it privately, it seems incredibly unlikely. Are they manipulating results? https://t.co/KoJId5ZBXk
• 24 October 2020: I was thinking about something very specific: I want a community controlled twitter/fb.
• 24 October 2020: I was thinking about something very specific: I want a community controlled twitter/fb.
• 24 October 2020: What's the screenshot? 🤔
• 24 October 2020: Nothing is preordained.
• 24 October 2020: Crypto is so incredibly important. It needs to win.
• 24 October 2020: We love you Sonya!
• 24 October 2020: Dear VC community, PG always had more courage than you did. And he still does. Come out of the shadows!
• 24 October 2020: Only private ones.
• 24 October 2020: It's a meditative activity, and gives you a much better access to your library.
• 24 October 2020: Eh fuck off, it’s a reasonable question.
• 24 October 2020: At what age did you know you're pretty?
• 24 October 2020: Soldiers are more grown up at 18 than I am at 37.
• 24 October 2020: It's easier than you think. Before my parents bought me a computer, I had access for an hour every Sunday in a university that was 1.5 hours away. So I'd program all week, and type like mad in that hour. You had to get it right or you waste a week. So you make do!
• 24 October 2020: I agree, and I would also be disqualified. People who don't have kids don't know anything.
• 24 October 2020: I would be extremely on board with that.
• 24 October 2020: It's a different problem, but yes, we should address this too.
• 23 October 2020: Why shouldn't eight year olds have a say in their future?
• 23 October 2020: In 1820 eighteen year olds were grown men and women. In 2020 they're toddlers. We should raise voting age by ten years.
• 23 October 2020: Yes, I'm sure that doesn't feel weird either. There is a dark side. I was lucky to escape all of it (thanks to my parents).
• 23 October 2020: 😊 The thing about that upbringing, though, is that it didn't feel bad or weird. It just was. Inventing VMs designed to run in your mind is fun. Compiling programs to them as a kid is fun. Being unable to run Doom because you only have 2mb of memory is fun. It wasn't a tragedy.
• 23 October 2020: The dam is finally breaking.
• 23 October 2020: Not apple, I think :(
• 23 October 2020: !!
• 23 October 2020: How does the dating market exclude most men?
• 23 October 2020: No, I was further away (Odessa).
• 23 October 2020: Enlightening and accurate. Strong recommend.
• 23 October 2020: 😔
• 23 October 2020: Don't worry, we'll get there soon enough. You too can experience the joys of a communist prison state!
• 23 October 2020: We didn't forget. Immigrants from former communist regimes hate anything that even remotely smells of it with the zeal of a thousand suns.
• 23 October 2020: it was the best of times it was the worst of times
• 23 October 2020: Broke my innocent little heart at the time.
• 23 October 2020: I had a hyperactive thyroid as a kid due to Chernobyl proximity. Docs told my parents I can't use computers because they "cause excitement". So I compiled my programs to a tiny VM I made up, and ran them in my head. I don't recommend it for your kids, but it does build character.
• 23 October 2020: 🔥
• 23 October 2020: I'm now getting 10-15 spam calls per day on my mobile number. It effectively makes the incoming calls feature useless, since I have to mute them all. Has anyone found a solution to this problem?
• 23 October 2020: Heroin and crack addicts have babies. If sex can effectively compete with heroin, I think it can compete with pringles and videos of cute cats 😀
• 23 October 2020: Have you ever tried to build anything that didn’t exist before?
• 23 October 2020: 💯👇
• 23 October 2020: I don't buy the sexual habit polls at all. Modern humans were fucking for 200,000 years, and then Gen Z come along precisely now, and all of a sudden they're not interested in the opposite sex? gtfo
• 23 October 2020: The very first review: 2 stars, "Interesting theory, but tainted by libertarian dogma" Me: oh yeah, this must be a five star book!
• 23 October 2020: Not enough to put them in the bio anymore. Now they've got to be in the name.
• 23 October 2020: Very common in the Bay Area because of the gender ratio favorable to women. I can play the evo psych game here too: why would a woman accept one provider/protector, when she can use her sexuality to obtain multiple?
• 23 October 2020: I feel envy as much as anyone, but not so strongly as to completely delude myself, I guess.
• 23 October 2020: I get the evolutionary bio/psych argument. But I've seen many situations where a man is in love with a woman, she's willing to be a fwb, but wants to sleep around, so the man very begrudgingly accepts the arrangement. It's a very real thing that happens to people.
• 23 October 2020: Graduate degree in social work == bullshit studies
• 23 October 2020: I think you know.
• 23 October 2020: "My daughter has a graduate degree from University of Pennsylvania in social work" 😂
• 23 October 2020: Hmm are @SubstackInc custom domains broken? (Some people are reporting that CSS doesn't load)
• 23 October 2020: How many human beings aren't deeply flawed?
• 23 October 2020: How many impossible, groundbreaking companies does Elon have to build before people stop thinking he just got lucky? A hundred? A thousand?
• 23 October 2020: Set one up last night, works great. Wish they allowed a little bit more control of branding.
• 22 October 2020: In fairness you did originally say "if you love country music"...
• 22 October 2020: Has anyone close to you passed away from COVID?
• 22 October 2020: I played their most popular song on Spotify and a pickup truck was in the first verse!
• 22 October 2020: oh god holy clichés
• 22 October 2020: Are you concerned that she feels she needs to have a brand in the first place? Maybe it’s because I wasn’t born in America, but this sounds kinda dystopian to me. (The qualities she picked are of course great)
• 22 October 2020: It was great, I was surprised at how much better it was relative to how much people complain about it. Almost everyone I met was lovely and beautiful (with like two exceptions), had chemistry with maybe 1/3 of the ppl. I don’t know what insane expectations ppl that complain have.
• 22 October 2020: Was the opposite for me (wrt ldl cholesterol / triglycerides). Anyway, that aside, wrt body comp everyone kinda knows-- lift weights, eat your protein, don't overeat carbs/fat. Most ppl just refuse to do it.
• 22 October 2020: I did look into it, and I think it's the opposite :) I know Joe Rogan thinks paleo is great, but after days of looking into it, it looks like too much saturated fat will actually wreck your cardiovascular system.
• 22 October 2020: bro
• 22 October 2020: As far as I can tell excessive red meat consumption does pose considerable cardiovascular risk. The whole paleo/keto thing is nonsense.
• 22 October 2020: 🙏
• 22 October 2020: Is it bad? I think everyone knows what to do, it’s just too much of a pain in the ass for most people to do it.
• 22 October 2020: I think it may be just as common for a man to pretend he's ok with it while secretly dying inside.
• 22 October 2020: For years I thought "the cloud" is an idiotic non-term. It was overloaded to mean vps hosting (AWS) or web apps (salesforce), and nobody cared. I could already do the former with linode, and have been doing the latter for ages. Yup, way more careful about dismissing ideas now.
• 22 October 2020:
• 22 October 2020: Our species has a very high dynamic range.
• 21 October 2020: Reminds me of @benedictevans's tweet on Zuck: "I love news cycles. Old: brilliant, empathic business leader and role model. New: inept sociopath and threat to democracy."
• 21 October 2020: I did a tiny bit of woodworking myself, and the guys who can produce beautiful items are magicians.
• 21 October 2020: Same for me in Ukraine.
• 21 October 2020: Air quality is horrendous two months out of the year and we're working on the schools 👇
• 21 October 2020: Congratulations! 🍾
• 21 October 2020: Do you have the source?
• 21 October 2020: Superhuman is so good, I'm tempted to sign up for a bunch of pointless mailing lists for the joy of efficiently dealing with their emails.
• 21 October 2020: How do you plan to have a conversation with her about creation if the only thing she understands is destruction?
• 21 October 2020: That makes sense, thanks. I get the impression that almost all the democrats are doing that, though. It feels like she isn't unique in this way at all.
• 21 October 2020: My perception is that they think anyone who isn't 100% on board with intersectionalism is a literal nazi who just hasn't started marching trans people off to the gas chambers yet.
• 20 October 2020: @kimmaicutler How did she impact the race? Is it literally that she hugged Lindsey Graham?
• 20 October 2020: When my friend of many years whom I've supported through very difficult life transitions seriously decided I'm a nazi. I am definitely not a nazi. That's when I knew things are really about to go off the rails. A month or two later it all spilled out onto the national stage.
• 20 October 2020: Ok, but the outcome would have been the same, right? Given that, why are people so mad at her? Or is it the symbolism that really matters in this case?
• 20 October 2020: You mean that she had the power to block the nomination but failed to use it? (Did she actually have the power to block it?)
• 20 October 2020: What specifically did she do? (I actually don't know, genuinely want to understand why ppl are so angry at her)
• 20 October 2020: Complete lockdown and control of communications market between basically 2-3 companies, is one I'm particularly concerned with.
• 20 October 2020: Why?
• 20 October 2020: FAANG. I don't put them there, economists put them there.
• 20 October 2020: We need a new legislative framework for monopolistic competition trustbusting.
• 20 October 2020: I think I'm just selecting specific references to show, not blocks that have all the selected references, no?
• 20 October 2020: flattery will get you everywhere!
• 20 October 2020: In my opinion organizing people to do things works much better if you're good at doing one valuable thing other than organizing yourself. My advice would be to find that thing, get very good at it, and then switch to organizing.
• 20 October 2020: How are you going to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission when we have all the guns?
• 20 October 2020: Have mini-GMs-- someone who can do both. Have everyone report to them. Pay them double.
• 20 October 2020: Many people didn't understand what it was about at all (which is by design).
• 20 October 2020: You cannot serve two masters.
• 20 October 2020: that is not a good idea
• 20 October 2020: Forget labels of PM or engineering for a moment. What are you good at?
• 20 October 2020: Keep going like this and it's gonna flip over, Tucker's gonna think it's cool when you mention him.
• 20 October 2020: thanks! see reply :)
• 20 October 2020: 🙏
• 20 October 2020: hmm @Conaw are the disappearing buttons expected behavior?
• 20 October 2020: .@rahulvohra hardcoding things is bad! (vip/news have special behavior wrt shortcuts, can't add another such split and easily send emails to it with a few keystrokes)
• 20 October 2020: Because PMs are high IQ secretaries.
• 20 October 2020: ❤️
• 20 October 2020: That it sucks.
• 20 October 2020: 😂❤️
• 20 October 2020: Should we tell her?
• 20 October 2020: Wrote about this today. This issue makes me livid.
• 20 October 2020: me too
• 20 October 2020: Brian is leading the charge, I'm very excited about the work they've done, and the attempt to open source it as a set of established rails for other companies.
• 20 October 2020: There is no "Add to X split" for custom splits, only for News and VIP.
• 20 October 2020: I don't know :( I know it exists, but I've never been invited to it.
• 20 October 2020: I can't find a way to do it. I can add a split on a particular email, but to I can't quickly add more emails to it as I go through my inbox (I have to go to split settings, etc.)
• 20 October 2020: Interesting project.
• 20 October 2020: nah just testing it out
• 20 October 2020: Is there a way to have multiple custom VIP inboxes in @Superhuman? E.g. friends, family, and then easily move a sender to that inbox with a shortcut?
• 19 October 2020: Monopolistic competition is a real thing economists study. We’re not imagining it.
• 19 October 2020: And still we broke them up.
• 19 October 2020: Bob Dylan 😍🙏 (I also often disagree with my point of view)
• 19 October 2020: Couldn’t you have made materially the same argument for Standard Oil?
• 19 October 2020: I'd love to read it. But ultimately, you just do the thing.
• 19 October 2020: I’d start with sjw activists.
• 19 October 2020: The difference between fast food and Facebook is that there is only one of the latter. We can choose not to long on, but empirically this is not what’s happening.
• 19 October 2020: Wow. Ok yeah, that’s very controversial.
• 19 October 2020: Is it controversial because the team is large relative to your size? (I think many companies are doing this, but they start late and the teams are small)
• 19 October 2020: With the exception of India (which I’m very bullish on), authoritarianism.
• 19 October 2020: Humanity will go on, but it isn’t a world you’d want to live in if you could help it.
• 19 October 2020: Yes.
• 19 October 2020: I don’t mean “source code” literally. We have a world-spanning monopoly that’s programming us to turn on each other. We ought to be able to have a say in what they’re optimizing for. (Also, follow Brian Armstrong’s example and get the woke out.)
• 19 October 2020: One of their choice.
• 19 October 2020: I’d start by stating their position publicly and openly for anyone to see. They aren’t even doing that.
• 19 October 2020: Wow I hadn’t considered that. Market cap is $36B. Would be hard to do it privately. Another thing I wish we actually did is break up monopolies.
• 19 October 2020: Something's rotten in the state of tech. I know it, you know it, everyone who has any sense at all knows it. An open letter.
• 19 October 2020: You're missing "motivated self-interest".
• 19 October 2020: It's a great question. I noticed that when I poll sensitive questions, if I preface with "anonymous poll" a lot more people respond ¯_(ツ)_/¯
• 19 October 2020: Don’t do executive coaching unless you’re one of the top ten hot startups (and maybe even top five). It’s like learning physics from a high school teacher. If they could do actual physics, they’d be at a university.
• 19 October 2020: Been doing this for ages!
• 19 October 2020: We must extend AB 5 to OnlyFans content providers. Enough with patriarchal discrimination of young women! Like Uber drivers, our hard-working OnlyFans women lube the gears of essential infrastructure, and are the backbone of our democracy.
• 19 October 2020: We must extend Prop 22 to OnlyFans content providers. Enough with patriarchal discrimination of young women! Like Uber drivers, our hard-working OnlyFans women lube the gears of essential infrastructure, and are the backbone of our democracy.
• 18 October 2020: Twitter limits to four options.
• 18 October 2020: Anonymous poll. If you've ever worked at a unicorn, have you cried in the office because of work, or seen someone else cry?
• 18 October 2020: It isn’t criticism when people make shit up about you and then publicly crucify you for the shit they made up.
• 18 October 2020: My advice would be to hippie flip. You'll simultaneously unearth deep trauma that will take years to come to terms with, and wreck your current relationship by fake falling in love with someone horrible for you. Double the price, 50x the excitement.
• 18 October 2020: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
• 18 October 2020: Oh that's perfect! Take some drugs, get your psychology completely blown out, and then spend the next three years putting the pieces back together. You can have three years of excitement for like twenty bucks.
• 18 October 2020: 😍❤️
• 18 October 2020: That’s only true so long as our life is better than theirs.
• 18 October 2020: 😍
• 18 October 2020: According to a recent thread where I asked people which day they’d repeat, do molly or fall in love (preferably both at the same time).
• 18 October 2020: The play's the thing, Robin.
• 18 October 2020: Gingers! 😍
• 18 October 2020: Did the love last?
• 18 October 2020: Go back and re-read the whole post after each new paragraph, not just the new paragraph.
• 18 October 2020: Ah got it, thanks! That sounds like it may work.
• 18 October 2020: You're probably right. (That's what I'm doing now)
• 18 October 2020: Wow, surprisingly great question! I need to think about it.
• 18 October 2020: What are the mental anchor words? I don't follow this part.
• 18 October 2020: Tried skeleton first, doesn't work. But 3-act play might!
• 18 October 2020: How do you have a writing process that isn't O(N^2)? Every time I write a new paragraph, I have to go back and re-read the whole thing.
• 18 October 2020: :(
• 18 October 2020: Steve Job’s death. We lost a prophet.
• 18 October 2020: Yes, it’s like any piece of technology. In this case it makes you extraordinarily understanding of people’s pain. In the limit case, imagine falling in love with a homeless woman addicted to heroin. That will not lead your life in a good direction.
• 18 October 2020: It was a necessary but extraordinarily destructive experience for me in hindsight. So I have mixed feelings. Still would exchange a year for one press of that button, though.
• 18 October 2020: I’m guessing millions of people try molly annually. So it’s not as small a number as one might think.
• 18 October 2020: Lol. The culture series has literally this backdrop. For example, like we have orchestra composers to create pleasant music, they have very well respected drug cocktail composers to create pleasant experiences. (All of course normalized and perfectly safe).
• 18 October 2020: Actually here is one immediate thing we could do. Get more people to read Player of Games. (This would be a long time horizon)
• 18 October 2020: The obvious answer is legalization so people can form real organizations to study it. But I don’t know how to do that.
• 18 October 2020: 👇
• 18 October 2020: I like how all the responses so far include molly.
• 18 October 2020: It will definitely draw a sharp line between the before and the after for humanity (just like it did for my life on that day).
• 18 October 2020: Hmm it’s a good question how many years I’d give up. One year— trivially yes. Three— I think yes but I’d have to think about it.
• 18 October 2020: It edits markdown files on your laptop. I just point it at a Dropbox folder.
• 18 October 2020: Same (different date though).
• 18 October 2020: If you could relive any 24 hours from your past at a press of a button as many times as you want, but it always had to be the same 24 hours, what would you pick?
• 18 October 2020: People who say that never tasted real revenge.
• 18 October 2020: I’ve been thinking about my experiences I wish I could relive over and over, and every single one was way out of my comfort zone at the time.
• 18 October 2020: My current process: write in Roam, polish in iaWriter, publish on Substack.
• 18 October 2020: Ah ok. Strangely, that satisfies me.
• 17 October 2020: Where is the challenge? Regulation? Business model? Smtg else?
• 17 October 2020: What does it mean to "quadruple taxes"? Will I pay 160% instead of 40%? If I pay $80k in taxes on $200k income, will I now pay $320k? Will they quadruple something on the margin? Of all the things, for some inexplicable reason this one jumps out at me the most.
• 17 October 2020: Also a nightmare for non-native speakers.
• 17 October 2020: That would suggest patient education is actually effective for patient outcomes.
• 17 October 2020: Give us a consumer demo version!!!!
• 17 October 2020: At a minimum I ought to be able to input my medical history and demographic info, and get a base rate of a given condition for my reference class. Generally agree with you though; I think webmd-style resources ought to be vertically integrated with providers like onemedical.
• 17 October 2020: 👇
• 17 October 2020: This looks ridiculously impressive. About time. (Unsure about the business model, though)
• 17 October 2020: @atulio Those are slightly better but I think it’s lack of imagination. We can do so much more.
• 17 October 2020: Is anyone working to disrupt the dumpster fire that’s WebMD (and adjacent sites)?
• 17 October 2020: Gold, glory and gospel.
• 17 October 2020: Yes. I mean that it will not cross the cultural mainstream.
• 17 October 2020: Something people miss. Acceptance != desirability.
• 17 October 2020: I treat fast food workers as an access path to fast food, but I also treat them like any other person. I don’t insult them just because I feel like it (and actually never feel like it). The senior partners aren’t like that.
• 17 October 2020: this is ridiculous, halva is delicious!
• 17 October 2020: If you live in SF and haven't sent out your ballot, copy this thing verbatim. Thanks Mike for saving us a ton of work 👇
• 17 October 2020: OMG you are the man. Copying this thing verbatim. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
• 17 October 2020: however much it is, it's not enough
• 17 October 2020: Tried all of them, for notes/research Roam wins hand down IMO. (That was before Notion added backlinks though, not sure if that changes the equation)
• 17 October 2020: But actually, being humiliated by your boss isn't the worst thing that happens. You who's the most vicious? Slightly less junior VC associates. Like, you're in it for two years and now you're an investor and the new guy is just "some kid". Ya'll are fucking AWFUL to each other.
• 17 October 2020: But actually, being humiliated by your boss isn't the worst thing that happens. You who's the most vicious? Slightly less junior VC associates. Like, you're in it for two years and now you're an investor and he's just "some kid". Ya'll are fucking AWFUL to each other.
• 17 October 2020: The most humiliating job I can think of is being a VC associate. If I had to choose between that and washing public urinals all day for $12/hour, I’d choose the urinals and it’s not even close. I’ve seen how they’re treated by partners, and Jesus it’s sad.
• 17 October 2020: To clarify: I meant nobody from the group @default_friend originally brought up.
• 17 October 2020: BitTorrent
• 17 October 2020: Probably the real answer to your question is that nobody's a climate scientist and therefore has any idea, but everyone's convinced the market will provide because it feels that way.
• 17 October 2020: I guess the question is whether it's a degradation we can turn off at any time by not burning fossil fuels or there is a point of no return after which we're all fucked. I think nobody seriously believes that it's the latter.
• 17 October 2020: I am definitely embarrassed about my monkey brain's reaction to AOC. How could it find somebody so unbelievably stupid so freakin' hot?
• 17 October 2020: @default_friend I mean, what are we going to do, not fix it? If shit gets out of control enough to scare people we'll build a bunch of nuclear plants, start properly taxing carbon emissions, and everything will be fine.
• 17 October 2020: I don’t care about this bullshit story. I very much care when a monopoly breaks my trust by fucking with my DMs.
• 17 October 2020: Twitter blocking the link in DMs pissed me off.
• 17 October 2020: Did you ever see it’s always sunny episode where dennis went to pick up women at an abortion rally?
• 17 October 2020: Are liberal women pissed their men find ACB really hot?
• 17 October 2020: The actual text has the word dao twice, once as a noun (“way”), once as a verb (“wayed” if that word existed, but because it doesn’t it’s basically “travelled”).
• 17 October 2020: The actual text is “the dao that can be dao’d”.
• 17 October 2020: The tweet that can be tweeted!
• 16 October 2020: 😂
• 16 October 2020: My prediction: if OnlyFans makes girls rich, it will transform them into something adjacent to cartel boss territory. As in, allure and fascination, but you don’t want your wife to be one, and you don’t want your daughter to become one.
• 16 October 2020: All bb-style forums too btw, there are still many active ones left!
• 16 October 2020: That’s a great argument and a really interesting question!
• 16 October 2020: Agree, those are great!
• 16 October 2020: No but for real though?
• 16 October 2020: Ya'll are in way too deep in your subcultures.
• 16 October 2020: touché
• 16 October 2020: In every transposition of this particular myth in every culture that I know of, Cinderella is chaste.
• 16 October 2020: You think she'll want competition from some hot young thing?
• 16 October 2020: why are you angry?
• 16 October 2020: How many cultures can you name throughout the entire history of humanity where sex work has been culturally accepted and normalized?
• 16 October 2020: I think we're talking about different things. There always will be some guys who are ok with it. There may even be a lot of them. My argument is that full acceptance will never cross the cultural chasm and become mainstream.
• 16 October 2020: @Aella_Girl
• 16 October 2020: Are you sure?
• 16 October 2020: Yes.
• 16 October 2020: You can try to destigmatize sex work all you want. It will work, to a point. People will act as if it’s a real profession, and even believe it themselves. But revealed preferences won’t budge— nobody is bringing a top 10% OnlyFans earner home to mom.
• 16 October 2020: You can try to destigmatize sex work all you want. It will work, to a point— people will act as if it’s a real profession, and even believe it themselves. But revealed preferences won’t budge— nobody is bringing a top 10% OnlyFans earner home to mom.
• 16 October 2020: 💯
• 16 October 2020: No but it was maybe within the last month. Should be pretty easy to find on his timeline.
• 16 October 2020: No, it isn’t about the content but about centralization, which we have regulated since the Communications Act of 1934.
• 16 October 2020: We don't need to know why their algorithm made any individual decision. We need to know what they're optimizing for. That is extremely explainable.
• 16 October 2020: @patio11 read this letter and thought of your thread on how to say/do the same thing thousands of times without losing excitement.
• 16 October 2020: It is insane that facebook and twitter get to program our brains and we have no access to the source code.
• 16 October 2020: 😂
• 16 October 2020:
• 16 October 2020: Except Arby’s never swayed presidential elections with their signature smokehouse brisket. So I dare say this is a little different.
• 16 October 2020: @ghalib have options
• 16 October 2020: (You should look up who was on the board, btw, I believe it's public info)
• 16 October 2020: I should write a few of these. Nobody was vindictive. They saw I don't understand distribution and humiliated me for two hours every few months. Good business instincts, but horrendous coaches. Can't stress enough how important it is for a board member to know how to teach.
• 16 October 2020: I can see what’s in my Spam folder. I can’t see how Twitter is programming my brain by fucking with my timeline.
• 16 October 2020: I agree that good fact checking is useful, but I would only accept it if (a) I could choose between multiple independent organizations doing it, and (b) I could turn it off. That’s not what’s happening right now. At all.
• 16 October 2020: That may be, but I still won’t allow a liberal arts gender fluid girl with pink hair and a nose ring decide for me what I am and am not allowed to read. And with respect, I won’t allow you to decide for me either.
• 16 October 2020: That may be, but I still won’t let a liberal arts gender fluid girl with pink hair and a nose ring decide for me what I am and am not allowed to read. And with respect, I won’t allow you to decide for me either.
• 16 October 2020: That may be, but I don’t want a liberal arts gender fluid girl with pink hair and a nose ring deciding for me what I am and am not allowed to read.
• 15 October 2020: Yes.
• 15 October 2020: Source? Lewis?
• 15 October 2020: You’re always so polite, even your criticisms sound like compliments!
• 15 October 2020: Good thing they did it fast enough that no one got the chance to learn about the story.
• 15 October 2020: It's so much fun watching people with fuck you money fifty times over stay the course as we drift toward the apocalypse.
• 15 October 2020:
• 15 October 2020: "What is written with a feather cannot be cut out with an ax."-- russian proverb
• 15 October 2020: ❤️
• 15 October 2020: I think Clubhouse will do to 24 hour news networks what Twitter did to newspapers.
• 15 October 2020: Before digital subscriptions newspapers were constrained to cities and towns, which are small markets. So to thrive they had to cater to everybody. Now their market suddenly increased 100x. Now the incentive is to create an echo-chamber and get half the huge market.
• 15 October 2020:
• 15 October 2020: Yeah, you're probably right on BitTorrent.
• 15 October 2020: I think it’s actually evidence supporting my argument. Linux and BitTorrent is excellent tech used by nerds, but 98% of the world uses Windows/OS X and Netflix.
• 15 October 2020: We already know that doesn't work because a centralized organization can offer a much more compelling experience. If we can build distributed infrastructure, monetization has to be baked in.
• 15 October 2020: You know the scariest part? They're preventing people from sharing the link in the DMs.
• 15 October 2020: How much would you wager? It’s preventing everybody.
• 15 October 2020: From my cold dead hands.
• 14 October 2020: Dystopian future has come and we're living in it. The world needs decentralized infrastructure now more than ever.
• 14 October 2020: I think it has enormous potential though. Imagine if a team of three talented people worked on this full time for a few months. Good chance it would transform into an actually huge differentiating aspect of Roam.
• 14 October 2020: Yep. You don't want ppl who have bad strategic sense but think they're good, because then they derail every strategic discussion with dumb ideas and get frustrated that nobody listens to them. Sucks for everyone. But if they realize they need to learn, it's totally fine.
• 14 October 2020: IMO one part of Roam that isn’t particularly thought through. The built in graph view is only mildly interesting, and even less useful. I’d be interested in playing with this!
• 14 October 2020: The nature of the process also sounds like a metaphor. A genie is either mischievous but not malicious, or maybe malicious but constrained. There is a battle of wits. Might just be artistic license, but it’s awfully specific. I wonder what that encodes.
• 14 October 2020: A seriously fascinating history of dates, times and calendars. I was blown away when I first read this. A new guest post.
• 14 October 2020: I started with Player of Games, but yes.
• 14 October 2020: Have you read anything from Ian Banks's culture series? I'm very interested in how you'd view their society.
• 14 October 2020: I think that's a knock on meaning. The one you're referring to is a modernized version of pandora's box. But note that the genie is (a) friendly, (b) but mischievous and can end up hurting you if you're not careful. One possible interpretation: your creativity.
• 14 October 2020: What is a genie in a bottle a metaphor for?
• 14 October 2020: Well, I'm a textualist but I'm also not a sucker, if that makes sense.
• 14 October 2020: Take the outside view and imagine studying this time as a historian a thousand years from now. When you read that Trump just nominated Barrett, Coons's line of questioning would be the first thing you'd think of. Or at least I would. (I agree that part was inappropriate, though)
• 14 October 2020: I thought the hearing was very civil, compared to Kavanaugh. That was insane.
• 14 October 2020: Whoops, thanks, fixed!
• 14 October 2020: I want Substack to look like plain text gists.
• 14 October 2020: i try
• 13 October 2020: But the mechanics of a Turing machine is completely incidental to it’s essence, which is determining what’s computable, what halts, etc. The brain is obviously not lambda calculus in a mechanical sense either, but it literally is isomorphic to all of those things.
• 13 October 2020: it's a bit schizophrenic, too many conflicting roots that get in each other's way
• 13 October 2020: they're both ridiculously sharp too
• 13 October 2020: I was a soviet jew first, then an admirer of the enlightenment values and the frontier, then a tinkerer/builder, then an American, then a trekkie, then a poet and then a lover. Roughly in decreasing order of precedence. There are many I missed I'm sure, but this is a good start.
• 13 October 2020: Clarence Thomas is a giaaant nerd 😍
• 13 October 2020: Clarence Thomas is also incredible.
• 13 October 2020: You don't see how the techno-capitalist lens that gave us factory farming is irreconcilable with the indigenous lens that embodies the principle that land cannot be used?
• 13 October 2020: This is perhaps the most enjoyable hour I ever spent on YouTube.
• 13 October 2020: yep. My brain treats ppl online totally differently from irl. Before I know it, I'm knee deep in trolling.
• 13 October 2020: tbh online I do it to further enrage them
• 13 October 2020: I remember you saying that ppl wouldn't sign up for lambda school for various reasons, and you just kept fixing their objections until they did.
• 13 October 2020: ❤️
• 13 October 2020: However you define it.
• 13 October 2020: Do you actively practice improving your imagination? (If yes, please comment with techniques! Really curious about this.)
• 13 October 2020: Anything specific by Tim and Matt? (I mostly learned by watching @paulg do it)
• 13 October 2020: Who are the top three underrated thinkers from first principles in the arena today? IMO: @bscholl (although ppl are starting to give him credit), @Austen (ppl don't think of him like that for some reason), @Suhail (probably because he likes building more than limelight).
• 13 October 2020: Ah, yes. I also think they're often barely described at all, and when they are described, the description doesn't turn out to matter. They're a mood, a feeling that possesses people.
• 13 October 2020: I used to think that, now I don’t (usually). You either honor the land or burn tons of fuel on it to send a rocket to space. You can’t really do both at once.
• 13 October 2020: ❤️
• 13 October 2020: This is a worldview, a lens. Another lens is the spirit of the frontier. Another is the Baconian project. And so on. They’re all compelling and often irreconcilable. We don’t have lenses; they have us. Then they wage their wars. We are their cannon fodder. They have no mercy.
• 13 October 2020: RBG was the extremist for making up a bunch of statutes that weren't there.
• 13 October 2020: Yes, definitely not the same thing. My point is that people demand accreditation but don't care about the method.
• 13 October 2020: Fun fact. Once the Soviet Union collapsed and the institutions collapsed with it, people started bribing administrators to get degrees without ever setting foot in the building. For PhD too! Everyone knew everyone else was doing it, but you still had to do it to get a job.
• 13 October 2020: You should have joined sales then, you would have made a fortune on commissions!
• 13 October 2020: Wow that's amazing, do you have a source?
• 13 October 2020: Unchecked openness and honesty are really bad traits in negotiations. And in fact, once engineers join the team, they'll be delighted that you sometimes play hardball, because now you're playing it on their behalf.
• 13 October 2020: What you interpret as contempt is actually a sense of playfulness.
• 13 October 2020: oh man bosozoku people would kill it at burning man
• 13 October 2020: I could see why they did it, this honestly doesn't look as cool (though still cool)
• 13 October 2020: it's not just every board configuration you have to back out, it's the path. If you got to the same ending configuration via two different paths, that counts twice.
• 13 October 2020: The fact that they got so mad in the first place is a pretty good signal it's a true thing (it's not a perfect heuristic, but in the current climate it's pretty good)
• 13 October 2020: there is no trick, you brute force it!
• 13 October 2020: I was gonna reply with “but they’re sooo pretty though”, and then saw this follow up comment.
• 13 October 2020: An unexpected downside of writing regularly is that every time you publish, you end up wasting a full day on trolls. So regular writing requires discipline in addition to the discipline of writing regularly— you must also discipline yourself to tune out the trolls.
• 13 October 2020: Hmm I’m considering you may be right but that’s beta too.
• 13 October 2020: The power dynamic is on their side. They have five offers with $500k total comp.
• 13 October 2020: Underrated strategy when someone on social media gets mad at you for saying a true thing: immediately switch to acting like you’re their therapist trying to help them work through the anger.
• 13 October 2020: Interesting, I didn’t realize that at all!
• 13 October 2020: You’ve assumed fast programmers are antisocial with no basis. And if we accept it as fact, then you’re saying structuring interviews to help people who already have trouble with interaction is toxic. Maybe you’re the one with a toxic view?
• 13 October 2020: Well, you’re not answering my question. How is my selecting for speed cause any problems for anyone? (other than not hiring slow people)
• 13 October 2020: Part of which problem?
• 13 October 2020: Ok. But why does it bother you so much that I have a different interview philosophy?
• 13 October 2020: Have you considered the possibility that for some people a little verbal jousting is fun?
• 13 October 2020: Obviously they think as they type the program.
• 13 October 2020: How is it the opposite?
• 13 October 2020: Have you considered the possibility that for many people solving hard algorithmic problem may be fun?
• 13 October 2020: Really good advice 👇
• 13 October 2020: None whatsoever, but I know what I saw.
• 13 October 2020: ❤️
• 13 October 2020: I read Meditations two or three times, and every time I can't quite shake the feeling that Marcus Aurelius was morbidly depressed when he wrote them.
• 13 October 2020: This method is more human than industry norms. It creates a team with a singular purpose and a very tight bond. The creative magic that unleashes is unbelievable. Compare to coworkers that are vaguely ok with each other and never talk again when someone leaves.
• 12 October 2020: definitely bonus points
• 12 October 2020: teledildonics
• 12 October 2020: We know every human culture has done some form of hazing for as long as we have records. Modern people already transposed many destructive impulses into healthy outlets (war->sport, rape->CNC). Why not hazing?
• 12 October 2020: They do not have 85 IQ.
• 12 October 2020: There are ppl with 115 IQ who encountered tons of these problems at a uni and people with 145 IQ who encountered tons of these problems. You can definitely tell the difference.
• 12 October 2020: In my experience: median student is way better at top unis than median uni. But still unimpressive. Top students are about the same everywhere. But way more of them at top unis.
• 12 October 2020: 💯
• 12 October 2020: Given everything I've read seen, my prior is that he's probably wrong. But I'll read the essay with an open mind and report back!
• 12 October 2020: I am also smart/not-fast (I like to imagine the "smart" part at least).
• 12 October 2020: I noticed that deliberately giving people impossible questions makes them more likely to accept an offer-- this is a real thing. Some parts are slightly exaggerated for sure, but the essay isn't meant as a joke.
• 12 October 2020: Warning: I have controversial opinions!
• 12 October 2020: People with 85 IQ literally can't do math. There is no way there are 85 IQ mathematicians!
• 12 October 2020: I think Taleb is wrong. The scholarship on IQ is overwhelming. Also, I think obsession (in the way that you mean it) correlated with IQ.
• 12 October 2020: I miss you Etienne. How is life? (You escaped America at the right time, it seems like!)
• 12 October 2020: I'd call it a stubborn attachment based on experience. This of course rejects good people who are slow (I am one of them). But false negatives are ok. The goal is to build a killer early team, which this accomplishes. It isn't to be 100% accurate.
• 12 October 2020: Over the years I've interviewed hundreds of software engineering candidates and hired dozens. Here's what I learned about how to interview engineers. New post.
• 12 October 2020: I've interviewed hundreds of software engineering candidates and hired dozens. Here's what I've learned about how to interview engineers. New post.
• 12 October 2020: Not just Cubans 👇
• 12 October 2020: Why do scientists imagine tech is building cool stuff? Tech is about raising venture, measuring things, increasing measured things at all costs, which helps with raising more venture.
• 12 October 2020: it's not easy
• 12 October 2020: Are you aware of what else was going on in 15th century?
• 12 October 2020: Unrelated, but I wonder if the fact that both Thatcher and Meir weren't conventionally attractive is no coincidence 🤔
• 12 October 2020: If it helps, I think of @default_friend as a less ruthless version of you, and I think of you as a young Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir (except a more attractive version).
• 12 October 2020: Scientists literally scribble squiggly lines on a board, and that somehow makes things fly, or generates electricity, or produces tiny capsules that relieve headaches.
• 12 October 2020: Also bleak is wrong. You offer a coherent way out, or at least a direction. Way better than convenient falsehoods or motivation hustlers IMO.
• 12 October 2020: Definitely not 😁
• 12 October 2020: I think of you like a less ruthless version of @kaschuta.
• 12 October 2020: I can tell by your new avatar.
• 12 October 2020: some kids get autism, we don't know why, and people blame it on vaccines
• 12 October 2020: The line is simple— they’re doing smtg illegal under local law. (Other than that give people the tools to filter them out)
• 12 October 2020: 🌹 she/her
• 12 October 2020: Path dependence.
• 12 October 2020: "I’ve never witnessed a state willingly commit suicide" -> NYC I meant it as a negative example. It's definitely not far behind CA (which is really really sad because I'm from there)
• 12 October 2020: @JosephLHurtado Not quite a state, but there is NYC!
• 12 October 2020: @TheeTryHardd where is the doors of stone damnit!!!!
• 12 October 2020: In fairness, we would too if they annihilated out business model.
• 12 October 2020: There are four things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, the anger of a gentle man, and the unwinding of network effects. I’m talking to you California.
• 11 October 2020: Rule of thumb: never ask a candidate any questions that could plausibly be asked by Samantha in HR. It's a complete waste of everyone's time.
• 11 October 2020: I definitely do not advocate delaying sailing off forever, or trading up mid-journey. That would be a very very bad plan. At some point you have to go all in.
• 11 October 2020: I think you might really like Konrad Lorenz’s King Solomon’s Ring.
• 11 October 2020: Another way to think about it: you’re getting on a ship and going into uncharted waters with no way back. Here be dragons! You want to spend at least a little bit of time to get the best crew you can find.
• 11 October 2020: A mate is of course not a job, but it is a market, and you want to get if not the best deal, at least a good one. Consider: in arranged marriage cultures, the parents shop around for you! Markers in everything! (I’m an economist on this)
• 11 October 2020: 👇
• 11 October 2020: Dollars to donuts she's fucking the body guard.
• 11 October 2020: "If you're working at a company for over a year, and you're over 25 years old, and you're not miserable, you should never switch jobs. If you think you could do better, you are being selfish. Be absurdly grateful 1 company is even willing to hire you. It's a miracle, really."
• 11 October 2020: The guy in the van failed to lean into it.
• 11 October 2020: @notpkshekhawat Interesting-- for some reason blondes don't do it for me.
• 11 October 2020: Cancellation is virality. One door closes, another one opens.
• 11 October 2020: Why not
• 11 October 2020: what did you learn?
• 10 October 2020: 👇
• 10 October 2020: I think of that process as a negotiation between our internal needs and external reality. If you frame it like that and follow that thread, it clears a lot of otherwise confusing questions.
• 10 October 2020: Took me maybe 3-4 years, but I built new ones. Much more sturdy now.
• 10 October 2020: That’s incredible.
• 10 October 2020: Did RBG see the law as independent from her faith, or did she project her faith into her rulings?
• 10 October 2020: Are they not attacking her for no reason at all other than that she’s religious?
• 10 October 2020: TIL when a child is being especially adorable Iranians happily exclaim “I sacrifice myself for you!” When I pointed out it’s incredibly profound, Iranian friends were surprised. It never occurred to them to consider the phrase literally.
• 10 October 2020: Dude you didn’t turn that off?!
• 10 October 2020: As an aside, transition to full machine labor doesn’t necessarily mean UBI, and I could see very good reasons for why that implementation would be bad. But can’t see yet how to do it differently. Ideally machines do the work, but people stay independent from the state. But how?
• 10 October 2020: In the short term, mixed feelings too. I’ve been on welfare and know what a nightmare it is administratively. I have a personal vendetta against the government bureaucrats who run it, and want them all fired. But that won’t happen, and it’s a bad way to make decisions anyway.
• 10 October 2020: Mixed feelings. “What will we do when the robots take most jobs” seems very silly to me— getting the machines to do the work for us is the whole point. But the cultural transition shock is immense. Like the shift from feudalism to capitalism. So tldr is yes, but will be painful.
• 10 October 2020: Drugs, alcohol, child neglect, child abuse, etc.
• 10 October 2020: Because no one is going to want their kids to go to school with kids from shitty families, so all the good families are going to leave.
• 9 October 2020: Who started the trend of $ hikikomori run yarn start-style command lines? The first project I remember to do that was Darcs, except they did it well, and everyone else copied it poorly.
• 9 October 2020: it was meant to be a mildly antisemitic joke (i'm jewish, so it's ok)
• 9 October 2020: Low immigration liberal ethnostates or states that combine ethnicity and religious heritage— Japan, South Korea, India and Israel. They seem to be immune to the virus. Also emergent democracies are immune (e.g. LATAM, Poland) but they’re fragile for other reasons.
• 9 October 2020: @maskoficarus @jessems Low immigration liberal ethnostates or states that combine ethnicity and religious heritage— Japan, South Korea, India and Israel. They seem to be immune from the virus. Also emergent democracies are immune (e.g. LATAM, Poland) but they’re fragile for other reasons.
• 9 October 2020: or jewish weddings
• 9 October 2020: I have pondered it. The problem with this argument is you can make it for almost anything other than perhaps very rigorous science. And that’s not so useful because you still have to wake up every morning and decide what to do.
• 9 October 2020: Americans own 400 million guns (more than people!) and a trillion bullets (!!). 40% of Americans live in a household with a firearm. Most of those people are very much not the Bolsheviks. It will not be so easy here.
• 9 October 2020: You’ve been on fire for the past few days.
• 9 October 2020: No, it would have been simple if twitter let you block people based on words in their bio, which it doesn't.
• 9 October 2020: it's there
• 9 October 2020: The phrase "express their beliefs" is too vague. What does it mean? Come in wearing a BLM shirt? Kneeling at all hands? Demand everyone kneel at all hands? Demand everyone goes through unconscious bias training? Infuse oppressors vs oppressed narrative into every interaction?
• 9 October 2020: (One caveat is that roughly half the country really doesn't want anyone to fuck with them. They also have ~400 million guns. It's not so easy to build USSR 2.0 under these conditions.)
• 9 October 2020: 100% agree with both of those commenters. It's a bit hard to explain. You know how when you see a teenager do something immature, you know exactly what they're doing, but you can't explain it to them? It's like that. Signs couldn't be clearer, we've seen all this before.
• 9 October 2020: just did this, my timeline was a mess
• 9 October 2020: I muted all these words and it's a beautiful thing: sexist, feminist, biden, kamala, racism, masculinity, supremacist, activist, racist, ableist, inclusive, white male, white people, wealth tax, billionaires, trump.
• 9 October 2020: No need to rush. Many more will follow.
• 9 October 2020: Pragmatically that's true, but from a certain perspective they already can't complain. They got used to doing activism and very little work in exchange for a preposterously high salary by any meaningful standard. Nobody gave them this guarantee. Time to adjust expectations.
• 9 October 2020: Pragmatically that's true, but from a certain perspective they already can't complain. They got used to doing activism and very little work in exchange for a preposterously high salary by any meaningful standard. Nobody game them this guarantee. Time to adjust expectations.
• 9 October 2020: It's way easier than in communist europe, but still not that easy. (In america anyone can sue anyone for any reason, so they can make your life a pain if they want to)
• 9 October 2020: Oh man, whoever wrote this should talk to my dad who lived in a society where this exact thing happened word for word. Spoiler: it fucking blows.
• 9 October 2020: This is also a great plan!
• 9 October 2020: “Supersonic flights are easy, everyone knew how to do it already, it was just a bad business, that’s why nobody did it and why Boom is gonna fail.” (To this day ppl say that about reusable rockets and SpaceX 🤯)
• 9 October 2020: Omg where do I get this?!
• 9 October 2020: Yeah, though I don't think it's a nuanced enough metaphor. It's easy to unwittingly start looking for storms you don't need to go through and deliberately walking into them. Gotta look out for that.
• 9 October 2020: Yeah. Over time though I've moved toward not fetishizing the misery part. People who feel it tend to try and enlarge it (which I used to do). Now I actively work to shrink/control it. Allowing this thing to become too big is a mistake IMO.
• 8 October 2020: Everyone in this industry sector is an idiot, they're clearly doing X, Y, and Z wrong. Also gonna stay in bed all day, not sure if I'm good enough for anything.
• 8 October 2020: My strategy for how to vote on California ballot propositions: Don't even bother reading the text, just figure out which groups support them. If it's business, vote yes. If it's government, labor unions or NGOs, vote no. Easy peasy.
• 8 October 2020: Me too!
• 8 October 2020: Pretty amazing results
• 8 October 2020: You just say “no more activism, if you don’t like it leave”. And then fire people who continue to do activism.
• 8 October 2020: I know it’s actually not a good idea and you don’t get to be petty when you run a company. But I get to be petty on Twitter with no skin in the game!
• 8 October 2020: How does Brian know who “they” are now?
• 8 October 2020: I agree it’s petty.
• 8 October 2020: From an economics perspective wants and needs are indistinguishable. (I agree that we should collectively price externalities of carbon footprint, and then rich people can choose whether to pay that price).
• 8 October 2020: Brian is a better man than I. I wouldn't have given them any severance.
• 8 October 2020: Narcissism of small differences.
• 8 October 2020: sure, but when you watch a movie you still feel things, even though it's all fake
• 8 October 2020: both, I believe
• 8 October 2020: When Kamala says "I'm speaking" it's: (A) irritating, self-centered and off-putting (B) firm, graceful and empowering
• 8 October 2020: Signal boost: @tracyktownsend. Interesting perspectives on tons of topics-- life, parenthood, future, culture, education, medicine. Strongly recommend following her, her tweets are great.
• 8 October 2020: life basically
• 8 October 2020: @misha_saul I feel like this is the primary thing millennials haven’t figured out how to deal with.
• 8 October 2020: Excuse me, I am speaking now? I am speaking now?
• 8 October 2020: You mean he's a politician?
• 8 October 2020: There is a huge number of people who aren't cash constrained. These are also the people who need to get places fast.
• 8 October 2020: Just a safety buffer for modern families.
• 8 October 2020: They are free! Fixed and marginal cost of dicks is zero. Marginal utility beyond perhaps 1-3 dicks is also zero. Imagine if the marginal utility for dicks was high (like vaginas), and the cost was non-trivial! You'd love dick pics! I'll see myself out. /mansplaining
• 8 October 2020: That's only true because you can snap your fingers and get ten for free. Markets in everything.
• 8 October 2020: 👇
• 8 October 2020: I stopped watching after ~25m, so maybe it flipped. But it felt like Pence treated each question as a category and then read his prearranged speech for that category. Kamala was responding to actual questions and landing actual punches.
• 8 October 2020: I stopped watching after ~25m. Maybe it flipped later? I guess I'll watch the whole thing :(
• 8 October 2020: TL;DR: - Kamala is a sharper debater - Pence gets much more ruthless questions - Note my use of first name and last name - Kamala is more relatable - Pence is more polished (overpolished IMO)
• 8 October 2020: Senator Harris, you've said before that puppies are cute. However, some health experts are concerned Americans with allergies. Have you discussed these concerns with vice president Biden?
• 8 October 2020: Stripe is an amazing learning experience. Enjoy!
• 8 October 2020: Ah got it. I’m actually writing one explicitly about engineer compensation/promotion. Many politically correct lies there I want to cover.
• 8 October 2020: Can I use that term for future posts? "Accumulated bitterness"?
• 7 October 2020: Which one? (can't see the OP tweet)
• 7 October 2020: Hey mail is an excellent marketing channel for Superhuman.
• 7 October 2020: Hey @SubstackInc, the editor doesn't allow adding alt text to images. It's a pretty big accessibility problem. Not a big deal for decorative images, but important for images that matter to the story. Let us add alt text please?
• 7 October 2020: I'm like 100x nicer and more reasonable irl than on twitter. Twitter turns me into a demon.
• 7 October 2020: 😍
• 7 October 2020: Congratulations Blake! Incredible achievement!
• 7 October 2020: Remember when everyone was like "one day the kids are going to do things that will outrage us just like we've outraged the older generation" but nobody actually believed it because we all thought we're at a cultural fixed point and nothing they do will ever surprise us? lol🌹
• 7 October 2020: He also had established reputation with the software engineering community, and then people who saw that comic went on to program fb/twitter/etc. It's the wrong question to ask what would have been if the comic didn't exist. The question is what if he took the opposite side?
• 7 October 2020: I agree with this. I think it may be reasonable to require these algorithms be open sourced. If we're going to be programmed, we should at least know what we're being programmed to be.
• 7 October 2020: But he would still need to access it to impart it.
• 7 October 2020: How do you access love when standing alone?
• 7 October 2020: What source that sustains you?
• 7 October 2020: error can't parse
• 7 October 2020: I've been on a kick of falling asleep to Alan Watts talks (and occasionally Cowboy Bebop)
• 7 October 2020: Kmele is no clown. You'll be hard pressed to find people who are more measured with their words. If he names something, it's usually important. Does journalistic integrity mean anything to you?
• 7 October 2020: When I meet ppl I mostly don’t sense much. Rarely I get a very negative feeling, and rarely very positive. I only interacted with Kmele a handful of times, but every time I felt extremely strongly he’s a person of great integrity. He is no clown and this shit ain’t little.
• 7 October 2020: Ah never mind, found it--
• 7 October 2020: TL;DR of jab jab hook? Or are you going to make me read the book?
• 7 October 2020: The comic was written in the context of people doing these things, getting fired, cancelled and deplatformed. It was commonly sent and resent by these people and Randall did nothing to dissuade them.
• 7 October 2020: Oh man, that's hard. I need some time to compose it.
• 7 October 2020: I systematically dismantled every norm that was forced on me. It's an extremely dark and difficult path. But if I could hit a reset button and have a do-over, I wouldn't. Those norms weren't working. (I might take a do-over if I could send myself a short message)
• 7 October 2020: You don't have to listen, you can rebut and you can get mad. But overall shift to demanding universities cancel speakers, attempting to get people fired, ruining their life via doxxing, and countless other examples is very much against the spirit of 1A. The comic is wrong.
• 7 October 2020: I learned a lot from this. They're obviously being deliberately obtuse, but they're right the writing is weak. Lesson is to have a pool of reviewers and steelman obvious holes. They'll still be obstinate, but I shouldn't make it easy for them. No excuse for poor writing.
• 7 October 2020: But that isn't my question.
• 7 October 2020: Do you think you'll be an active agent again?
• 7 October 2020: I see how someone may see it differently, but I value cultural artifacts like this very strongly.
• 7 October 2020: I wouldn't make this argument about most laws, true. This is special because (a) it was first, and (b) there isn't much to add or remove. Same way we study Magna Carta. We don't do something because it's in the document. We cherish the document because it embodies our ideals.
• 7 October 2020: It's a cultural document in a sense that it's a distillation of the essence of western civilization, not in a sense that someone wrote it for us to recite at dinner parties.
• 7 October 2020: diabolical
• 7 October 2020: :(
• 7 October 2020: are you gonna go?
• 7 October 2020: It took us thousands of years to figure out that it's the right thing to do. Then we encoded it in a founding document. The Bill of Rights is as much a cultural compass as it is a legal instrument, it's absurd to say that it's only the latter.
• 7 October 2020: There is absolutely no guarantee that we will converge back on the same ideals (unless by "in the end" you mean ~500 years, and even then).
• 7 October 2020: It feels like I wrote the word "this" a dozen times in that tweet, and I can't unsee it.
• 7 October 2020: That companies will disband PR completely? I think this is an example of curse of knowledge. You're very close to it, so it seems so obvious. But unless you're in the center of SV, this seems preposterous. (Still, Balaji predicted this years ago)
• 7 October 2020: Yeah this was definitely weak. Will organize a pool of reviewers from now to steelman posts. Some things are so clear in my own head, it doesn't even occur to me to write them down; usually most important things, actually.
• 7 October 2020: He didn’t, of course. But this comic was a catalyst that allowed this worldview to take over the tech community.
• 7 October 2020: In a second order effect sense, yes. Facebook is made by people who religiously read xkcd at the time. Imagine a counterfactual universe where Randall created the opposite equally powerful comic instead, that everyone in the tech community shared with each other for a few years.
• 7 October 2020: The beautifully ironic thing about this post is that it was flagged on Hacker News. Not downvoted or ignored. Flagged.
• 7 October 2020: I hold enlightenment principles and would not have generated the bill of rights. I’m blown away how people take it for granted.
• 7 October 2020: One of Balaji’s predictions that seem outlandish now but will come true in a couple of years. Saving this tweet.
• 7 October 2020: When I think about what did the most damage to internet culture over the last ten years, xkcd "free speech" comic comes out on top. New post.
• 6 October 2020: @samgdf @thogge @Rainmaker1973 Also @SteveStuWill is really really good.
• 6 October 2020: Interesting that in humans peahens evolved to hypnotize peacocks, and peacocks didn't evolve to be hard to hypnotize at all.
• 6 October 2020: No need to prompt and prod, just ask. I'm an open book.
• 6 October 2020: what do you mean?
• 6 October 2020: yes
• 6 October 2020: I have stubborn attachments!
• 6 October 2020: Vulnerability is a useful medium of exchange because it enabled humans to build trust networks. Mentorship and apprenticeship is useful for knowledge generation/selection. Nuking these mechanisms and replacing them wholesale with agents licensed by the state is insane.
• 6 October 2020: Friends and family are underrated, therapy is extremely overrated.
• 6 October 2020: That's like creating the most sophisticated cocaine distribution network in the world, and then banning your most prolific cocaine suppliers.
• 6 October 2020: I don't understand this either.
• 6 October 2020: Once again Balaji predicted this years ago. I’ve seen people say “he makes a lot of predictions and even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Bad metaphor. He generates predictions no one else can generate. The Oracle is no longer in Omaha.
• 6 October 2020: And meetings are oil.
• 6 October 2020: This is idiosyncratic but I really like @sylvainsarrailh and @liamwong.
• 6 October 2020: It’s unbelievable how relevant it is. I’ve always thought it’s narrow to Soviet time period and culture, and only now realized it’s about humanity in general. Insane to see it in America.
• 6 October 2020: Why did you pick Vancouver?
• 6 October 2020: I’ll give one— @Rainmaker1973
• 6 October 2020: SSRIs do a great job of fixing that in many (but not all) people.
• 6 October 2020: It’s exciting because people get to test a lot of incentive designs out. I’m not up to date on this, are there interesting specific designs that you know of?
• 6 October 2020: Why is it worse there?
• 6 October 2020: I did read Gervais Principle, it’s good! I had to write it my own to get my experiences out of my system. Actually we aren’t different on this at all. L5/L6 managers are 100% bought into the dream. If they get redpilled they progress to upper rungs. If not, they stay L6 forever.
• 6 October 2020: Making predictions.
• 6 October 2020: Yeah, you gotta take 'em how you meet 'em. In this case "'em" is yourself and your writing ability. I'm really slow, five good paragraphs a day on a good day max.
• 6 October 2020: nah my ego can take it
• 6 October 2020: is that not normal?
• 6 October 2020: economists call it a High-level equilibrium trap
• 6 October 2020: Thanks. Tech cos are stuck in a local optimum because they're making boatloads of money. But that won't last forever.
• 6 October 2020: In case of Twitter my guess is simply that the organization literally can't change anything.
• 6 October 2020: yes
• 6 October 2020: Yeah, such a system would be incredibly helpful. Downvote someone a couple of times, and they go away from your timeline.
• 5 October 2020: My experience is that there is a tiny group of activists who get offended about basically everything because they're looking for reasons to be offended, and then normal people who occasionally get offended. Optimizing society for the former is insane.
• 5 October 2020: I don't have to imagine! :-D
• 5 October 2020: If "hey guys" is an atrocity to someone, boy do I have news for them about how much fun life is going to be.
• 5 October 2020: Unfortunately it isn't a choice for me, so it doesn't matter. If I believe something strongly I need to say it openly or I become miserable. (Like, actually really miserable) So if that limits me in some ways later, so be it. (Also, I won't build for acquisition)
• 5 October 2020: My point was that being unable to bring these things up means it isn't a real debate, not that I want or believe these things.
• 5 October 2020: I had some ideas backed up that I need to get out on paper. Substack is a really good medium for that because people kind of expect you to write.
• 5 October 2020: it would be easy to kindle my curiosity by pointing out an opinion I expressed that's wrong
• 5 October 2020: will do once it gets here and I read it!
• 5 October 2020: omg it's a beautiful thing! I might take a few hours and write a chrome extension for this, it's glorious
• 5 October 2020: thank you, I just bought a physical copy off your recommendation!
• 5 October 2020: omg this works?!!!!!
• 5 October 2020: Twitter needs a "mute everyone who likes this tweet" button. It would make the experience 10x better (at least for me).
• 5 October 2020: I've heard of it but never read it. Thanks for prodding me to finally buy it!
• 5 October 2020: My point is that there can be many explanations for statistical discrepancies other than discrimination and random chance, but I think you knew that.
• 5 October 2020: proudly "I'm a UX designer at google cloud". Um...
• 5 October 2020: Men are ten times more likely to be incarcerated than women. Why do you think that is?
• 5 October 2020: Not in general, but if there is something specific I said that's wrong, I'd welcome a rebuttal and relevant sources.
• 5 October 2020: Discrimination is not the only plausible reason for statistical disparity.
• 5 October 2020: Ok, but we're not just optimizing for comfort- that would make society absurd. I can claim painting walls in a light shade is a symbol of white supremacy, or that phallic-shaped water bottles are sexist. We need some principled test to tell absurd demands from reasonable ones.
• 5 October 2020: The software industry is the most liberal (and therefore least discriminatory) of almost any other industry. You have recruiters falling over each other to hire black and female engineers. The idea that there is "so much discrimination" in software is something you made up.
• 5 October 2020: You mean they'll put us in jars and post amazing videos of us getting out on their social media?
• 5 October 2020: As someone prone to soft mental illness, the notion that "crazy ideas" is exclusionary / ableist is the most nonsensical SJW gobbledygook I've ever seen. Respectfully.
• 5 October 2020: Saying "hey guys" is not bigotry.
• 5 October 2020:
• 5 October 2020: It also encourages people going to meetings all day and getting nothing whatsoever done.
• 5 October 2020: I know what it is, I'm saying there is considerable disagreement whether it's a real condition.
• 5 October 2020: This is my experience, YMMV, etc. You know how a median trainer in the gym will give ppl 5lbs weights and have them work up to 150 reps? That's roughly the quality of a median performance counselor. (This will of course improve, but for now ppl are better off with youtube imo)
• 5 October 2020: CPTSD isn't even in the DSM.
• 5 October 2020: Ok but you must admit this is a bit like asking a barber if you need a haircut.
• 5 October 2020: I am extremely not a fan of overlapping anything.
• 5 October 2020: completely underpriced
• 5 October 2020: There are multiple tiers in the counseling industry, he's obviously talking about "everyone could use some therapy it's like exercise for the soul" tier.
• 5 October 2020: People who do have both are rarely if ever promoted.
• 5 October 2020: we're the richest country in the world we could end homelessness tomorrow if we wanted to, basic housing, basic jobs! /s
• 5 October 2020: This was in the early 90s when everything fell apart. If you had a house, that’s how most people warmed them. (We lived on the outskirts)
• 5 October 2020: Wasn’t a hellhole. Odessa.
• 5 October 2020: This is actually an extremely worthwhile project. I think I’ll do it. Thanks for the suggestion!
• 5 October 2020: Thanks! It’s because I’m writing down things I’ve been thinking about for years. Once I flush the buffer they’ll become mediocre (at which point I’ll pause the writing).
• 5 October 2020: Software companies have parallel career tracks for engineers and managers. This creates two overlapping status hierarchies. I've been thinking a lot about the profound ways in which it affects engineering culture. New post.
• 5 October 2020: If you support distributed freedom of association, do you also support eliminating class protection from employment law?
• 5 October 2020: @marlomajor goddamn it man, over the past few days as I encounter random stuff I have intrusive thoughts of the form "as marlo says not lindy" or "malo would say lindy". Stop that!!
• 5 October 2020: The difference is that rapists are convicted in a court of law and racists is anyone you don't like.
• 5 October 2020: I so so much wish I could magically teach my American friends Russian, and then show them this
• 5 October 2020: maaaaybe
• 5 October 2020: I know you think that, but half the country disagrees with you, and most of those people are neither abhorrent nor appalling.
• 5 October 2020: It doesn't mean that at all, partially because I use objective tests, and partially because I've met plenty of women who were amazing engineers.
• 5 October 2020: Yes, totally agree.
• 5 October 2020: Do I look like a young earth creationist to you? :)
• 5 October 2020: TL;DR: people experience things really differently :-D
• 5 October 2020: Ok got it!
• 5 October 2020: There is a relevant SSC post! (taking me a while to find it)
• 5 October 2020: Ok, but you see how your description of what it feels like to walk alone is probably a few standard deviations out from the mean? It is not a neurotypical experience.
• 5 October 2020: I'm talking about the fact that SJWs are really annoying. This isn't a novel idea, you must have encountered that before.
• 5 October 2020: I don't mean this in an offensive way (sorry if it came off like that). But it definitely sounds like a manic state to me. And I've experienced manic states, so don't mean offense there either.
• 5 October 2020: The tech world is definitely a bit incestious, I think that's correct intuition.
• 5 October 2020: If walking alone feels like walking with someone you have a crush on, you're probably bipolar.
• 5 October 2020: I don't care about the bathrooms, I just picked a banned conservative talking point to illustrate that what happens in these companies isn't actual debate (like Dick claimed).
• 5 October 2020: There are more women than men teaching in grade schools, is that a sign of discrimination?
• 5 October 2020: The scale of the internet is incredible. It feels like astronomic distances-- I have to multiply and plot on a log scale, because my intuition breaks down.
• 5 October 2020: They're cis because almost everyone is cis, white because 50% of americans are white (so actually white ppl are probably underrepresented in software, though I haven't checked), and male because men like things, symbols, and machines.
• 5 October 2020: I do take people at face value on this stuff, my problem isn't with them. It's with the activists perpetually offended on someone else's behalf.
• 5 October 2020: I didn't know that actually, just looked it up. I do not personally apply contemporary cultural standards to dead people because I think that's silly, but glad I learned smtg new.
• 5 October 2020: I mean, I completely agree, but in that thread @dickc helpfully offered to live-stream fun commentary of people's executions and you seem to be fine with that.
• 5 October 2020: All right, in that case allow me to pull the motte and bailey thing and pretend this narrow argument is really what I meant all along 😁
• 5 October 2020: You sound like someone who has a really accurate sarcasm barometer.
• 5 October 2020: This is all casuistry. We can argue about what "objectively good" means, but that isn't the point. The point is that if you're in the top 10% of earners in america and you use the word "poor" to describe yourself you're delusional.
• 5 October 2020: Racist in the wild pretending she knows something about a person she never met based on the color of their skin.
• 5 October 2020: If you're in the US, which state are you in? Not that I'd choose to work for you, but e.g. in California that's explicitly be illegal.
• 5 October 2020: Prevalence of "soft" mental illness in gen Z, suicide attempts, etc. We got off the rails (though happy to discuss this). I'm thinking of two groups with trauma. Group A realizes their material life is objectively good. Group B doesn't. I have a moral issue with group B.
• 5 October 2020: Yes, but the effects seem generational, which means the cause is cultural (unless there is something evil in the water supply).
• 5 October 2020: Ah, I remember Pathmark coupons. Good times!
• 5 October 2020: Yeah, I can even believe our set of cultural values leads to legit ptsd in people. I'm not saying ptsd isn't real, I'm saying we should stop telling people how hard their life is when it isn't.
• 5 October 2020: I'm so sorry that happened to you, how are you coping?
• 5 October 2020: Growing up in a middle-middle class family in an upper-middle class neighborhood ain't no PTSD, gtfo. The only reason people think it's PTSD is because we tell them to. (There are always exceptions, etc etc, usual disclaimers, but this epidemic is 99% cultural)
• 5 October 2020: In that particular case it wasn't about rationalizing achievement, it was about imagining dire conditions that weren't there. (I allowed myself to get dragged into that mindset too for a while, and boy do I not miss it)
• 5 October 2020: Dated a girl who grew up really poor. Parents gave everything to send her to good uni. Lots of trauma everywhere. Met her family— house on a hill in an upper middle class neighborhood, two benzes, etc. Bitch we literally threw chunks of coal into a furnace if we wanted hot water.
• 4 October 2020: 👇
• 4 October 2020: Or an investor asking for an update.
• 4 October 2020: Beautiful!
• 4 October 2020: In the stories the protagonist is the only one who notices (and then maybe eventually finds a girl who also knows and leads him to a camp of ragtag five-fingered refugees because five fingered people are hunted now).
• 4 October 2020: This is starting to feel like one of those scifi stories where the protagonist goes to do something mundane like buy milk for a minute, then comes home and realizes everyone has seven fingers instead of five and the letter 'm' doesn't exist.
• 4 October 2020:
• 4 October 2020: Because a human sniper can miss.
• 4 October 2020: There is only one such strategy in the long run-- keep making total factor productivity go up.
• 4 October 2020: Reminds me of this tweet:
• 3 October 2020: You're on a way higher level of fiction writing than me!
• 3 October 2020: they'll be doing such a good job of it themselves you'l have to get in a looooong line
• 3 October 2020: You survive in a tribe by contributing work useful to others, behaving respectfully, and building up reputation for days when you can no longer contribute. Societies of any scale that deviate from these principles are on a path to destruction.
• 3 October 2020: TL;DR: they imported millions of people with no plan for integration, and now they’re patching it by taking freedom to homeschool away from everyone in the name of political correctness.
• 3 October 2020: A rifle that you set up, point and click at a target on a screen, and it does the rest.
• 3 October 2020: Thank you, I’m stealing that.
• 3 October 2020: TL;DR: agree completely. In general I think psychedelics are interesting but their effect and potential is seriously overblown by proponents.
• 3 October 2020: I know four people really well who took it. Three stayed exactly the same in every discernible way (but are convinced they want through a transformation). One changed quite a bit, but that was over multiple treats through many years. It’s possible he simply grew up.
• 3 October 2020: Does the military have AI snipers?
• 3 October 2020: Plot twist: this affects him like ayahuasca. On Nov 3, he wins. In his second term he governs with love; becomes The Great Unifier. We resolve our differences. SpaceX advances faster than expected. We get to Mars. Aliens decide we're too dangerous and destroy us. Game over.
• 3 October 2020: Nobody reads forewords.
• 3 October 2020: Is Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations worth reading? Never heard of it before!
• 3 October 2020: TL;DR: he calculated amount of work humans had to do to get a lux of light from stone age to now. Gets a considerably different result from standard CPI measures. Ridiculously clever, and a profoundly important result.
• 3 October 2020: A fascinating paper on this by William Nordhaus (who went on to win the Nobel in economics). Amazing piece of detective work and actually a page turner: Do Real-Output and Real-Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not.
• 3 October 2020: 🙏 Lots of new productivity tools popping up!
• 3 October 2020: Man, I can't even tell if this is real life or some joke simulation. I don't know anything any more.
• 3 October 2020: How many more bombshell reports about Trump do you expect in October?
• 3 October 2020: What are the two apps to the left of Slack and one to the right of Figma?
• 3 October 2020: Not if employees act like petulant children (which in tech they do).
• 3 October 2020: You don't let your kids play with putty all over the house because they'll make a mess. That doesn't make you any less of a family.
• 3 October 2020: Do they construct guillotines in front of rich people’s houses in Denmark?
• 3 October 2020: Err looks like I got the numbers completely wrong. I’m seeing sources now that say it’s 150k deaths. Deleted the tweet for now, need to do more research.
• 2 October 2020: Me too. Thank the K12 and university administrators.
• 2 October 2020: I'm not talking about the documentary itself, but of communists using the documentary to advance their agenda.
• 2 October 2020: (That was before they went on to torture and murder many millions of innocent people)
• 2 October 2020: Friendly reminder, Lenin's party was called Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.
• 2 October 2020: Do you feel the system was working well?
• 2 October 2020: Read literature from a time that didn't have the same filters. They were much better at seeing these things as they are. “Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy.” 2/2
• 2 October 2020: Powerless? A woman can throw a man into a multiyear depression, or get him into a state where he's ready to commit a violent crime even though he normally wouldn't hurt a fly. Our culture is just a point in time. 1/2
• 2 October 2020: Fair enough. But I'm always suspicious when people disavow pretty fundamental human behavior.
• 2 October 2020: Ok, but you've literally just shared all this with hundreds, maybe thousands of people.
• 2 October 2020: Do you really believe that? (the first sentence) We all have food and safety. Beyond that, it's all games.
• 2 October 2020: Who's life isn't?
• 2 October 2020:
• 2 October 2020: “I must say, you’re acting familiar in your tweet, given that we’ve never interacted before.” No?
• 2 October 2020: Thank you!
• 2 October 2020: 🔥🔥
• 2 October 2020: Still an incredible transformation!
• 2 October 2020: I don’t understand this part. Increasing the TAM also means you’re competing with everyone in the world, which is basically impossible. I’d expect YouTube content to focus on underserved niches to avoid enormous competition.
• 2 October 2020: That just sounds like landlords consistently bias toward overestimating the value of their property (kind of like people overestimate the stock value of companies they worked at).
• 2 October 2020: Isn’t overfamiliar just familiar?
• 2 October 2020: How is this the same guy as the one who made twitch?
• 2 October 2020: see you in two days
• 2 October 2020: well it is twitter reel, but still, wouldn't surprise me in the least
• 2 October 2020: What amazes me about @paulg's parenting tweets is that he seems able to provide his kids with a more interesting stimulus than YouTube. He's competing with everyone in the world and winning! Forget the yoda of silicon valley, this is a way bigger achievement.
• 2 October 2020: They should have reversed the order of 1 and 2.
• 2 October 2020: Thanks! (a post on this coming soon)
• 2 October 2020: holy shit
• 2 October 2020: I'm a despicable human being, bet you can't.
• 2 October 2020: Yeah, how dare you talk to someone who (maybe) believes slightly different things than you, and try to genuinely clarify where the person is coming from!
• 2 October 2020: thank you!
• 2 October 2020: thanks!
• 2 October 2020: Another part of power is trying to get it without having contributed anything of value to humanity.
• 2 October 2020: I know I saw. Ever played rpgs? You know how sometimes you run into an npc and can't help but click through the script? You're aware you're not talking to a real person, and you know all these scripts are templated, but for some reason you want to explore this particular one? :)
• 2 October 2020: I don't know, give me whatever info you've got!
• 2 October 2020: Thanks, will read! Can you give me a very quick TL;DR? Who reported to whom? Did engineering managers program? Did they have architects/implementers split? Etc.
• 2 October 2020: I thought you liked inclusiveness and not offending people's feelings?
• 2 October 2020: 1. Does anyone know how early microsoft engineering management was organized (on a team level)? 2. I hear google didn't hire managers until late. Does anyone know how many engineers they had when the first manager was hired? What did eng management culture look like after that?
• 2 October 2020: Are you aware that it's rude to talk about someone in third person when they can talk to you?
• 2 October 2020: Fuck unions. Or rather, you're free to organize, but you're not free to force other people to join your union if they want to work for the employer.
• 2 October 2020: Is there anything you wish you had done differently in life? We're going to follow you soon enough. What advice would you give us about life until it's our time?
• 2 October 2020: It’s the opposite. Now people can finally speak their mind because they don’t have to deal with these parasites. It will cause more discourse, not less.
• 2 October 2020: Thank you, Mr. President.
• 2 October 2020: You just invented a definition that fits you.
• 2 October 2020: Can’t speak for Brian as I don’t know him, but my read is that the whole thing is a diplomatic way of saying “SJWs need not apply”.
• 2 October 2020: Important lesson that’s so, so easy to forget.
• 2 October 2020: If I were asked by people who identify as different gender and I felt they were genuine, yes (and in fact did). If asked by activists on behalf of abstract other people (which is what happens 99.9% of the time), then no.
• 2 October 2020: I mean, in practice it was probably closer to 30, but it definitely wasn’t like 3-4.
• 2 October 2020: Just for my education (I know it’s not your responsibility but I’m asking for a favor), precisely how many genders do I have to accept before I no longer qualify as transphobic?
• 2 October 2020: What did I say that was transphobic?
• 1 October 2020: So Stripe is ableist?
• 1 October 2020: Right-- I meant that you could use complementary goods papers to source industries to look into further..
• 1 October 2020: Lots of research on this
• 1 October 2020: BTW, I watched the debate twice (I'm masochistic, I know). The second time Trump actually seemed much more reasonable. The tone definitely feels different watching it the second time around. I'd recommend rewatching the first 15m.
• 1 October 2020: I don't think it was well played. He came off quite negatively to the more centrist supporters. I think he could have done 1000x better.
• 1 October 2020: Whoops sorry, I thought I was replying to something else. Deleted.
• 1 October 2020: Spectacular essay by the great Asimov on this topic--
• 1 October 2020: "Participating in a few long slack debates" is an absurd exaggeration. In one of those cases I recall people getting fired. In the other I recall Patrick having to email all and walk the person off the ledge. This isn't just "a few slack debates".
• 1 October 2020: Hi Christina 👋 Surely you remember the C incident? And the M incident? My problem isn’t with “hey guys”. If I offend someone I’ll gladly adjust my behavior (within reason). My problem is with the activists who are professionally offended on someone else’s behalf full time.
• 1 October 2020: That was a joke.
• 1 October 2020: Internalized misogyny.
• 1 October 2020: 🤔
• 1 October 2020: the long con!
• 1 October 2020: Absolutely no question pc/jc are 100x better than me. (Well, actually, we can count exactly how much better, looks like it's 1000x). But on this thing they're wrong.
• 1 October 2020: Actually, upon more reflection I think you're right. That part was tasteless and I shouldn't have done it. Thanks for pointing it out to me.
• 1 October 2020: Poe's law in action!
• 1 October 2020: I did pause and reflect, actually. Did you see the part where he enthusiastically offered to provide video commentary as people are dragged to an execution? This guy is a psychopath.
• 1 October 2020: Congrats on building a great company!
• 1 October 2020: 🔥🔥👏
• 1 October 2020: Well now I feel stupid about my impassioned tweet storm about free debate in tech. This guy’s a p-zombie.
• 1 October 2020: Ah but see there is no actual conflict. And if there is, good people can usually pretty easily resolve it. My problem isn’t with any of that— it’s with the people who are always professionally offended on someone else’s behalf.
• 1 October 2020:
• 1 October 2020: Ask white girls with pink hair and a nose piercing. They’re the ones who set the “diversity and inclusion” policy.
• 1 October 2020: If you want free debate in your companies, then make it free. Otherwise shut up and dribble, because the American people are sick of your horseshit.
• 1 October 2020: Have you ever sat in on a hiring discussion with someone saying “oh this candidate is just a typical cis white male”? I have. Have you ever had to smile at your boss and pretend fifty genders are real because you don’t want to compromise your career?
• 1 October 2020: They idea that this is somehow a debate is bullshit. It’s a bunch of vicious parasites who took upon themselves to police everyone’s behavior under a bullshit claim that they have an upper hand. And every normal person takes their shit sitting down because they fear retaliation.
• 1 October 2020: How many Republicans do you employ? We demand you equalize on that. Each EM is now to email ten Republican candidates per day and stop the obvious discrimination.
• 1 October 2020: If you want free debate we’ll give you free debate. We demand liberal bias training sessions paid or by the company and run by conservative consultants. We demand proper gender segregated bathrooms. We demand nobody use the term “cis white male” with vitriol.
• 1 October 2020: Dick, Aaron and others pretend it’s an issue of free speech. Ok. Can I DM random people as a conservative and ask them to change their speech at Twitter and Box? Can I openly support Trump without retaliation? Will they guarantee my career won’t suffer?
• 1 October 2020: The same way SCOTUS ruled designated free speech spaces are constitutional because otherwise life would be insufferable, CEO’s should establish designated activism spaces. And you know the logical place for where that is? Outside the company.
• 1 October 2020: At Stripe if you said “hey guys” during a talk, 50% chance you’d get a DM saying “‘guys’ is sexist and you should use ‘folks’”. Activists would demand ‘crazy ideas’ be renamed because it’s ableist. They’d inject this shit in everything. They should shut up and dribble.
• 1 October 2020: Who cares what they think if they acquiesce to marxists at every step?
• 1 October 2020: The problem is an environment where it's cheap to demand a change from crazy ideas to moonshot ideas because the word crazy is ableist, but it's expensive to point out that the demand is fucking stupid. In a healthy environment those two activities would be priced the same.
• 1 October 2020: I want everyone to be allowed to talk about politics to a point, but I don't want employee activists shaming and bullying everyone else into silence.
• 1 October 2020: conservative vs liberal
• 1 October 2020: Many people want to correct the record, but don't want to publicly flag themselves in the woke/antiwoke debate.
• 30 September 2020: Ok a few more ppl DM’ed me, I definitely got the facts wrong. People attempted to change the name but failed. Didn’t mean to misinform, I had an incorrect memory of this. Sorry!
• 30 September 2020: Ok a few more ppl DM’ed me, I definitely got the facts wrong. People attempted to change the name but failed. Didn’t mean to misinform, I had an incorrect memory of this. Sorry!
• 30 September 2020: I think you want this:
• 30 September 2020: I’m told by some folks the ‘crazy idea’ doc lives on. I definitely recall the name changed, but possible my memory is faulty, or culture may have evolved now.
• 30 September 2020: I’m told by some folks the ‘crazy idea’ doc lives on. I definitely recall the name changed, but possible my memory is faulty, or culture may have evolved now.
• 30 September 2020: Yeah, it’s beautiful in its simplicity. I don’t remember exact price, but it was definitely under $100usd.
• 30 September 2020: This is a great great observation. Look at @sama’s latest essay about pg & jessica. You can compress it to “they were willing to be low status”. The compression would be lossy, but I can’t think of a better one that fits in just a few words.
• 30 September 2020: In the video I linked he explicitly explains who he's describing: people who were peacefully protesting the demolition of Lee's statue. You can argue that it's a dog whistle and that's fine. But the media frames it as if he explicitly referred to nazis, which he didn't.
• 30 September 2020: At Stripe pc & jc were once forced to rename a doc titled "crazy ideas" to "moonshot ideas" because employee activists thought "crazy ideas" is ableist. To openly disagree would have been career limiting. How many Box employees do you think are pretending?
• 30 September 2020: This isn't a video, and he didn't say "fine people on both sides". I think it's reasonable to argue that he's a racist, but they're quoting him verbatim on a thing he didn't say.
• 30 September 2020: I don't think that's true. As far as I can tell this is the video. I watched the longer version on youtube and he explicitly excluded nazis/white nationalists from "fine people". Do you have a link to the original comment? You can hate the man, but truth matters.
• 30 September 2020: I agree that was awful.
• 30 September 2020: There are obviously nazi groups, racist groups, etc. but most people I see on video with nazi flags seem mentally ill. The country is huge, so that's to be expected statistically. But basically nobody supports those movements. That's what I mean by "far right isn't real". 2/2
• 30 September 2020: The reason I think that is that I've been called "far right", a nazi, and a white supremacist. All of that is absurd, I extremely strongly believe in individual freedom and enforcing it equally for all people. 1/2
• 30 September 2020: The charitable interpretation is that good people can believe we shouldn't destroy confederate statues. I agree with that view. Wrt to that rally, there is so much noise I honestly can't tell what happened there. If it were indeed all nazis, that would be awful, yes.
• 30 September 2020: I agree this was awful.
• 30 September 2020: I agree that was awful. I'm talking specifically about this video though, it seems perfectly clear. In the debate all he had to say is "kkk are evil, I denounce them." It absolutely perplexes me why he didn't do that.
• 30 September 2020: It was perfectly clear to me, I can't understand how it can confuse someone. That actually suggests that there may be genuinely different ways in which people process him, which would explain a lot of this. (Agree on the siloing, though.)
• 30 September 2020: That's a reasonable view to hold, but that's just not true in this video. He was perfectly clear.
• 30 September 2020: I'm surprised Wallace would lie about it (or carelessly propagate it). He seems like a man of integrity to me.
• 30 September 2020: I've never seen this clip before. Trump explicitly denounced nazis and white nationalists, and never called them "fine people". To which the reporter replied "let me get this straight, you're saying nazis are fine people?" It's an important clip to watch.
• 30 September 2020: Creating art can definitely lead to a subsequent low. Can drain you of everything. Agree with the rest though.
• 30 September 2020: Oh also I'm slightly less likely to vote for Trump after today.
• 30 September 2020: I know for sure I will vote, but I genuinely don't know which candidate I will vote for (or write one in, in protest). So there is at least one.
• 30 September 2020: 🙏
• 30 September 2020: At least a version of it
• 30 September 2020: Yeah, this particular thing I especially don't understand because even his supporters don't like it.
• 30 September 2020: He even easily could have gotten away without condemning 99% of the groups and still ended up looking good. All he had to say is "yes, the KKK is bad and I condemn them" and they would have moved on.
• 30 September 2020: Yeah, the problem with that strategy is that it has a very large cost (you come off as unbearable).
• 30 September 2020: I don't think it quite worked.
• 30 September 2020: I saw, thanks for supporting me. I'll try not to disappoint! P.S. that was an answer from the asylum, not the soul. But that's ok :)
• 30 September 2020: It's a thought experiment you guys!!
• 30 September 2020: Ah, got it. I can tell from your resume that you do well in the asylum, and I can tell from how you phrase your sentences that you're very much alive inside. So tell me... how do you manage to do both?
• 30 September 2020: But try it as a thought experiment! Kind of like how you're always supposed to say yes in improv.
• 30 September 2020: You also have to do that without making yourself seem like a crazed lunatic, though.
• 30 September 2020: That makes sense!
• 30 September 2020: If we exclude "he can't control himself"
• 30 September 2020: It will take a while, and it won't like like an obvious replacement. You need humans to manage relationships with out humans who produce and decide things. But at some point it becomes a closed loop where they all go to meetings with each other all the time and don't do anything.
• 30 September 2020: If we exclude "he can't control himself", does anyone have a theory for Trump's debate strategy? His base already sees him as a fighter. He needs to convince swing voters now, and he's no longer the underdog fighting elite oppressors. So why constant interruptions?
• 30 September 2020: Does anyone understand Trump's debate strategy? His base already sees him as a fighter. He needs to convince swing voters now, and he's no longer the underdog fighting elite oppressors. So why constant interruptions?
• 30 September 2020: It's really simple, you tell them they're not an atheist either.
• 30 September 2020: Yeah, the night is definitely still young.
• 30 September 2020: thanks!
• 30 September 2020: It's fascinating that the design looks awful compared to Stripe's current landing page, but still looks really good in general. I can easily imagine launching a startup with this design today, maybe with slightly larger fonts.
• 29 September 2020: Voinovich? (google fails me) How old were you when you moved?
• 29 September 2020: And yet things work ok. We're not dying of hunger on a rock.
• 29 September 2020: oooh cool. You don't talk about that on twitter much.
• 29 September 2020: oooh I love it, great interface!
• 29 September 2020: I meant something different, but to go with this metaphor-- freedom to also allows the carver to carve out a dead body eaten by worms, which I may want freedom from. And now the carver and I are competing. Hence the ladder.
• 29 September 2020: But there is so much other cool stuff to read!
• 29 September 2020: 🙏
• 29 September 2020: 🙏
• 29 September 2020: What about what he said, his views, his actions wrt human affairs, his character?
• 29 September 2020: For now anyone who knows more than me, which is pretty much everyone.
• 29 September 2020: What about what he said, what he advised, how he acted, his character?
• 29 September 2020: What about what he said, his views, his actions wrt human affairs, his character?
• 29 September 2020: The managerial class performs some necessary productive activity at the cost of enormous inefficiency. What is that activity? Could computers eventually perform it? If yes, they’d do it without any inefficiency. The gains would be enormous.
• 29 September 2020: Freedom is a ladder.
• 29 September 2020: Question for folks who understand Christianity. Is resurrected Jesus in any way different from Jesus pre-crucifixion? And if so, what’s different about him? What traits did he lose and gain having undergone crucifixion / resurrection, if any?
• 29 September 2020: Fortunately in the US we can buy firearms and still have the castle doctrine (for now).
• 29 September 2020: It’s almost a haiku
• 29 September 2020: I said the platform isn’t for me. I didn’t try to get people fired. Another problem is that if you view the world through the lens of oppressors vs oppressed you can remap every problem through this lens and you only ever have to think one thing. (The right suffers from that too)
• 29 September 2020: I tried reading his The Origins and History of Consciousness but it’s impossible to understand without an enormous amount of background work :(
• 29 September 2020: Yes, it’s coming off the blade (it’s one chunk of metal). There is no locking mechanism other than friction, but it’s balanced surprisingly well, the knife doesn’t feel wobbly at all, but it’s also easy to open and close.
• 29 September 2020:
• 29 September 2020: A hand-made Japanese pocket knife I bought in Tokyo. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
• 29 September 2020: I think the inefficiency of the bureaucratic machinery is enormous. For a while everyone was worried AIs will take all the unskilled jobs. I think AIs will completely shake up the very core of how organizations are structured.
• 29 September 2020: That’s an amazing quote.
• 29 September 2020: Thanks. I understand but I don’t understand. Exactly as you predicted.
• 29 September 2020: If you had to think of most pernicious problems with wokism, what would you say?
• 29 September 2020: I’ve used Clubhouse before and I’m grateful folks invited me to speak. I learned from the speakers. It has great potential. But. The platform is so woke, it’s unusable for me. Reparations are fait accompli, wokism obviously won, and “basic jobs” are just around the corner.
• 29 September 2020: The observation is real, the recommendation is satire. Don’t do this, there is more to life than promotion!
• 29 September 2020: The convenient thing about white supremacy patriarchy is that you only ever have to think one thing, and then you can indiscriminately apply to every situation you can possibly encounter.
• 29 September 2020: Yes, mine too. But the “advice” part is satire. I’d settle for less money and not having to do this any day (and did). Like, if someone finds themselves consciously following it, what are they doing with their life?
• 29 September 2020: I got into computers building software renderers for fun (this was right on the cusp of consumer hardware accelerated gfx cards). Anyway, fist bump!
• 29 September 2020: This is halfway reality halfway satire. (Still can't entirely tell which one, it works equally well both ways)
• 29 September 2020: I hate reading things on Medium, so refuse to write on it :)
• 29 September 2020: So far every successful organization has leaned into it though.
• 29 September 2020: But I live in a post-impressionist world and still see the greatness in the impressionists (just to pick an example).
• 29 September 2020: You don't need any of this for lower rung promotions. This only kicks in when you want to go from a manager to managing managers and higher.
• 29 September 2020: Yeah but that's exactly the same as Jekyll isn't it? (which is what I was doing in the first place)
• 29 September 2020: You can always do it pseudonymously!
• 29 September 2020: I got sick of dealing with Jekyll. Looked around for other options (stuff like Ghost), but they all required effort. Substack was the least effort of all, you can just start posting.
• 29 September 2020: I got sick of dealing with Jekyll. Looked around for other options (stuff like Ghost), but they all required effort. Substack with the least effort of all.
• 29 September 2020: The interesting part to me is finding out why the rising star is rising.
• 29 September 2020: Incredible.
• 29 September 2020: It's all probabilistic rather than binary, but as companies get bigger the probability opportunists win asymptotically approaches 1.
• 29 September 2020: In the second one, do you have a sense for why the nose is drawn the way it is? (straight line from forehead like that) It looks really ugly and sort of unsettling to me. It doesn't feel like the essence of sleep to me. The last one is perfect, I get it instantly.
• 29 September 2020: Wow. Ok. I see it.
• 29 September 2020: What about people? Do you have an example where he draws the essence of a person?
• 29 September 2020: That is pretty incredible!
• 29 September 2020: Poor use of life due to misunderstanding marginal utility of money. Work 9-5 at fb as manager, follow the rituals, make $400k and do what you want with life. Or give them your life and make $800k as director. The last $400k are worth way less than the first and cost you way more.
• 28 September 2020: Yes, many. But I think I was too young.
• 28 September 2020: 😍
• 28 September 2020: Thank you!
• 28 September 2020: Do you have favorite examples?
• 28 September 2020: Wow incredible!
• 28 September 2020: 🙏
• 28 September 2020: Oh wow amazing link, thank you!!
• 28 September 2020: I've never understood Picasso paintings, but always wanted to. I can't figure out what they're about or why they're good. If someone was in the same position and then they "clicked", could you give a shot at explaining the eureka moment?
• 28 September 2020: 🙏
• 28 September 2020: You're extremely wrong. When you get hired into a 5k employee company, there isn't anyone home, if that makes sense. There is no entity that will or won't let you. Literally find interesting ppl online, contact them, say "I really want to work with you". Be good. That's it.
• 28 September 2020: I think slicing by institution isn't quite right. Today it's entirely a function of which corner of the institution you're in. Any of the ones Jason listed, so long as you're forced to solve problems from scratch, and not just follow existing rails. Your team/mentor matter most.
• 28 September 2020: Surprisingly I remember everything really well, but don't feel any anxiety about it. Kids are resilient, man. I have phobias, but not of this for some reason. Anyway, sorry to highjack, dental experiences just have a very special place in my heart :)
• 28 September 2020: Because it's Ukraine there was no intragum anastetic there that night. She did have some anastetic that she just poured on top of the tooth, but not the one you inject. Worked about as well as you'd expect. We had socialized medicine so was completely free. Anyway, fun times /fin
• 28 September 2020: Eventually the root pops out. She takes a scalpel and cuts the infected tissue out of the gum. That part was relatively easy. Then sends us home. (She was a sport, I think she was way more terrified of the whole thing than I was. Was her first time.) 3/n
• 28 September 2020: Pulls and pulls and pulls for about 30 minutes. Eventually the tooth breaks. She picks up a tool, kinda like a small lever, jams it between the tooth and the gum, and pushes on the end of the lever to get the root out. Again, she's not strong enough. Takes her another 30m. 2/n
• 28 September 2020: I once had an infection in my tooth when I was about five (in Ukraine). Saturday night, 11pm or so, fever really high. Parents take me to emergency dental clinic. They only have a young girl on staff-- dental student. She tries to take the tooth out, but isn't strong enough 1/n
• 28 September 2020: Yes, and the military and even the church. Human organizations in general, I think.
• 28 September 2020: Painful to write too. But it's also a comedy of sorts.
• 28 September 2020: A few people mentioned Moral Mazes-- I'll pick it up, thanks!
• 28 September 2020: Lenin had a term "dizziness from success" (a more accurate translation is "headspinning from success"). I think that's it. When everything is going well and money is flowing, people love to grow grow grow grow grow.
• 28 September 2020: I had horrible teeth when I was younger, just awful. You got very lucky to not have major problems (root canals, etc.) I know that wasn't your point, but I've always secretly resented people who see a dentist after ten years and "only have a few small cavities" :)
• 28 September 2020: I meant today. Tiny as in you'll need to fill them or tiny as in "nothing to worry about for now"?
• 28 September 2020: No cavities?
• 28 September 2020: Wait till the powers that be decide you have to pay for it too (via student loan forgiveness).
• 28 September 2020: Imagine twitter with multiple feeds and ability to train a classifier 😍
• 28 September 2020: I want to write a lot more. For me it’s a way of exorcising demons, and I still have a few left to exorcise. After that, invent a better future and sell tickets.
• 28 September 2020: Unfollow all, then start slowly adding back people one by one. It’s the only approach I found that works. (Also sorry if my political tweets pollute your timeline; I want to post that less, but Twitter often turns me into a rat in a cage pressing the outrage lever).
• 28 September 2020: Me too.
• 28 September 2020: Get a job at a series C fast growing startup for four years. Or work at Facebook for four years and live below your means as you save. Start a company and sell something others find valuable that doesn’t exist yet. Invest well. Move to a cheap country. These are the main options.
• 28 September 2020: What end goal do you want to achieve?
• 28 September 2020: Yes. It smelled of a mass hysteria to me. It could have very much gone differently (and maybe still can). In hindsight I think it was the correct emotion.
• 28 September 2020: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy :)
• 28 September 2020: I’ve been using Evernote for years and have maybe ~5k notes in it, and recently switched to Roam and it’s great. So I didn’t mean to disparage the apps, I mostly meant it as a funny quip.
• 28 September 2020: Yeah, that’s what I mean, if you’re ambitious and choose to work at bigco it’s best to channel that ambition elsewhere.
• 28 September 2020: I know it’s difficult to express directly through language, but could you give an example of one thing that specifically clicked for you only after you had your own?
• 28 September 2020: You know those girls in school who had like fourteen different pen colors and used all of them to take the most beautiful notes you’ve ever seen? This is a digital version and mostly for men.
• 28 September 2020: understanding*
• 28 September 2020: (My understand is that was true in your case?)
• 28 September 2020: Also 4) bad shape is for technical reasons/internal to the team. If it requires a lot of cross-functional collaboration, even with #3 you'll need to figure out how to wrestle the bureaucracy to do what you want. Which engineers tend to hate doing and aren't particularly good at.
• 28 September 2020: ooh thanks, this is really good
• 28 September 2020: Yes. Also people who attempt to play it should know the rules. Will save them lots of time, hopefully.
• 28 September 2020: The lady who said that is @ms_bridodonnell on Twitter, in case she wants to comment.
• 28 September 2020: Assuming you're good, if you choose to work in a big company the right strategy is to work 9-5, not stress about anything, and collect your paycheck. Climbing the ladder seems extremely suboptimal to me.
• 28 September 2020: They're macro-useful in a sense that they allow humans to generate billions of dollars of productive activity. But that doesn't mean that you should be spending your time on them.
• 28 September 2020: I've been puzzling out who gets promoted in big companies, who doesn't, and why for a couple of years. New post.
• 28 September 2020: Congratulations to Coinbase for formally implementing what most are discussing in private. In June I felt terrified because everyone was marching to the same tune— not a voice of dissent. Now I’m relieved. A huge number of smart, reasonable people are pushing back on wokism.
• 28 September 2020: The pitch is that he used all available laws of the land to get the highest possible benefit for himself and his family, and now he’s using the same skills on behalf of America. It’s not a matter of forgiveness, he’ll feature it as a positive.
• 28 September 2020: A lot of smart people think it's a good idea (or at least used to). This thing seems uncorrelated with intelligence.
• 28 September 2020: I don’t know if there is enough in the public facing product, but I bet internally they can literally predict the future.
• 28 September 2020: im a busy iconoclast sorry
• 28 September 2020: From a CEO in my DMs (with permission): “I thought having D&I at my company was a good idea, and now they kneel at every all hands and there isn’t anything I can do.”
• 27 September 2020: A lightsaber?
• 27 September 2020: Ah I saw that part. But I got so used to it my brain just filters it out.
• 27 September 2020: Endless pages of people having opinions on something they know nothing about.
• 27 September 2020: Chipped some really high quality finished wood for a small project I was working on, so pissed at myself 😡
• 27 September 2020: "tradwife——arthoe continuum" -> bookmarking that
• 27 September 2020: np DM me all the info and I'll do it. (I just got a car after five years of ubers, so using all the excuses I can to drive it :))
• 27 September 2020: I never ran a big org so I don't understand the complexities. But it really doesn't sound that hard to me. Facebook is doing it, and for a variety of obvious reasons it's 50x harder for them than for almost anyone else.
• 27 September 2020: Is it a regular thing or a one time thing? If one time, happy to drive it for you (like, for real).
• 27 September 2020: No shortage of customers either.
• 27 September 2020: Us vs them got humanity to the moon!
• 27 September 2020: They're already paying for massive lost productivity. The question is which price tag is higher.
• 27 September 2020: No such thing as good Vodka (I'm a bad Russian, I know). Strong disagree on cliques. They can be superb. For example, you almost always want an early-stage startup to be a clique (though not an ethnic one). In bigger companies ethnic cliques would work well. But must be opt-in.
• 27 September 2020: My default view is that natural human impulses should be harnessed for greater good (unless there is a really good reason not to). Let indian engineers form teams of indians, and russian engineers form teams of russians and let them compete on national pride.
• 27 September 2020: No, firing everyone who's insufferable.
• 26 September 2020: That’s not why you start the scale at zero.
• 26 September 2020: I think starting at zero and showing cumulative deaths would be a much better graph, yes.
• 26 September 2020: Seeing chatter about consultancies to help CEOs keep the woke out. Here it is for free. - email all "no more woke horseshit" - furor - fire top ten activists - and the next ten - keep firing - in two weeks all will go back to normal You're overcomplicating this whole thing.
• 26 September 2020: Start the scale at zero.
• 26 September 2020: Ah, I misunderstood. I thought you experienced some alternatives and empirically observed they’re awful. Conventional relationships are like a breath of fresh air after that.
• 26 September 2020: Because it puts you into a constant state of elation, which isn’t good for you. The alternative is to do your work and read books. Requires discipline though, that’s not the path of least resistance.
• 26 September 2020: Sympathy is a finite resource.
• 26 September 2020: (This is a joke of course, but the point is we shouldn’t outsource our governance decisions to Myanmar. We should do things because we believe they’re right, not because they make someone feel good for us)
• 26 September 2020: Can confirm. (I do feel concerned about the bolsheviks though, but my concern has subsided now that pretty much everyone realized it’s never been about black lives)
• 26 September 2020: We’re both just sharing anecdotes at this point.
• 26 September 2020: Chad doesn’t care what the virgin thinks about him, that’s how he got to be a chad in the first place.
• 26 September 2020: Russians under thirty too, just perhaps not in SV.
• 26 September 2020: Actually Russians and Ukrainians overwhelmingly support republicans because the left constructing guillotines in front of hyper-productive people’s houses kinda reminds us of the communist revolution.
• 26 September 2020: 😍 @RoamResearch
• 26 September 2020: Yes. But the childless hellscape is a generational thing too.
• 26 September 2020: Sadly, that’s true.
• 26 September 2020: (Hmm or do we? 🤔)
• 26 September 2020: Any time someone says that I imagine encountering them on the street, exchanging a knowing glance and a nod, and passing each other without a word. Cause we both know exactly what that shit’s about.
• 26 September 2020: No :(
• 26 September 2020: I probably would.
• 26 September 2020: Avoid insight porn.
• 25 September 2020: It doesn’t hurt to apply.
• 25 September 2020: Yeah, they're really special. The best part of the whole thing was when we went out to raise later rounds and all the traditional money-manager VCs could not for the life of them understand why founders spoke so highly of PG/JL. It was an intractable problem for them.
• 25 September 2020: Agree with every word of this.
• 25 September 2020: I'm writing more on this too. Will publish mon or tue.
• 25 September 2020: would be interested in reading your followup
• 25 September 2020: They just turned up the woke to 11.
• 25 September 2020: There are more important things than traction.
• 25 September 2020: Multiple active founders who don’t know each other tell me YC is now a woke monoculture nightmare. No latitude for disagreement whatsoever— quietly put up, or be excommunicated.
• 25 September 2020: Politics is a great equalizer-- it makes fools of us all.
• 25 September 2020: taxes
• 25 September 2020: yes
• 25 September 2020: nah
• 25 September 2020: The ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter of that circle for some reason governs human height, IQ, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extroversion (among other things). That shit's weird, man.
• 25 September 2020: Dropping testosterone levels.
• 24 September 2020: It would have been personal if they only did it to him. They did it to everybody.
• 24 September 2020: The left viciously attacked you for no reason, infested the organization you started, effectively robbed you of half of your hard-earned money, turned cities into homeless encampments and pushed you out of America. And you still support a populist with pronouns in her bio.
• 24 September 2020: emacs :)
• 24 September 2020: Not yet guys. But I will soon (if you're still into it then).
• 24 September 2020: I love you back.
• 24 September 2020: That's a great metaphor.
• 24 September 2020: On the subject of slavery, I learned there was an entire profession of slave breeders (!!!) in the US. I was 30. Never heard it mentioned, I think I stumbled on it while reading transcripts of Lincoln Douglass debates (though not entirely sure now). Absolutely insane.
• 24 September 2020: @jasonfreedman Agree!
• 23 September 2020: What do you use for it? I find it’s not hard to hack together but impossible to make useful.
• 23 September 2020: You know I kind of thought that as I typed the tweet out.
• 23 September 2020: Group projects in school are a waste of everyone’s time. They’re supposed to simulate real work, but don’t. Some members can’t do anything, some are great. Some are ok with a C, some want an A. It’s just cargo-culting teamwork and leadership.
• 23 September 2020: But there are a lot of them.
• 23 September 2020: Who on earth is listening to all those podcasts?!
• 23 September 2020: I'll try to document it, maybe something interesting will come out of it.
• 23 September 2020: 😮
• 23 September 2020: Curious about the @joerogan @Spotify deal. Wasn't the whole point that there would be no editorial oversight?
• 23 September 2020: It's enough, but it seems really low to me.
• 23 September 2020: I can only write about five good paragraphs per day.
• 23 September 2020: The guy follows a raw food diet. There is a lot more he doesn't understand.
• 23 September 2020: Universities next please. That's the source.
• 22 September 2020: Ah interesting, I should try apple maps again. I have noticed google maps becoming bloated-- everything takes too many clicks, and sometimes I have to backtrack a bunch of times to even figure out how to do what I want.
• 22 September 2020: IMO groups.
• 22 September 2020: Not sure if that’s sarcastic— Google maps is one of the better maintained products. Still innovation happening there.
• 22 September 2020: Google is asleep at the wheel on so many every day products...
• 22 September 2020: Congrats, it’s happening
• 22 September 2020: The collapse of welfare state one or the information age one? (Never read it; should I?)
• 22 September 2020: Does it need to end up anywhere other than that?
• 22 September 2020: To me that sounds accurate, but I’ve been astonished by his predictions coming true that felt exactly the same way before.
• 22 September 2020: Books don’t reliably generate blockbusters. Smaller markets -> specialized products. They’re also much cheaper to write, so harder to control. If we had a couple of Harry Potter-scale books every year and they cost $300M to write, they’d be far more constrained too.
• 22 September 2020: ☺️
• 22 September 2020: there will be more!
• 22 September 2020: I don't know of course, but my guess it was a complete waste of everyone's time.
• 22 September 2020: Definitely wasted. I like it now because I'm an adult.
• 22 September 2020: Yeah, except I really like the poem.
• 22 September 2020: amazing gift
• 22 September 2020: You have an army of very competent, very driven, very experienced actors all competing for very limited resources (money, prestige, Zuck's attention, influence, etc.) There is absolutely no way for it not to turn into game of thrones.
• 22 September 2020: You might have to eat your words :)
• 22 September 2020: Historian Gwynne Dyer compared the carnage at Borodino to "a fully-loaded 747 crashing, with no survivors, every 5 minutes for eight hours." 😲
• 22 September 2020: Meaning everyone left and it's all online now.
• 22 September 2020: I'm sure you've seen enough to construct a whole theory on it. Very curious what you think.
• 22 September 2020: Yeah, it was a simplified model. Below ~100-250 (roughly Dunbar's number) you get little glitches but no big deal. After that is when things get really interesting. I don't have enough experience here so don't really understand it. Can only talk about the pinhole view I have.
• 22 September 2020: those and hill sprints 🤢
• 22 September 2020: That's not obvious to me. SV/SF went from centralized to decentralized in a matter of two months, for example.
• 22 September 2020: We need more broken clocks then :)
• 22 September 2020: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” – RBG This quote is:
• 22 September 2020: Yup, and he was right about much crazier stuff than covid. If I didn’t know better I’d seriously believe he’s somehow kicked down the time line by a few years.
• 22 September 2020: Even @realDonaldTrump is doing this now. See his “live poll” at the NC rally.
• 22 September 2020: I find @balajis lives 18-36 months ahead of everyone on the timeline. If something he says sounds far fetched, it’s because the future is going to be really weird.
• 21 September 2020: :(
• 21 September 2020: I think it’s almost certainly harmful. There is just no way around it, so you have to harness it.
• 21 September 2020: More posts coming. Much to say on this topic.
• 21 September 2020: More posts coming.
• 21 September 2020: Thanks, I’ve heard of immoral mazes but never actually read it!
• 21 September 2020: I’ll do more posts on this. In twitter terms: think of your org as an adversarial agent that always presents the most flattering possible view. (This starts at ~150+) OKRs/KPIs deserve a whole book.
• 21 September 2020: New post: some basic game theory to explain the ubiquity of corporate politics. This is something I wish I understood before I worked at big organizations. Would have saved me a lot of pain.
• 21 September 2020: This will do it (and much more). It’s really good.
• 21 September 2020: Not sure which worlds you’re in so just in case @paulg @patrickc @collision @robinhanson @tylercowen. You can walk the graph from there.
• 21 September 2020: One of the first things the Bolsheviks did is eliminated the concept of neutrality. You were either pro-revolution or anti-revolution. You couldn’t just live your life. Eliminating ability to just live your life is one of the first signs of tragedy at unimaginable scale.
• 21 September 2020: I never realized people actually read buzzfeed. I kind of assumed they only ever click on it by accident.
• 21 September 2020: Do nice girls in Romania have an opinion on reproductive rights in Malaysia?
• 20 September 2020: Well, from my point of view the democrats did do that. But republicans put Hillary through a nightmare for basically no reason. Somehow we need to declare bankruptcy on all this bullshit and return to having a sense of decorum.
• 20 September 2020: What's the best service for leasing a car online without having to deal with the dealerships?
• 20 September 2020: Yeah, I think in this particular case it's on the republicans to extend an olive branch. But I don't see that happening, unfortunately.
• 20 September 2020: Well, I'm a republican and my lizard brain wants it to go through. But I think the objective answer is "don't, wrong before". Meaning it was wrong before, wait until the election to make it fair, and never do this bullshit again.
• 20 September 2020: Yeah well deep discourse got us here in the first place, so I'll take motivated reasoning :)
• 20 September 2020: Yep just double checked it, that works. Strongly encourage everyone who follows me to turn off my retweets. I don't even like my retweets, I wish the retweet button was placebo.
• 20 September 2020: LoL saving countless future lives
• 20 September 2020: Every day
• 20 September 2020: @kendrictonn Japan 😍
• 20 September 2020: Ah found it, thanks! (You have to be following the account)
• 20 September 2020: Maybe they didn’t roll it out to everyone yet?
• 20 September 2020: I have read some. If you look past the clever arguments the core of the issue isn’t complex at all.
• 20 September 2020: ??
• 20 September 2020: I’ve read some critiques of textualism (not that one, will read!) but they strike me as critiques of straw man of textualism. Like, obviously 2a doesn’t mean anyone can own nukes, come on.
• 20 September 2020: Wait how?!!!
• 20 September 2020: Imagine how many other undertakings it also delayed (or prevented)!
• 20 September 2020: Thanks— interesting case. How do you think the court should have ruled?
• 20 September 2020: me too!
• 20 September 2020: (I guess there is a limit to my traditionalism)
• 20 September 2020: They usually have a right of refusal though. Parents arrange it, you meet your date, if it doesn't work you say "not interested". You definitely don't know what's best for you, but you may know for sure that some things are bad for you.
• 20 September 2020: Sure it, with a few patches. You just need ability to refuse (which e.g. modern arranged marriage rituals in India adopted).
• 20 September 2020: Yeah, that's true. Traditional arranged marriage suffers from the flaw that sex might be awful right from the start, which is a pretty bad flaw IMO. I think if you patch that it would be a really good system (certainly competitive with alternatives).
• 20 September 2020: Agree. If I were to bring arranged marriage into 21st century, I'd have parents propose candidates and have couples sleep with each other with an option to turn down. I think that'd be a pretty good system, actually.
• 20 September 2020: Go to /r/deadbedrooms to see what that can do to people. It's a lot of years.
• 20 September 2020: I believe SCOTUS shouldn't make up shit that ain't there. We have congress for that.
• 20 September 2020: Yeah, but really good sex helps a lot, and your parents can't pick that for you.
• 20 September 2020: I think that's reasonable. But a lot of people seem to interpret it as "a document with meaning that changes over time/context", which seems like an oxymoron.
• 20 September 2020: Realpolitik has always been the default. But previously there was at least a veneer of decorum. Remember when W and Obama pretended there is no litmus test for justices? That's now gone. I don't know if it ever comes back. I hope so.
• 20 September 2020: Right-- that's what I mean, everything is realpolitik now.
• 20 September 2020: That's precisely the point-- the constitution doesn't address when life begins. That's all there is to it. But Roe v Wade made some sort of a right to privacy argument, which is just a means to make the case come out a certain way. That was not a textualist decision.
• 20 September 2020: 👇
• 20 September 2020: If I were to sum up my view (which admittedly is a little different from the original tweet): I don’t know exactly where interpretation ends and legislation begins, but in egregious cases it’s easy to tell one from the other. And I don’t think the court should legislate.
• 20 September 2020: That’s not what game theory predicts. You need a very small number of men to accept casual sex, while the rest can exercise self-control and still find themselves in the situation that leads them to complain.
• 19 September 2020: The whole point of the bill of rights, for example, is to establish constraints on common law interpretations.
• 19 September 2020: The outcome of this philosophy is absurd interpretations like “you can’t grow potatoes in your back yard because you aren’t selling it to other states and that’s up to congress to regulate due to the interstate commerce clause.”
• 19 September 2020: I don’t ascribe to originalism because you can argue what you think they meant till you turn blue and have it come out any way you want.
• 19 September 2020: We should have a different word for it too. Compiling abortion to a fourth amendment argument isn’t interpretation in the same way as striking down constraints on speech because of the first.
• 19 September 2020: There is interpretation and then there is interpretation. You can look at two arguments and say “ok this one is clearly more in line with the meaning of the text”. But wrt abortion you really can make it come out any way you want. That’s the latter form of interpretation.
• 19 September 2020: I think “a living document” is sophistic word game, like “unhoused residents”. The whole point of a document is to have words on a page that don’t change.
• 19 September 2020: How is textualism not the only acceptable way to interpret the constitution? Every other school of interpretation is essentially a genre of really clever arguments to claim it supports whatever you happen to want.
• 19 September 2020: Ok but you’re already doing engineering just by saying that :)
• 19 September 2020: I bucket that as bad engineering. I once went on a date with a girl who spent the whole time telling me about the spreadsheet design she was using to find a husband. She was really excited about it (and the algorithm was impressive). Definitely don’t do that :)
• 19 September 2020: Math works for everything else but somehow magically doesn’t work for relationships? Why would that be true? One possibility is that you’ve observed really bad engineering attempts (which is likely because that’s the default).
• 19 September 2020: You don’t treat it as a business relationship (obviously). You treat it as an optimization problem. Think more science/engineering, less business.
• 19 September 2020: Why? (I pretty strongly disagree, curious what you think)
• 19 September 2020: I thought it was her-me-oh-knee 🙈
• 19 September 2020: You can take a man out of systems but you can’t take systems out of a man.
• 19 September 2020: Roughly, how quickly do you read?
• 19 September 2020: Thanks!
• 18 September 2020: :-D
• 18 September 2020: Sorry for the last email, that was autocorrect (Apple should really fix that!) We of course meant "excited to work together in the future".
• 18 September 2020: Folks, as much as we loved your firm, b32y is in, and we decided to give them the whole round. It was a really tough decision, but ultimately best for our company. Thank you for the entrepreneur-friendly process and good luck with your shitty fund.
• 18 September 2020: A friend just made me aware of this, and it's absolutely amazing. If it doesn't make sense, watch Star Trek TNG S05E02 (Darmok). It will be worth it. It's actually a ridiculously insightful observation. After a day of thinking about it, still blown away...
• 18 September 2020: I've really enjoyed following these folks: @cvaldary @EricsElectrons @InayaFolarin. Strong recommend.
• 18 September 2020: People are giving Suhail shit, but he's 💯 right. This art even more so than what we conventially think of as art. Not only did they find a beautiful solution in a combinatorially explosive space, they also invented new mediums of expression. You try that, see how well you do.
• 18 September 2020: We're building a notetaking app. Not a perfect fit as we are poets and the data is relatively small. However, we really love how forward-thinking and contrarian your firm is. We already have seven termsheets but would love to work with you. Closing by Friday either way. You in?
• 18 September 2020: What's your secret to getting the deal flow to invest the garbage?
• 18 September 2020: I often help engineers think through how to sell their product. We almost always end up covering the same ground, so I wrote a post about it. Also, I'm now on substack and will be writing regularly. Subscribe!
• 18 September 2020: Biden did a spectacular job. By comparison, Trump's town hall yesterday was so cringe-worthy I had to turn it off.
• 18 September 2020: Re pro-America education, here's how I see it. People demand I teach my kids a certain way-- views I consider extremist. I refuse. They say I add coal to the fire. But I just wanted to be left alone! So it isn't about good education or patriotism. It's about power. On both sides.
• 18 September 2020: The core issue is competition. No inter or intra school competition, no quality. From my perspective the only reason to reject school vouchers is to maintain control over education. The idea that it would disadvantage minorities seems like bullshit. It will only help.
• 18 September 2020: Or consider critical gender theory and intersectional femenism. Even if you're sympathetic to that view (I am not), there is no way to claim it's any kind of objective truth. It's clearly a leftist perspective. It is perfectly reasonable to demand education be apolitical.
• 18 September 2020: Let's set race aside for a moment, as tensions are high. In high schools they teach how we ruined south american and south asian countries. Pure evil. Nobody examines the counterfactual: Soviet Union and communism (millions of deaths).
• 18 September 2020: I disagree with the premise. Trump didn't start the war. There is a difference between teaching kids about the horrors of slavery and teaching a leftist view. Not the same thing! As to unions-- the quality of the product goes down when no one ever gets fired. Obviously.
• 18 September 2020: Have you heard of principle of charity[1]? If you're starting from a position that I want to wreck education, whitewash history, and make the world miserable because I just want to see it all burn, then there isn't a whole lot I can say, can I? [1]
• 18 September 2020: I'm sorry for your loss 😢❤️
• 18 September 2020: I think in a very real sense it would have been the more conservative option. Sending a man with dementia to multiple national debates is extremely bold :)
• 18 September 2020: If I were to run this thing, I'd have announced at the DNC Biden is stepping down, Kamala is the nominee, and a new VP is some old (but not so old) centrist white man. I think this would have energized people and would have been a plausible path to victory. Now... I don't know.
• 18 September 2020: My guess is: it's a huge point of contention in the party and the campaign. They're stuck with a candidate who cannot debate, and replacing him with Kamala is too risky. So it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. I don't think they know what they'll do any more than we do.
• 17 September 2020: He's not the one running :) Kamala might win. Wouldn't be my pick, but I'd be ok with her, she seems like a reasonable person (to the degree that you can call politicians people).
• 17 September 2020: He's not the one running :) Kamala might win. Wouldn't be my pick, but I'd be ok with her, she seems like a reasonable person (to the degree that you can call politicians a person).
• 17 September 2020: inexhaustible
• 17 September 2020: ask any parent
• 17 September 2020: There should be no public schools, only vouchers.
• 17 September 2020: You can learn: - how investors think so you can pitch better - how investors think so you can invest better - what successful companies look like before they become successful - a bit on how to build a successful business - how decisions are made with much uncertainty
• 17 September 2020: DISBAND TEACHERS UNIONS
• 17 September 2020: Any specific book/link you can recommend?
• 17 September 2020: That sucks dude :(
• 17 September 2020: Most days I did. It’s literally a noop.
• 17 September 2020:
• 17 September 2020: This is a really interesting question actually. How do you define value (market cap with vs without them)?
• 17 September 2020: From Zen Mind Beginner's Mind
• 17 September 2020: Hey @BessemerVP, thanks again for publishing . A treasure trove of information, I've been reading these non-stop like a detective novel. A huge gift to the community.
• 17 September 2020: I personally don't fall into that particular trap, but for me sitting in an office and being paid ridiculous amounts of money basically for shuffling words felt so miserable that I had to leave. How can that feeling even exist?!!
• 17 September 2020: Yes, but tbh I don't understand where the burdens come from. I believe they're real and often feel them, but I don't understand the source. E.g. with cheap credit people give you money so long as you pay it back. You buy luxury goods with it. How did we turn it into a burden?!
• 17 September 2020: Also the pill. They wrote songs about it for god's sake.
• 16 September 2020: was thinking of the bathrobe lady from Trump's town hall yesterday
• 16 September 2020: When someone claims they've been marginalized it reminds me of bad amazon reviews. Sometimes you take a gamble on the product and it really turns out to be awful. Other times the product is great and the person's crazy. You really can't tell by reading the review.
• 16 September 2020: I agree cheap credit warps the culture. This is complicated... I have very mixed feelings. I remember landing here for the first time and thinking "wow! all these opportunities! It's magic!" But after a while opportunities seem like burdens. Human psychology is really weird.
• 16 September 2020: (Not "definitely" more important, although that's possible, but definitely underrated)
• 16 September 2020: Definitely. Its impact is particularly underrated because as a business it's small (relative to FAANG).
• 16 September 2020: *per capita
• 16 September 2020: The second human cultures figure out how to produce more calories capita than one can consume, they specialize, and the second they specialize they accumulate and flaunt wealth. This is 100% a human universal.
• 16 September 2020: Here are some photos from Iran, India, Kenya, and China. The Swiss make Patek Philippe (and Rolex for that matter). The Russians have oligarchs who literally buy gold toilets. Kids of cartel bosses post photos of pistols lined with diamonds. Italians make Ferraris.
• 16 September 2020: yup
• 16 September 2020: Nope. A human.
• 16 September 2020: I was in NYC. They made me fill out a form online when I landed and then called me every day, read a message about self-quarantine, and then hung up.
• 16 September 2020: So NYC hired an army of (VERY bored) reps to call thousands of travelers every day, literally read the same message off an index card, and then hang up.
• 16 September 2020: 💯👏
• 16 September 2020: Follow @ByrneHobart if you aren’t already, he’s excellent.
• 16 September 2020: Yes, music is a really good contender. It’s relatively easy to see what TV did, not so easy with music.
• 16 September 2020: Are those underrated though? Everyone understands how transformative they are, I think.
• 16 September 2020: What’s the most underrated technology if you rank by sustained cultural implications? IMO: intoxicants.
• 16 September 2020: For some reason christian authoritarianism in private life doesn't scare me. "Gay men will ruin blah blah smtg" isn't threatening because it sounds like a played out joke. Any cultural limitations on sex would need to be self-imposed, not forced on people.
• 16 September 2020: Well, the left did go completely insane right after SCOTUS legalized gay marriage, so maybe that crazy ad with clouds forming over America had something to it 😁
• 16 September 2020: Seems to me about half her argument is pragmatic, you don’t need religion for that. As to the attribution error, you can’t. But the fact remains that western cultures aren’t having kids.
• 16 September 2020: I want to be where the western countries are now. The only difference is, I’d eradicate Marxism and victimhood from every institution.
• 16 September 2020: Ah, I misinterpreted your question. I see this as constraining destructive manifestations of greed (which I obviously support). I don’t support constraining the amount.
• 16 September 2020: If you filter out the religious elements from her argument, it isn’t so easy to dismiss. We have a culture that refuses to have children. It’s easy to disagree with “ontological priority”, but once cultures start committing suicide, one has to take that seriously.
• 16 September 2020: No.
• 16 September 2020: Everyone is unhappy because we aren’t adapted to a life without problems. Women can and do vote with their feet. There is a reason you always hear about Eastern European women trying to get into America but you never hear about American women trying to get to Eastern Europe.
• 16 September 2020: Don’t agree with everything here but the thread is worth reading. 👇
• 16 September 2020: Yeah. I’d say a very pathological version of the feminine too.
• 16 September 2020: It raised standards for men. You can’t just be a deadbeat anymore and feel masculine at the expense of a woman. You have to earn your keep. That’s hard, but the culture will adapt and it will be better for everyone. The old way was awful. Mad Men is a pretty realistic depiction.
• 16 September 2020: Like, women having a right to own property or get a divorce doesn’t make me feel like any less of a man. The whole patriarchy thing would have if I bought into it, but I don’t. It’s not even an adaptive stance in a dating market, no one wants that.
• 16 September 2020: This is gonna be big.
• 16 September 2020: Like, women have a right to own property or get a divorce at any time doesn’t make me feel any less of a man. The whole patriarchy thing would have if I bought into it, but I don’t. It’s not even an adaptive stance in a dating market, no one wants that.
• 16 September 2020: I was talking about egalitarianism and emasculation. I don’t think the former implies the latter. I don’t see how giving both genders equal opportunities emasculates me in any way. (Nth wave feminism tries, but those people are crazy)
• 16 September 2020: I think cultural evolution is shockingly good at modulating our biology so we can stand being next to each other. E.g. tribal warfare replaced by team sports. Same will happen for the genders. We’re just temporarily stuck in a local minimum.
• 16 September 2020: This isn’t casuistry because the definition that gives you the equal result is actually useful. In some cases life is way better if we choose to adopt it. But if that isn’t convincing, there is mr colt, the great equalizer. It makes us equal in a very practical sense. 2/2
• 16 September 2020: In math/programming terms, you can define multiple comparison operators that are useful in different contexts. Under one definition men are obviously superior (e.g. in physical strength). Under another they’re equal. 1/2
• 16 September 2020: It really doesn’t require any of that. In its current form it does because the movement has been taken over by the mentally ill. There is nothing about being a gentleman that requires emasculation, IMO.
• 16 September 2020: I don’t have tds at all. Most of the “undecided” voters in the town hall, however, clearly do.
• 16 September 2020: you’re so close, just one more step
• 16 September 2020: 💯
• 16 September 2020: Ok, thinking about this more-- when someone criticizes something abstract (e.g. your foreign policy is garbage) marketing your victories sounds great. When someone shares their own bad experience (e.g. why did you throw people like me under the bus), it sounds terrible.
• 16 September 2020: If it helps I walked away from a pile of money because I wanted what I think and what I say to be in harmony. (In my experience that kind of thing is very rare, though; not a compliment to myself, I'm just fucking weird)
• 16 September 2020: Ok the performance when they were talking about foreign policy was day and night. Much, much better.
• 16 September 2020: This is dramatically better than what I've seen at the beginning.
• 16 September 2020: Wow, this is dramatically better.
• 16 September 2020: No, I wasn't following too closely. I always felt he was a bit like Trump-- saying some crazy shit to get a lot of publicity through politics. Just a much more personable version.
• 16 September 2020: I didn't see that, had to turn it off.
• 16 September 2020: lol
• 16 September 2020: I'm very sympathetic to Trump's agenda, but we must be watching a different town hall. His performance is atrocious. The format requires him to be personable, validate people, ask follow up questions, etc. That's not Trump, and he looks really bad in this.
• 16 September 2020: Ok, his performance is so cringeworthy I had to turn it off. Horrible format for him.
• 16 September 2020: OMG he just called "herd immunity" "herd mentality". This is so cringeworthy.
• 16 September 2020: OMG he just called "herd immunity" "herd mortality". This is so cringeworthy.
• 16 September 2020: Trump's performance in the ABC town hall (at least so far) is abysmal.
• 16 September 2020: ❤️
• 16 September 2020: San Francisco is run by leftists/socialists.
• 16 September 2020: Well, this is the result of your policies that you've been trying for thirty years. Clearly they aren't helping anybody. So maybe try it my way now?
• 16 September 2020: I don't necessarily agree with a lot of his proposed policies, and I think he's quite unpolished as a candidate. But I really like him. If he were on the ticket, I'd most likely vote for that ticket.
• 15 September 2020: Leo.
• 15 September 2020: Yeah, 90th or 99th percentile is still very different from world champion. But the same aspects of what we call talent apply there, just to a lesser degree. (I can easily believe that it's non-linear though)
• 15 September 2020: Yeah, hard to believe.
• 15 September 2020: What in the love of god did @realDonaldTrump do to make this happen?!! (Also, this video should be on his timeline)
• 15 September 2020: I think they did. It's a decision made together with voters, but I'd bet the party elders have a lot more input into it than it appears.
• 15 September 2020: I read that paper and liked it a lot. But do you think it's right on point two? Perhaps "talent" isn't that useful, but there is something there. First, one needs affinity for a subject. Second, one needs to be able to learn the necessary adjustments, which requires aptitude.
• 15 September 2020: That’s why it’s a conspiracy theory :)
• 15 September 2020: 👇
• 15 September 2020: My conspiracy theory is that the dem party elders canned Buttigieg because he’s gay. Not because they care one way or another, but because they didn’t think a gay man could win the national stage. (Which I’m pretty sure is a wrong assessment of where the American people stand).
• 15 September 2020: The Dem Party made a huge strategic blunder. They needed a reasonable person who’s easy on the eyes and would commit to police reform. Participation isn’t an issue like in 2016–polarization takes care of that. So now they’re stuck with a senile man and an unlikeable race hustler.
• 15 September 2020: Excited to learn from @CNN why this is the worst thing to happen to Israeli/Arab relations in more than half a century.
• 15 September 2020: Which part of Utah?
• 15 September 2020: Political ideologies mainly harness one emotion. Capitalism- greed, communism- envy, fascism- contempt. There is no a priori reason greed should do dramatically better than envy or contempt, and yet empirically we know it does. Not all "sinful" emotions are created equal.
• 15 September 2020: I used to be an enthusiastic supporter of basic income. Now I'm much more cautious about it. We should test it in small experiments, and gradually expand it only if it works.
• 15 September 2020: Each political ideology primarily harnesses one human emotion. For capitalism it's greed, for communism- envy, for fascism- contempt. There is a priori reason to believe greed would do dramatically, crazily better than envy and contempt, and yet empirically we know it to be true.
• 15 September 2020: Ah! The last sentence is the key! There are so many ways people skinned that cat, so why not this way? Perhaps because it's not a stable equilibrium. When you provide a floor people want more and more. To pay for it you have to tax the upside. The culture of building erodes. etc.
• 15 September 2020: There are multiple legitimate solutions to that problem.
• 15 September 2020: The most depressing thing about reading this is that there are exits off that highway every few miles and he took none of them. Thanks for linking, that was really well written.
• 15 September 2020: It isn’t about any particular intervention (I’d support paying for health insurance with progressive taxation, for example). It’s about seeing the world primarily as oppressors vs oppressed. A huge number of Americans see it that away, and the ideology is a cancer.
• 15 September 2020: What do you think is the male equivalent? Having your biggest accomplishment at forty be an impressive WoW character?
• 15 September 2020: Stop at 1000lbs club, beyond that it’s not worth it.
• 15 September 2020: Jesus Alex, that’s dark even for me and I already knew all this.
• 15 September 2020: That's the symptom, not the cause. Range voting would solve this problem.
• 15 September 2020: It's a classic equilibrium trap. You can yell from the rooftops about independent candidates, and every election people do, yet we've never elected an independent candidate. Why? Because equilibrium traps are a real law of economics and you can't simply will it away.
• 15 September 2020: I'm obviously talking about two mainstream candidates. There are lots of other candidates available for hire, but our current system guarantees we can't hire them.
• 15 September 2020: I had a very different experience with obamacare. It is a bit expensive, but basically worked great. I think it depends on the state implementation a lot. I hope you're doing great. People with cancer have incredible courage.
• 15 September 2020: I hope @realDonaldTrump's team is aware of this.
• 15 September 2020: You don't have to like him to dislike socialism.
• 15 September 2020: Conservatives grabbing liberals by the collar and yelling "look! Joe has dimentia! Can't you see?!!" is exactly the same as liberals yelling "look! Trump has no morals whatsoever! Can't you see?!!" It's a waste of time. The other side doesn't care.
• 15 September 2020: The objective functional benefit is justice. I know, I’m not cynical enough. Those ideals are deep man.
• 15 September 2020: This needs to be said. Children in America don't go hungry because capitalism is evil, or there is no help, or no opportunity. It's because their parents have been so coddled by the state they degenerated to a point where they can't be bothered to feed their own kids.
• 15 September 2020: If you mean literally “any” then sure, it’s a big country. The government here gives food stamps to anyone who asks. I certainly haven’t seen many skinny people on any of the protest videos.
• 15 September 2020: If you mean literally “any” then sure, it’s a big country. The government here literally gives food stamps to anyone who asks. I certainly haven’t seen many skinny people on any of the protest videos.
• 15 September 2020: Oh yeah the rich white kids who go to the protests to larp a revolution and get laid are struggling sooooo much.
• 15 September 2020: One who's primary way of seeing the world is oppressors vs the oppressed.
• 15 September 2020: America absolutely has real socialists right now.
• 15 September 2020: This isn't a statistically sound poll for the nation, but it does track a group pretty closely. That group is Silicon Valley.
• 15 September 2020: Not an exaggeration. I still remember the first time I walked into an American supermarket, and that was in 1996– Ukraine already moved to a market economy. The size, the bright colors, the infinite variety. It was like being in a different galaxy.
• 15 September 2020: I put my fist in I like the civil rights sign.
• 15 September 2020: They should have three drones per incident capturing footage from every possible angle and then lock onto the vehicle roof and recharge.
• 15 September 2020: Why does police body cam footage look like it was shot in the 1950s when a 12 megapixel camera costs like five bucks?
• 15 September 2020: Hey @CadeMetz, this poll doesn’t look so good for your employer. You’d have to try pretty hard to get numbers that bad. Maybe it’s time for the NYT to tell your side of the story?
• 15 September 2020: Yes
• 15 September 2020: Their life is too fucking sweet. They don’t know what “hungry” means. The stories people go hungry here are horseshit. They don’t know what it’s like to wait weeks to get a salary, finally go to a grocery store and find there isn’t anything in it. - My dad on American socialists
• 15 September 2020: like nick in great gatsby
• 14 September 2020: So my options are: - have decades of experience and enchant her with worlds she can't even fathom - have near infinite resources - be a monster of awesome power only she can tame Where as we just want you to be good in bed and be a good mom. You ladies are a tough crowd.
• 14 September 2020: That’s not true. I know doctors and they’re doing very well for themselves in basically every specialty.
• 14 September 2020: 😁
• 14 September 2020: lol im not well adjusted
• 14 September 2020: Did you read all the volumes or just the second?
• 14 September 2020: Critics aren't the ones who get laid though. Or do they?
• 14 September 2020: Q for ppl who studied Greek mythology. I can't understand the information encoded in the gods, their traits and relationships. For example, why is Pan connected to theatrical criticism and sex/fertility? Why is he the son of Hemes? Surely most of this isn't random.
• 14 September 2020: Note-- Nov 23, 2019. Prescient (but not as prescient as Elon).
• 14 September 2020: I know I’m gonna need to figure out how to rephrase it and run the poll again. People are like Drax over here.
• 14 September 2020: That seems not in the spirit of the question, but I can't immediately come up with a philosophically satisfactory amendment to ban it.
• 14 September 2020: Is there something in your life you regret so badly, you’d give all your net worth if you could go back and make a different choice?
• 14 September 2020: That doesn't make sense, because (a) kids have no more right to schooling than adults have a right to healthcare, and (b) if you believe you should be able to use your money as a voucher, you shouldn't be supporting school vouchers either.
• 14 September 2020: I am very strongly opposed to gov intervention on principle. If it does intervene, the standard has to be very high-- it really must be worth it. It may not actually be worth it in healthcare, but the right even refuses to acknowledge that it may be.
• 14 September 2020: I mean everyone gets a healthcare "voucher" and you can take it to any doctor you want. That was the original plan, but nearly all republicans were against it. Why be pro school vouchers but anti medicine vouchers (even though it wasn't framed that way)?
• 14 September 2020: What if you think of it as "school choice" but for medicine? Would that work for you?
• 14 September 2020: Question for right-wing people (or someone who understands the charitable version of the right-wing view). Why do you feel such strong aversion for Obamacare? I'm either on board with or understand every other right-wing stance, but this is smtg I don't get at all.
• 13 September 2020: @kootrya @f_ianp @aston @neumino anonymous coward
• 13 September 2020: That is 100% true. I have infinite energy for it that I can’t control. Give my best to Jesse, hope your family is doing great!
• 13 September 2020: Really @neumino? Tell me why I’m terrible.
• 13 September 2020: We need to blow up this meme.
• 13 September 2020: I already read your tweets!
• 13 September 2020: The more I think about it, the better this idea seems to me. Brb I have a long backlog of canceled authors to read.
• 13 September 2020: @marlomajor Strong disagree. The former is internalized victimhood. In almost all markets (with obvious exceptions like healthcare) a transaction can only happen if both parties benefit. If you buy shit that isn’t worth the money you’re paying, that’s on you.
• 13 September 2020: Polyamory is adaptive to a market with a high m/f ratio. Men are forced to share sexual access and women get the resources of multiple men. That’s better than a large group of sexually frustrated angry men. Note: way more polycules in SF where men outnumber women than eg NYC.
• 13 September 2020: If a person has some prestige associated with them, a good model of them allows you to internalize some of their abilities, which is also immensely useful in the business of life.
• 13 September 2020: Generating an accurate model of other people is immensely useful. If they’re an enemy, you need to know how they think so you can outplay them. If a friend, understanding leads to deeper bonds and mutual assistance in case of distress.
• 13 September 2020: What do you think the true numbers would be if we could run an experiment?
• 13 September 2020: I thought "no way this is real". Nope. Real.
• 13 September 2020: Why replace "fat" with "lipids" on labels, what would that do?
• 13 September 2020: the ring of gyges
• 13 September 2020: 👇
• 13 September 2020: You're really shooting for the stars with this one :)
• 13 September 2020: Comedy or drama?
• 13 September 2020: For the purposes of this poll, unquestionably yes (you can rephrase it as election fraud, but it's basically the same end).
• 13 September 2020: I agree.
• 13 September 2020: No freeloaders!
• 13 September 2020: Anonymous poll. You’re the presidential nominee in 2020. You know your side will lose unless you authorize voter suppression. You also know with absolute certainty you will never get caught. Do you authorize it?
• 13 September 2020: @ave_crypto There are no such policies in any state because it’s impossible with today’s technology.
• 13 September 2020: Yes.
• 13 September 2020: Tattoos are great.
• 13 September 2020: My standards for friends, family, acquaintances and strangers are different. I would not cooperate over a speeding ticket even if it’s a stranger. I would cooperate over a murder even if it’s a friend; probably also family.
• 13 September 2020: Officer, am I being detained?
• 13 September 2020: Welcome to Jamaica and have a nice day.
• 12 September 2020: This is my home, there is no going back.
• 12 September 2020: If they committed a crime other than illegal immigration I would cooperate. In normal circumstances, no. Where they’re from is irrelevant, I’d act this way if they were Mexicans or Syrians or the French or whatever.
• 12 September 2020: They’re anti-immigration because reach people supported immigration policies to increase labor supply and depress wages. It’s not necessarily a view I support, but it’s consistent and reasonable.
• 12 September 2020: Give an example thought that doesn’t generate a prediction and I’ll show you why it’s useful.
• 12 September 2020: Not on Twitter.
• 12 September 2020: Use the words “COVID” and “micromort” correctly in one sentence.
• 12 September 2020: 👇
• 12 September 2020: My family left their lives behind and crossed the Atlantic to escape discrimination and tyranny. Petulant children in adult bodies don’t scare me.
• 12 September 2020: Not so different from hundreds of videos in American cities we’ve seen over the past few months. Radical left is effectively an authoritarian theocracy.
• 12 September 2020: 💯 Main reason there is so little homelessness in stable, homogeneous societies. Also agree that’s gone in the US, and not coming back any time soon.
• 12 September 2020: @JulieMixtape Tempted to make this a morning prayer.
• 12 September 2020: Ah— that makes sense. I already think through things obsessively so maybe it’s a little less relevant for me.
• 12 September 2020: An interesting take on the film👇
• 12 September 2020: Very inconvenient for the species. But jokes aside, I’m not sure if I buy the hypothesis. Men’s sperm count has dropped by 50% over the last 40 years and we don’t know why. There may be something much more sinister going on than porn availability.
• 12 September 2020: Or as an economist would put it: availability of substitute goods with lower transaction costs.
• 12 September 2020:
• 12 September 2020: If removing people from the streets who are a danger to others and themselves is socialism, sign me up.
• 12 September 2020: Bookmarking this thread. So I don't violate the rules, recommendation. Easy to read, was written in a different time so gives you an insight into our culture and into history, yet feels like it was written by a contemporary. One of my favorites.
• 12 September 2020: gorgeous photo
• 12 September 2020: Yup, first read it in russian and it blew me away.
• 12 September 2020: Yeah, it occurred to me that people experience this completely differently. Important to pay attention to the details of how you experience it and cultivate that, rather than try to force yourself into how you're "supposed to" do it.
• 12 September 2020: (no idea if she'd describe herself this way, usual disclaimers apply, etc. etc.)
• 12 September 2020: Signal boost. Follow @kaschuta. She's extremely smart, very well informed, unapologetically independent, and maintains a very traditional view of femininity. A rare and extremely interesting combination of traits. You'll learn a lot from her timeline (or at least I have).
• 12 September 2020: It's interesting that we (men) have this built in. When I think of myself as someone who appreciates this insight I get a warm pleasant feeling. When I think of a counterfactual where I treat sperm and eggs as equally valuable I feel contempt for that version of myself.
• 12 September 2020: This is a brilliant insight 👇
• 12 September 2020: “Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman has one solution— it is called pregnancy.” Said by Nietzsche of course. The moment I internalized this, my interactions with women got a lot better in almost every context.
• 12 September 2020: You can always take the least charitable interpretation of someone’s intentions if you want, but it’s not a good way to live your life.
• 12 September 2020: I did, but that never quite worked for me.
• 12 September 2020: Yes, me too. Though for me it’s more like nervous mumbling. I must look like a crazy person when I do it outside.
• 12 September 2020: I pace around my room as if I'm giving a talk on stage. The outline pops into my head, I start "giving the talk" word for word. When I hit a roadblock, I rearrange the outline in my head and go from the top. I do many iterations. By the end, I know exactly what to write.
• 12 September 2020: Writing doesn’t help me think. I know exactly what I think before I start writing. It does help clarify some nuances, but that’s of marginal help. I have a pretty detailed outline already in my mind long before I sit in front of a keyboard.
• 11 September 2020: A nation of shopkeepers defeated Napoleon. I’ll take it.
• 11 September 2020: One of life’s greatest ironies is that societies built on harnessing greed made millions flourish and societies built on harnessing altruism made millions dead.
• 11 September 2020: 🔥
• 11 September 2020: Sometimes I fancy myself a scientist at heart, but that’s a lie I tell myself. My intuition tells me to do things and I do them. Meticulously attempting to disprove a hypothesis would drive me insane with frustration.
• 11 September 2020: That proposal is awful because the government will pay people to house criminals and drug addicts next to your house. It’s only a good idea without centralized housing distortions.
• 11 September 2020: oh no, someone who thinks differently from you! must remove yourself from diverse viewpoints immediately!
• 11 September 2020: In that case I'll keep my exclusionary suburbs, thanks.
• 11 September 2020: Whom do you trust more, Scott Alexander or New York Times?
• 11 September 2020: "Every parcel should be allowed to upzone if the owner desires to." So long as there is no distortion of the market by government housing programs (projects, section 8, etc.) I support this.
• 11 September 2020: What are some small, under-the-radar markets that will see explosive growth in the next year or two? (remote work and school excluded by fiat)
• 11 September 2020: No, I'm going off rumors that they aren't. If they are well paid, that's great!
• 11 September 2020: Also: pay them a fair wage.
• 11 September 2020: The meta-meta goal is to restructure election districts such that nearly every seat is competitive. That's the only way to get a solution for homelessness that's both humane and actually works (and really the only way to get solutions to most political problems).
• 11 September 2020: that's excellent, can we get it on the ballot?
• 11 September 2020: Was there a few years ago, construction on every corner (probably cooled off a bit now). Was really refreshing and inspiring to see.
• 11 September 2020: Also: involuntarily commit mentally ill people unable to hold a job. Drug addicts who are really far gone are classified as mentally ill. Drug addicts who aren’t, but commit crimes to fund the addiction go to jail.
• 11 September 2020: That would be paternalistic. You starve the government agencies responsible for this, money supply gets cut off, people leave for cities that are more advantageous for the homeless themselves.
• 11 September 2020: It’s beating a dead horse but I grew up in that system. Never did I think it will be a serious political movement in America, not in a thousand years.
• 11 September 2020: Blows my mind.
• 11 September 2020: Would we do it for me if I decide I don’t want to pay rent anymore and demand a house from the government?
• 11 September 2020: No thanks on the former, hell yes on the latter.
• 11 September 2020: I can tell you what I’d do— involuntarily commit mentally ill people unable to hold a job. Drug addicts who are really far gone are classified as mentally ill. Drug addicts who aren’t, but commit crimes to fund the addiction go to jail.
• 11 September 2020: If the SF municipal government were majority republican? Yes, they’d solve it in a year, but probably not in a way you’d like.
• 11 September 2020: From the perspective of SF municipal government, yes, absolutely.
• 11 September 2020: Whatever the proper fix is, if there is such a thing, it isn’t the job of SF city government. The job of SF city government is to optimize the city for productive residents.
• 11 September 2020: They’ll do exactly the same things they do with themselves now and live in Berkeley and Oakland.
• 11 September 2020: I am not concerned with solving homelessness at all. I am concerned with San Francisco not looking like a third world country.
• 11 September 2020: Why do you presuppose the job of San Francisco municipal government is to find people a place to live? That’s not what governments ought to be doing.
• 11 September 2020: It is simple. When you pump money into a thing, it grows. When you cut off the money supply, it shrinks. It’s micro 101.
• 11 September 2020: Defund homeless programs and it will solve itself.
• 11 September 2020: You just have to market it better. Your hobbies are active meditation and history.
• 11 September 2020: For gods sakes vote republican.
• 11 September 2020: The way you “make sure reused/shared functions maintain strong contracts and decide ownership” is you hire good programmers (like, ones who can happily code in C), and then they write good code instead of deciding ownership or doing agile or whatever.
• 11 September 2020: Yup that one.
• 11 September 2020: Tell your 17y/o to read HPMOR. Will help him understand this, and many many other things.
• 11 September 2020: I feel derision every time I hear the word “hobby”. I have no hobbies. If I do something, it’s because I’m so consumed by it that it’s the most interesting thing in the world. Calling that a hobby is insulting to the subject and to the feeling of curiosity it inspires.
• 11 September 2020: “To see a man beaten not by a better opponent, but by himself is a tradgedy.” — Cus D’Amato
• 11 September 2020: Not the culture I’d naturally go for, but wrt the question I think you’re right.
• 11 September 2020: This was supposed to be a laptop with good linux support!
• 11 September 2020: who's that?
• 11 September 2020: My Thinkpad with Linux is extremely fussy about going to sleep and waking up. It's like having an actual toddler.
• 11 September 2020: Gonna be that guy-- all personal responsibility matters. Slicing these things by race is inflammatory divisive nonsense, because things like personal responsibility aren't gender or skin color specific AT ALL.
• 11 September 2020: I'd say 2-5 years. I have a bunch I'm very long on (like, don't plan to sell for decades). But I think there are short-term underpriced assets that may be worth buying precisely because everyone else is thinking too short term.
• 11 September 2020: SJWs that don't identify as SJWs will still see a company that says "no SJWs" as an enemy.
• 11 September 2020: this gif is 💯
• 11 September 2020: she wants you to beg
• 11 September 2020: me too!
• 11 September 2020: You're technically correct, the best kind of correct!
• 11 September 2020: know thine enemy
• 11 September 2020:
• 11 September 2020: Link?
• 11 September 2020: Of course it is. I can express it using first order logic. There is nothing inconsistent about it. At best it’s slightly inelegant.
• 11 September 2020: That’s incompatible with SJWs, though.
• 11 September 2020: Medium risk, 5y, no liabilities.
• 11 September 2020: I think cash is being devalued.
• 11 September 2020: Yup, that makes sense!
• 11 September 2020: Interesting. Are there real estate ETFs if you want to make it easy and don’t want to deal with buying physical property?
• 11 September 2020: Is there an ETF for it?
• 11 September 2020: You can revoke your award, I know the argument but have never seen that cartoon, and it’s glorious.
• 11 September 2020: Funding may be hard— you’re creating a cost for VC firms that may not be worth it for most. Depends on the company of course.
• 11 September 2020: Which asset class is currently underpriced?
• 11 September 2020: Build a D&I team that isn’t allowed to use protected classes. Eg “programmers with bio undergrad are underrepresented, we gotta get those”
• 11 September 2020: Libertarian doesn’t mean you can’t have principled exceptions. In this case the exception is restricting ideologies that corrode libertarianism. Like being tolerant toward everyone except the intolerant.
• 11 September 2020: Not sure. Incentives work magic, but this would be competing with groups that give you money for irritating productive members of society.
• 11 September 2020: Is it tenable to start a venture-backed tech startup with libertarianism baked into the company culture? Literally “no SJWs” on the job reqs?
• 11 September 2020: You're in texas dude!
• 11 September 2020: Errr, I assumed "in self-defense" when I answered.
• 11 September 2020: ah got it
• 11 September 2020: the consumer gets nothing out of this, though, so they have no reason to download the extension
• 11 September 2020: (To clarify, I but them for $15, not for $300)
• 11 September 2020: Amazon tip: I often buy used books priced at like $300 for no reason. The way these merchants set prices is algorithmic-- that's why you see used prices $300.99, $300.98, etc. Contact the seller directly with an offer-- many will happily drop the price to fifteen bucks.
• 11 September 2020: Thanks; asking because this is something I've been struggling with and it's actually a primary concern for me now.
• 11 September 2020: Ah very cool, didn't know this term, thanks! Makes perfect sense (and is also why libertarianism doesn't work).
• 11 September 2020: Hey @patio11 in case you see this. Do you have ideas on how to cultivate this skill / preserve a strong "first time" curiosity about very familiar things? (You're probably unusually good at it) 👇
• 11 September 2020: Yes. Almost all areas of life, really.
• 11 September 2020: A political ideology must be defector-proof or it doesn't result in a stable equilibrium. That's why live and let live can't work-- it's vulnerable to every faction that doesn't let live.
• 11 September 2020: You should be able to pass a test. Or better yet, you should have to pass a test once you fuck up once, until then it's free for all.
• 10 September 2020: But some adults do manage to keep the magic. Jobs, Picasso, etc.
• 10 September 2020: I used to think prescriptions are stupid and lots of countries operate without them fine, then I went on some drug subreddits. "I know adderall is addictive and dangerous with depressants, so me and my buds took a gram, went to a club, downed a 40 and..." etc.
• 10 September 2020: ...uncover the next gold mine so that we can all dig again. This is already getting long, but TL;DR: there is no way in hell we're "done", but it's possible we'll encounter a long lull. Decades, or maybe even centuries of tech stagnation (though the latter IMO is unlikely). /fin
• 10 September 2020: ... Now, what I can believe is that invention is punctuated equilibrium-type process. Maybe we've nearly picked all the low-hanging fruit available to us with the current tools. The next step then, would be to work on tools, instruments, and weird ideas to try and uncover...
• 10 September 2020: ... The MRI machine became available just when I was born. I got access to the internet when I was fourteen years old! So the presumption that's computation->MRI->internet->phone-> maybe VR and then that's it seems so absurd it doesn't seem worth even entertaining. ...
• 10 September 2020: ...is whether there are fundamental limitations on our capability to advance in any of these categories. We don't know this either, but it seems to me while we may hit a ceiling at some point, presuming we're near it now is just silly. We just got computation like a second ago!..
• 10 September 2020: ...from obviously possible and we're going to figure it out soon, to obviously possible but we don't yet know how, to not sure if possible and have no angle of attack, to we don't even know how to frame the question. Lots left to be discovered! The next question then is...
• 10 September 2020: ...physics is a beautiful marionette right now-- we've figured out what happens by very careful observation and ingenious experiments, but the question of why isn't meaningful to us because we have no angle of attack. So the unsolved problems range from...
• 10 September 2020: The way I'd approach this question is by asking: have we mostly discovered all there is to be discovered? It seems like the answer is obviously no. We don't know how to manipulate biology even though it clearly manipulates itself. We can't manipulate time. Physics...
• 10 September 2020: with or without prescription?
• 10 September 2020: thanks for being a user!
• 10 September 2020: I don’t understand the very last part. Perfectly good yet discarded on a whim?
• 10 September 2020: That’s essentially the same question.
• 10 September 2020: What’s the right question?
• 10 September 2020: I’m not advocating some sort of legal action. This clearly isn’t illegal. But it is undeniably a sign of a failing, decadent, hypocritical, navel-gazing culture.
• 10 September 2020: This isn’t child exploitation or pornography, and we shouldn’t performatively investigate things we don’t like. But it is tasteless, hypocritical and wrong, and Netflix should delete this.
• 10 September 2020: Yup. And now we’re here...
• 10 September 2020: I’ll keep it up until Netflix deletes this.
• 10 September 2020: Thanks! (I support universal healthcare, if that helps 😁)
• 10 September 2020: Umm...
• 10 September 2020: Married people only, please. Are you staying for the kids?
• 10 September 2020: For big companies it’s a huge problem IMO. Over, say, 1000 employees nobody really feels a product bond.
• 10 September 2020: (Note that both our twitter avatars are drawn rather than photographed).
• 10 September 2020: Thanks!
• 10 September 2020: It feels safe to be “lost”.
• 10 September 2020: It’s not necessarily appearance though, some people just get self conscious on camera. I always assumed that separates video/photo ppl from text ppl, but maybe that’s wrong. (I freeze up when a lens is pointed at me)
• 10 September 2020: Remote work is one more step on the path of estranged labor. Not only do you feel no bond with the end product, now you never meet your coworkers too.
• 10 September 2020: What’s a good essay/book on this by him?
• 10 September 2020: It’s very tempting to check myself into “witness protection program” (i.e. move to a nondescript suburb in a nondescript middle-of-the-country state, and wait this whole thing out).
• 10 September 2020: Most people dislike their spouses 😁
• 10 September 2020: (My prediction is that remote won’t stick).
• 10 September 2020: It’s definitely weakened though. Five years ago enticing 35+y/o executives to move would have been next to impossible. With the deteriorating quality of life, today I think it would be almost easy. Who wants their kids to grow up in this post-apocalyptic nightmare?
• 10 September 2020: Maybe it’s dependent on stage of life? Most of my ~30y/o friends left, but ~40y/o friends stayed.
• 10 September 2020: Unpopular opinion: it’s impossible to give very high profile political figures a fair trial, so we shouldn’t even try. (This isn’t a partisan view; Hilary’s hearings were just as ridiculous as Trump’s)
• 10 September 2020: “You have a reputation for stealing startup ideas and building them on your own. Why should I take this meeting?”
• 10 September 2020: Are you self conscious about how you look? (I think that’s what separates Twitter users from insta/tiktok users)
• 10 September 2020: Did you have to cultivate/find it, or was it always unwavering?
• 10 September 2020:
• 10 September 2020: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.“
• 10 September 2020: Recently learned about the Stockdale Paradox.
• 10 September 2020: I was 13.
• 10 September 2020: I can’t parse this.
• 10 September 2020: Why is it that when I buy a kindle book on Amazon I have to choose which device to “send it” to? The choice is clearly placebo. No way this is an oversight.
• 10 September 2020: One book that absolutely nails the feeling of excitement about the fundamentals is Lessons in the fundamentals of go. It’s a gem, but unfortunately you already have to be a pretty good Go player to follow it.
• 10 September 2020: These are incredible. Thanks @BessemerVP for releasing these. A huge asset for the startup community!
• 10 September 2020: (Like really wanting you care doesn’t make you care)
• 10 September 2020: Meditation practices are supposed to help with this, books like Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind, by judging by the practitioners (at least in the west) it doesn’t actually work for almost anyone.
• 10 September 2020: 💯
• 10 September 2020: Do you have any advice on how to cultivate it? It doesn’t exactly seem like a skill, more like a state of mind, a temperament, and a way to approach life. Like looking at a rose as if you’re seeing it for the first time. Something almost no one can do.
• 10 September 2020: What are chapter books? Aren’t those just books?
• 10 September 2020: Hmm maybe he’s at good at deals as he claims he is? 🤔
• 10 September 2020: Welcome by whom?
• 10 September 2020: Only if you let it.
• 10 September 2020: I’ve actually read two of those!
• 10 September 2020: Because housing projects have a great track record on creating safe, flourishing communities. Plenty of black families live in the suburbs, nobody cares. “Affordable housing” nightmare ruined inner cities, now you want to ruin the suburbs too? No thanks!
• 10 September 2020: 😂
• 10 September 2020: Merchants trading, often on credit. Now you have to record transactions. Customers haggle for price, now that's too hard-- prices standardize. Plus, everyone tries to optimize to show the tax collector the smallest possible number. What made the old bazaar good is dead. 2/2
• 10 September 2020: Suppose you have a vibrant bazaar. Families sell stuff, merchants trade with each other, customers haggle for better prices. The city decides to start collecting taxes. Hmm, should this family be taxed for one stall or two? Clean it up! 1/2
• 10 September 2020: This should be in @realDonaldTrump's next ad.
• 10 September 2020: DM'ed to me by a student who has to pass this class in order to graduate.
• 10 September 2020: The agenda for this meeting is to plan for the MySQL migration before the upcoming release. Before we begin I'd like to acknowledge that we're on what used to be Chiniki indigenous land right now. - Real (!) 400-level engineering class.
• 10 September 2020: Yeah, this particular implementation of the idea is stupid. (Possible the idea itself too, but I don’t think so)
• 10 September 2020: Lol, yes!
• 10 September 2020: I’m glad they’re doing this. I love being properly prepared by faceless corporations, as I’m sure everyone else does too.
• 9 September 2020: Yes.
• 9 September 2020: What’s amazing about PG’s advice is that it’s so simple, a 7y/o can give it to you. Who is the thing for? What does it do for them? What is it, btw? Did you talk to them to make sure they want it? Yet no one can give it but PG. For everyone else abstractions are too seductive.
• 9 September 2020: Are the packets routed through the same infrastructure? I don’t want my packets going through the same routers as black folks.
• 9 September 2020: Control is a continuum.
• 9 September 2020: @elsoahw When socialism is opt-in, it’s insurance. Insurance works great.
• 9 September 2020: Oh 🚶
• 9 September 2020: Yes, you do.
• 9 September 2020: It isn’t about bundling, it’s about reducing friction. Right now it’s too hard.
• 9 September 2020: Yup
• 9 September 2020: The CEO having visibility into ground team OKRs is gonna do fuck all to make failing ground-level projects succeed.
• 9 September 2020: The CEO having visibility into ground team OKRs is gonna do fuck all to make make failing ground-level projects succeed.
• 9 September 2020: This isn’t actually a counter argument to what I said 😀
• 9 September 2020: FI doesn’t suck because of pooling. It sucks because it sucks, and happens to also have pooling.
• 9 September 2020: Example: many insurance policies have inherent moral hazard, yet we still figured out how to sell insurance products.
• 9 September 2020: Definitely huge issues to be solved, but I don’t think they’re unsolvable.
• 9 September 2020: It isn’t, but legibility constraints still apply.
• 9 September 2020: No, he has a concept of “legibility”— centralized command wants to see into its internals (eg for taxation, security, in company case OKRs, etc). But as you introduce mechanisms to increase legibility you inadvertently destroy the original magic.
• 9 September 2020: Founder Institute sucks.
• 9 September 2020: If that were true Thiel would start a company rather than a fund. So his own behavior violates his principle.
• 9 September 2020: Alternatively: read seeing like a state and then don’t do this.
• 9 September 2020: An alternative POV is that you may not be the best person to start one— argument being that winners find the way. (A mortgage is a tiny problem relative to ones you’ll face). I can see both sides of this argument.
• 9 September 2020: If you batch, e.g. 100 founders and pool the equity, you can practically guarantee everyone will get rich and the outliers will barely notice the difference. This model is clearly the future of very early stage investing.
• 9 September 2020: Yes, authoritarian right is a huge problem too, no doubt. Most of the tyranny is coming from the left now. That wasn’t the case after 2001. (I voted left wing back then)
• 9 September 2020: And even as they were taking over the world people still said “ah it’s just a fad, it will die.” Myself included in some circumstances. Imagination is really hard.
• 9 September 2020: I’d rather they not come to mind.
• 9 September 2020: Do you have a source for the pre-industrial acreage figure?
• 9 September 2020: Actually for everyone.
• 9 September 2020: If you follow me on Twitter for a while, you may have noticed that I’ve been drawing on my Soviet heritage a lot to explain the situation in America. The Soviets this, the Soviets that. Do you think that’s a good sign?
• 9 September 2020: Actually quotas make great art. The Soviets has some spectacular cinema precisely because artists had to be inventive to get past insane constraints imposed by the censors. Considering how uninspired Hollywood has been the last decade, maybe this will shake things up a bit.
• 9 September 2020: Regulations are leftist government (city, state, federal), lack of law and order is leftist city governments. The rest is culture (for now), but will become government eventually.
• 9 September 2020: People can’t say what they believe and are often forced to say what they don’t believe or they’ll be fired. They can’t build wealth without being vilified or told how to do it by a bazillion regulators. Rich neighborhoods are dismantled (homelessness, crime, affordable housing).
• 9 September 2020: Thank you for building the future.
• 9 September 2020: We cannot do any of these things and four out of five of them are verboten by the left 👇
• 9 September 2020: Ok, thanks for explaining. I wonder what they would say in response.
• 9 September 2020: 👏👏👏
• 9 September 2020: Great question, by the way.
• 9 September 2020: We believed we’ll be free to think, speak, work, love and worship without being harassed.
• 9 September 2020: You’re free to think, speak, work, love and worship without being harassed.
• 9 September 2020: I re-read her tweet and it’s actually astounding how much of a nut job this person is.
• 9 September 2020: 👏
• 9 September 2020: It is very sad.
• 9 September 2020: Count on it!
• 9 September 2020: I think this is also the reason why so many immigrants are livid about today’s leftist politics. We kept our end of the contract. America didn’t.
• 9 September 2020: Yes, I know they have to work with an existing manufacturer because designing engines is freaking impossible. So it’s theoretically possible. Then it becomes an execution / economics / partnerships / willpower issue, doesn’t it?
• 9 September 2020: Is the engine possible theoretically with today’s technology/materials?
• 9 September 2020: They’ll also say that everything that will have happened has always been obvious.
• 9 September 2020: I genuinely don’t get it. Obviously there is risk, everyone knows that. But pointing out that if a venture doesn’t succeed it will fail isn’t saying much of anything.
• 9 September 2020: I was definitely wrong about blm centralization. Also the Democratic Party did a great job riding and owning the wave. And the situation didn’t turn out nearly as volatile as expected (though maybe we just got lucky, that’s not something we’ll ever really be able to know).
• 9 September 2020: Me too. An incredibly exciting company, really rooting for them.
• 9 September 2020: Ah yeah, from the “market actors” perspective I agree.
• 9 September 2020: Universal healthcare, deregulate as much as possible, allow declaring bankruptcy on student loans (this one will fix many many problems), in general get out of people’s way. I’m much more of a “get out of the way” person than “reduce opportunity cost” person.
• 9 September 2020: Sente/gote dichotomy from Go is as good a metaphor for startup operations as I’ve ever seen. @LambdaSchool, for example, is always in sente with dozens of copycats in gote. And winning in gote is basically impossible.
• 9 September 2020: I’m getting strong @Tesla vibes from @boomaero detractors. It’s a really promising sign we’ll be able to fly supersonic soon.
• 9 September 2020: I don’t know, I don’t follow them that closely. But if I were to take a guess, I’d say they thought of that :)
• 9 September 2020: Starting a startup is still a massive opportunity (and likely always will be), because almost everyone in the world is completely unable to imagine something before it actually exists. If you have that ability, it’s an astounding competitive advantage.
• 9 September 2020: The whole thread there is amazing. People arguing that Boom sucks. Among the reasons is, get this, it doesn’t exist yet. Of course it doesn’t occur to the commenter that everything good doesn’t exist before it does. And started by Charlie Stross, of all people!
• 9 September 2020: That’s a whole other debate, but doesn’t matter here because critical race theory is not a subset of social sciences. It’s a completely different evolutionary branch.
• 9 September 2020: I am in Silicon Valley and have watched it grow over the years from a silly fringe cult, to taking over students, to taking over tech cos and open source communities. I worked at places where it made life unbearable. And now it’s nationwide. It’s worse than most ppl think it is.
• 9 September 2020: This thing has made me a single issue voter.
• 8 September 2020: Yup this was the first time people my age had an encounter with actual history in the making. (9/11 too, but I was too young to understand then)
• 8 September 2020: I definitely completely lost my cool and thought there is a 25-30% chance civil war is imminent. In hindsight that was high, but I don't think I was off by an order of magnitude. Posting these predictions/evaluations publicly is a great way to keep oneself honest.
• 8 September 2020: A friend called this paranoid. It was (that's why I'm posting it), but remember: - Trump threatened to deploy the military on US soil - Mark Milley wrote a note to troops to stay true to the constitution - Tom Cotton wrote his "no quarter" peace - 3rd amendment was activated
• 8 September 2020: Exactly a week after George Floyd's death I wrote up my take on the situation. (This was back when nobody had any idea wtf was going on). I'd give myself 7/10. Mistakes: - Overestimated BLM centralization & overall volatility - Underestimated the democratic party Not bad!
• 8 September 2020: 👋
• 8 September 2020: They didn’t. The internet got bigger, so rss became such a tiny market as a percentage of the whole that it wasn’t worth supporting. (As to why it didn’t grow in popularity with the rest of the internet, it’s because it’s too hard for the normies to deal with)
• 8 September 2020: Google it
• 8 September 2020: All you have to do is look at single 40y/o startup employees that live with roommates. They’re either teenagers in adult bodies, or they snapped out of teenagehood and realized they missed ten years of life. It’s just sad.
• 8 September 2020: The future is
• 8 September 2020: Huh that never occurred to me. Perhaps this is also why there is a near universal distaste for politicians unless they transcend to sainthood (and honestly even then).
• 8 September 2020: That’s a really good observation. (But I do think he was an inspired writer, the story of Singapore is plenty interesting).
• 8 September 2020: Ah yeah, I was very excited about it. Unfortunately it sucks.
• 8 September 2020: Which series? (New ones tend to suck TBH. Trek without Roddenberry is completely mediocre IMO).
• 8 September 2020: Trek 😍
• 8 September 2020: Is he the one burning the buildings?
• 8 September 2020: An alternative is that you yourself are building an org and have been forced to consider all these questions from every possible angle as a matter of daily routine.
• 8 September 2020: Population grew ~10x. So (very) ballpark wealth grew ~130-1900x. Probably somewhere in between but computing these things becomes a matter of definitions. (Point is, it’s a lot, but not 8000x)
• 8 September 2020: “conventional growth in real wages has been by a factor of 13 over the 1800-1992 period. For the low-bias case, real wages have grown by a factor of 40, while in the high-bias case real wages have grown by a factor of 190”. (From Nordhaus)
• 8 September 2020: This essay on bureaucracies is excellent, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience yet. Strong recommend.
• 8 September 2020: It isn’t fear. It’s distaste.
• 8 September 2020: Is this actually challenging for you personally, or is it more of an intellectual exercise for you?
• 8 September 2020: I kinda thought you could take all the ones I listed and triangulate a modern role model, but I guess the problem is relatively new and still unsolved/really hard. 🤷‍♂️
• 8 September 2020: Interesting, I never noticed the progression. But it’s impossible to go back. Helen of Troy moved through the world by getting men to do her bidding by intelligently using her sexuality. Cinderella basically too. People are no longer happy with this, and for good reason.
• 8 September 2020: Oh wait, sorry, you’re right! This should be on the order of 200x 🤦‍♂️ I think I misread the chart! Deleting the original, sorry for misleading data!
• 8 September 2020: This is real GDP.
• 8 September 2020: I'm having trouble getting through his autobiography. It seems really... boring-- a chronological list of facts, mainly.
• 8 September 2020: Ooh also Dorothy Gale from Wizard of Oz, and Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Oh, and Алиса from Гостья из будущего (russian only again). There are so many awesome models!!
• 8 September 2020: Archetypal feminine characters that come to mind: Cinderella, Cleopatra, Ассоль from Scarlet Sails (Russian only, unfortunately), Virgin Mary, Helen of Troy, Joan of Arc, Marilyn Monroe. Maybe Catherine the Great and Queen Victoria. Princess Diana. Anna Karenina. That's a lot!
• 8 September 2020: 👇
• 8 September 2020: His political analysis is genius but his writing sucks. Scott Alexander has a fairly good summary: . Read that instead.
• 8 September 2020: Fictional characters?
• 8 September 2020: U.S. gdp in 1865 was a pathetic £1.3B. U.S. gdp in 2014 was £10.5T (a factor of x8076 increase!) That means an incredible 99.988% of economic progress was generated after the abolition. Attributing our wealth to slavery is nonsense on stilts. Source:
• 8 September 2020: And if you’re a sadist start a fund?
• 8 September 2020: It’s all online.
• 8 September 2020: It’s insane how much Moldbug got right.
• 7 September 2020: I’m curious if people still view sexual deviation as a sign of unhealthy social structures or if that view is entirely parochial now.
• 7 September 2020: Can you think of healthy femininity models you would want to emulate? Lots of such models for men (e.g. philosopher king, Marcus Aurelius, Jesus, etc.) so we have it relatively easy.
• 7 September 2020: Between two or more consenting adults, BDSM urges are _________.
• 7 September 2020: The brain circuits specialized for religious experiences will extract something from the incoming stream of data. Nothing is outside of religion, not even feminism. They have more deities than Christians do.
• 7 September 2020: Here’s one possible test: what percentage of the employees forced to listen to his lecture would pay for It with their own money?
• 7 September 2020: Oh I know. I’m doing some React stuff rn and it drives me nuts.
• 7 September 2020: I try
• 7 September 2020: I know there are quite a few very successful startup founders reading my tweets. This is what you guys enabled in your companies. And that’s fine, mistakes are part of the job. Sometimes big ones. What’s not fine is if you don’t own them and keep doubling down on a bad course.
• 7 September 2020: Yes!
• 7 September 2020: My gut wants to push it out, my brain tells me that’s stupid.
• 7 September 2020: Sure sex is great, but have you ever seen a charlatan finally be forced to get a real job?
• 7 September 2020: Thanks!
• 7 September 2020: I was mostly joking (but like, 25-ish percent serious) 😁
• 7 September 2020: And yet you hang out on twitter.
• 7 September 2020: I eventually will. Want to grow / curate it a little more.
• 7 September 2020: That’s a great post, especially the ending. I still haven’t quite accepted it though, and am holding out hope. I am not ready to retire from worldly affairs.
• 7 September 2020: I glanced over it. Plan to read his book, but have not thus far.
• 7 September 2020: I maintain a twitter list of black conservatives (not someone trying to make a career out of it, I mean normal people), and it’s full of some of the most unique, weird characters ever, in the best possible way.
• 7 September 2020: How am I suddenly back in 1992 post-Soviet collapse Ukraine? And why does everyone speak English? 🤔
• 7 September 2020: I’m a product of my environment.
• 7 September 2020: A median millennial is no George Washington.
• 7 September 2020: Childless people are perpetual children themselves. They don’t know anything. The only reason they have a right to vote is that it never occurred to the founding fathers people would be stupid enough not to have children. We should fix that loophole. (I don’t have kids myself)
• 6 September 2020: Many things could happen overnight: - a breakthrough technology (or two) - an external terrorist attack (heaven forbid) - people just get sick of this like they do of a song on the radio - Putin dies and the entire world stage is reshuffled - UFOs turn out to be real
• 6 September 2020: Congratulations David!
• 6 September 2020:
• 6 September 2020: In fairness I think many people do genuinely believe it will make everyone better off. They’re not actively malicious, just stupid.
• 6 September 2020: Deleted the original, sorry for perpetuating misinformation ☹️
• 6 September 2020: Ah thanks. Looks like the pregnancy part was another lie. There are too many to keep track of :(
• 6 September 2020: (I really want to understand what he’s saying, but so far has been unable to and haven’t heard a compelling explanation. So I’m starting to suspect no one, including Girard, actually has any idea what he means)
• 6 September 2020: What is Rene Girard suggesting? Memes make sense, copying memes makes sense, scapegoat process is perhaps plausible, but everything else (christianity, all will be revealed, etc) is unparsable. What are some concrete examples that don’t sound like mythical psychobabble?
• 6 September 2020: Your time in China seems very cool. Wish I could witness it like you did.
• 6 September 2020: Of the many symptoms of senescence one was inability to gc/repurpose neighborhoods. He thought it’s some collective genetic thing rather than cultural and his studies were heterodox. I dismissed them at the time and never read the book again, but I also can’t forget it. 2/2
• 6 September 2020: There is a book by Lev Gumilev about “ethnogenesis”. I read it when I was ~17. He’s a Soviet historian who’s simultaneously a genius and a crackpot. He had a mountain of evidence that ethnic populations start out with high/dynamic energy and eventually become senescent. 1/2
• 6 September 2020: It’s very easy for a young couple to buy a house in a good suburb if they have any marketable skills whatsoever and are willing to leave NYC and SF. (I agree with you that Japanese cities are amazing, and I personally have an incredibly strong preference for that.)
• 6 September 2020: drain the swamp
• 6 September 2020: This is like a postmodern Tao te ching
• 6 September 2020: I remember that talk very clearly! But I disagree with the metaphor. Affluent neighborhoods (as in suburbs) may not be for you, but they’re excellent for the people who choose to live in them.
• 6 September 2020: I take it you’re an accelerationist then 😆
• 6 September 2020: It reminds me how around 2005 every single technology startup was emulating Google. The one thing they forgot to emulate was printing unlimited money. Turns out if your company does that everything works, and if it doesn’t do that nothing works.
• 6 September 2020: I just checked and to be fair to Merriam-Webster it’s one of many definitions, and they also define male as “having a gender identity that is the opposite of female.” So we’re not quite at the finish line yet.
• 6 September 2020: “But it works in Denmark.” - people who’ve never read a single book about Denmark, except perhaps Hamlet in high school
• 6 September 2020: (While the spot for the second stupidest idea ever is very competitive, housing projects in general are a very strong contender)
• 6 September 2020: Building housing projects in affluent neighborhoods is perhaps the single stupidest idea I have heard from any political movement ever. It ignores supply and demand the way medieval man-carrying kites ignored gravity.
• 6 September 2020: We gave a man who pointed a gun at a pregnant woman’s stomach a golden casket funeral.
• 6 September 2020: What would cause deflation? We’re not producing very much and the money supply keeps growing with no end in sight. So why would the cost of money go up?
• 6 September 2020: “Please DM us your information and we’ll be happy to tell you exactly the same thing we already told you.”
• 6 September 2020: 💯
• 5 September 2020: I don’t have a degree in macro. But it seems to me that a unit of money is just a convenient proxy for a unit of production, and therefore the volume of money should track productive activity. When it doesn’t do that I don’t see how it could possibly be good long term.
• 5 September 2020: And especially public schools/universities.
• 5 September 2020: Great project by @shubhamjainco.
• 5 September 2020: I am not a perfectly integrated consistent entity.
• 5 September 2020: If you can take a pill at 17 that permanently moves up your baseline, then yes. But (a) MDMA doesn’t do that, and (b) the older you are the more decisions you have to unwind, and the more costly the payoff. So... agree to disagree.
• 5 September 2020: The best I can say is it’s more likely to turn out better long term than the counterfactual. But it’s not mostly great IMO. Imagine admitting to yourself you’re gay in your 50s. Your life will probably turn out better (after a lot of pain of coming out), but it won’t be great.
• 5 September 2020: 👇
• 5 September 2020: For instance, once you learn to love your body you might realize you got married out of fear and the marriage doesn’t make sense to you anymore. Now what do you do?
• 5 September 2020: Pre-X you has made decisions all his life predicated on old assumptions. That’s an entire life system you have to unwind now. And once you’ve done that, you have to build a new life system in its place. These are incredibly costly endeavors, and painful for other people.
• 5 September 2020: Jung nailed it: “Beware of wisdom you did not earn.” In my experience you can earn five years of wisdom by doing five years of work, or you can get five years of wisdom today with psychedelics and then spend five years paying for it. Pick your poison.
• 5 September 2020: I admittedly never double checked but I always assumed money supply and velocity are tightly correlated.
• 5 September 2020: Don’t forget giving bonuses to themselves.
• 5 September 2020: Then what’s the point of QE?
• 5 September 2020: Because if you have 10% inflation and nominal wages are rising at 10% you still have the same real wage.
• 5 September 2020: It also completely fucks over young couples.
• 5 September 2020: Real wages won’t change at all.
• 5 September 2020: An annual ten percent tax on your savings is very high inflation. (I don’t mean hyper inflation, at least not quite yet).
• 5 September 2020: 😂
• 5 September 2020: Ah yes, that too!
• 5 September 2020: Liberals: stigmatizing sex work is parochial, it’s just like any other occupation! Sex workers deserve respect! Also liberals: do you know Melania did basically soft core porn, she doesn’t belong in the White House!
• 5 September 2020: That only works until some other problem gets big enough to crowd out these two.
• 5 September 2020: Thanks for linking, this was a really fun read. I wonder if he ended up evolving his point of view on this issue over time.
• 5 September 2020: god all the time
• 5 September 2020: It's money supply growth rate vs economy growth rate. Ie how much money is available per unit of labor input (assuming such a thing is definable, I'm not an economist). As for the industries-- the public sector. The deficits are insane, so smtg is being bought.
• 5 September 2020: just to be very very clear, I was joking about my ability to beat the market
• 5 September 2020: precisely
• 5 September 2020: Money supply growing much faster than the economy?
• 5 September 2020: robinhood
• 5 September 2020: Buy a basket of stocks, then don't look at it for a year.
• 5 September 2020: My stock picks increased 4x from exactly one year ago. Looks like I can beat the market with my eyes closed, AMA
• 5 September 2020: Money supply:
• 4 September 2020: Incidentally the last time large scale riots happened...
• 4 September 2020: I don't understand macro at all, but the fact that money supply is controlled by a small handful of people with briefcases is kinda weird 🤔
• 4 September 2020: Are we not at the cusp of very high inflation? Why doesn't anyone seem worried about it?
• 4 September 2020: Some rules are much easier to follow 100% of the time than 99% of the time. The world will work tirelessly to get you to play games you don't care about. Don't give an inch.
• 4 September 2020: One of the changes is material enough to void the contracts.
• 4 September 2020: I started reading it on kindle, but gave up quickly because I hate reading on kindle. Will re-order on paper.
• 4 September 2020: It's mean, low class humor, but I understand it. Everyone in the media from glamour magazines to talk shows to news networks rams down our throats how beautiful she is. They haven't done that for any other first lady on my memory, including Melania who's literally a supermodel.
• 4 September 2020: Label your axes!
• 4 September 2020: A requiem for a dying operating system, but also a dying professor personality and a dying writing style.
• 4 September 2020: Is that the one that starts talking about demos?
• 4 September 2020: Interviewer (on lowering taxes): so you’d run the numbers and give back virtually... Milton Friedman, angrily: what do you mean give back?! Not take away!
• 4 September 2020: “Governments will spend as much as the tax system can raise, plus as much more as they can get away with.” - Milton Friedman
• 4 September 2020: Yup. Usually one night’s sleep does it for me.
• 4 September 2020: The work isn’t in the artist’s mind. It’s in the tension between the artist and his medium.
• 4 September 2020: Me too.
• 4 September 2020: Yup completely agree. I have to remind myself of it periodically like a mantra.
• 4 September 2020: I still remember kids stumbling through what ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ means. We got really good at faking it, too.
• 4 September 2020: I’ve been thinking for days how to implement a minimum possible prototype of a feature. Then said fuck it, I’ll just hack something in a branch. Ten minutes later, it’s done and is better than anything I came up with in the abstract. Code wins arguments (even with self).
• 4 September 2020: Hmm thinking through the assignments, honors/AP is probably different. But with regular classes I think you’re right.
• 4 September 2020: We read Shakespeare in honors English in high school. Though I’m not so sure it was worth it at the time. There is just no way on god’s good earth that a fourteen year old is going to understand Hamlet.
• 4 September 2020: Yes, market data is an exception.
• 4 September 2020: Yes, in general. (Information is different from thinking, though).
• 4 September 2020: Anything that can reliably be written on a weekly cadence is not worth reading.
• 4 September 2020: Suggestions on where to go given travel restrictions?
• 4 September 2020: Same. I would expect the opposite— that everything would become clear with less noise, but decisions have gotten harder.
• 4 September 2020: I couldn’t get past how pretty and square-jawed all the actors are. Like seriously, they’re all so pretty it kept ruining suspension of disbelief for me (weird thing to complain about, I know).
• 3 September 2020: Battlestar Gallactica (the new one).
• 3 September 2020: If you want a diversion and like fantasy set in semi-historical settings, The Lions of al-Rassan if very well written and really enjoyable to read.
• 3 September 2020: 🤦‍♂️
• 3 September 2020: That's like being me.
• 2 September 2020: I seriously can't understand this. Why are they willing to wreck universities? They'll have to draw workers from there and send their kids there. What possible benefit do they derive from destroying them?
• 2 September 2020: investing is hard
• 2 September 2020: Objective standards are not white supremacy (in fact, they're the opposite)
• 2 September 2020: Nearly every time anyone online asks "should I do exercise A or exercise B?" someone chimes in with "why not both?" Because if I listen to you why-not-both people I'll have to do a hundred exercises and never get good at any of them!
• 2 September 2020: Oh shit missed that. All right I’m in.
• 2 September 2020: You got one for quarantine conditions?
• 2 September 2020: Your grandfather is @WilliamShatner ?!!!
• 2 September 2020: ☺️
• 2 September 2020: Started with flexsearch but ended up with issues where deleting from the index didn’t work well. Switched to bulksearch, that works very well for me.
• 2 September 2020: Makers and builders are really really special. I love you all 😍
• 2 September 2020: 💯🔥🔥
• 2 September 2020: Fundamentals is something you should go back to over and over. You’re never done with them for good.
• 2 September 2020: Hang in there!
• 1 September 2020: If you ever wanted to write the next Great American Novel but were putting it off, now’s the time.
• 1 September 2020: You forgot to add “some non-trivial percentage of the visitors will end up permanently mentally disabled from this experience, but it will be worth it until we reach herd immunity and flip the culture.”
• 1 September 2020: Really?
• 1 September 2020: Debating the finer points of this is the sort of thing that leads people to have panic attacks over Roko’s basilisk. This is not a country where people get to ban things they don’t like.
• 1 September 2020: We know who made it— @BretWeinstein. His brother @EricRWeinstein was directly talking about it to @jack. Solomon effectively accused them of treason, which is absurd.
• 1 September 2020: I don’t believe I’m making a mistake. The idea that I can make a site “both candidates suck, show the system the finger and vote independent out of spite” and then you can ban it because you don’t want voters to see it is the most unamerican bunch of horseshit I’ve ever seen.
• 1 September 2020: Blocking someone for liking a tweet sounds like a healthy and balanced approach to life.
• 1 September 2020: I agree, I should do that more. It’s hard when an old friend calls you a clown and a liar for the crime of disagreeing with him.
• 1 September 2020: Translation: “everyone who disagrees with me is a clown and a liar.”
• 1 September 2020: Modern political defense isn’t really about swinging people (at least not on Twitter). It’s about awareness.
• 1 September 2020: Don’t feel bad. I appreciate you being the voice of reason. (I don’t listen to voices of reason when it comes to justifying free speech erosion, though; I am willing to die on this hill).
• 1 September 2020: It’s the stated goal of the campaign. Of course I agree with that.
• 1 September 2020: *ounce
• 1 September 2020: I’m tolerant of motte and bailey fallacy, if only because I unwittingly commit it myself. But not when it comes to the culture of free speech. I will spend every once of whatever political capital I have, burn every bridge in order to defend it. Nothing is more important.
• 1 September 2020: Me: just because you don't like @BretWeinstein and @EricRWeinstein's work doesn't make it "disinformation campaign". Not liking something isn't a sufficient standard to ban it. Solomon: 👇
• 1 September 2020: That's fair. He didn't denounce is strongly enough IMO (not once during the DNC, for example, even though the riots were very intense in the preceding months), so in my view the medium article is a technicality. But it's important, and I agree I missed it.
• 1 September 2020: First, the GOP is US democracy-- half the country supports them. The fact that you do not like them does not make them undemocratic. Second, @BretWeinstein and @EricRWeinstein's work isn't "disinformation campaign". Again, you not liking it isn't a sufficient standard.
• 1 September 2020: I believe interference of state actors is very real and extremely dangerous. However, if we start banning content any time someone says "Putin did it", as a society we are done. Assuming we do decide to ban things (which I do not support), at the very least we need due process.
• 31 August 2020: Maybe, I’m not sure. To get to presidency I think one might have to leave all their morals behind. Consider, Obama was supposed to be a great unifier (I voted for him) and he hasn’t denounced the violence and nearly encouraged it (“make them uncomfortable”).
• 31 August 2020: Politicians have no principles. They’re vote maximizing machines. So long as it’s in Biden’s best interest to denounce riots, I’m satisfied.
• 31 August 2020: Maybe after you finally answer my question I will.
• 31 August 2020: Now you answer my question. Are you accusing @BretWeinstein of voter suppression and possibly of treason?
• 31 August 2020: Further the campaign isn’t necessarily about this election. It’s a long term project to affect the system. A ban of such a campaign is an attack on democracy by definition.
• 31 August 2020: You claimed the campaign is voter suppression and then through a rhetorical trick put me on the defensive. Burden is on you. If you must know, banning political speech affects voters since they may have voted differently (e.g. for a third party candidate) had they seen the site.
• 30 August 2020: This isn’t our standard for speech suppression. If you want to keep ideas away from people, the burden of proof is on you, and in America it’s incredibly high.
• 30 August 2020: By keeping relevant information away from the voter.
• 30 August 2020: Are you accusing @BretWeinstein of voter suppression?
• 30 August 2020: If someone prefers a third party at the risk of a mainstream candidate losing, it isn’t up to you (or Twitter) to control their vote. You are the one advocating for voter suppression. Which is very woke— accusing your opponent of the very thing you’re doing.
• 30 August 2020: I also believe it’s plausible, but articles of unity are Bret Weinstein’s work (brother of Eric). They’re not “Russian agents”, that’s absurd. And even if they were, it doesn’t follow we should start suppressing speech we don’t like (and no due process either).
• 30 August 2020: ?
• 30 August 2020: It’s wokeism if you look at his other tweets. I agree it’s not obvious from this example.
• 30 August 2020: Translation: “shut down everything I don’t like.”
• 30 August 2020: Regardless of how the evidence works out, it does not follow that banning political speech outside the two mainstream parties is an acceptable solution.
• 30 August 2020: The first time I encountered this was on Twitter over politics. Was kind of shocked, there was no sign of this irl for years and years. He believes what he says strongly, as do rich white kids throwing explosives at cops. I really think it’s a disease.
• 30 August 2020: Learn from them but don’t be their prisoner.
• 30 August 2020: Solomon and I knew each other since 2012. We walked around MV chatting about RethinkDB and dotCloud. I saw germination of Docker. We’d hang out regularly and talk about the future of open source tech and challenges of running a company. Wokeness destroys minds.
• 30 August 2020: Yes, it’s kind of incredible.
• 30 August 2020: Just interesting authors writing essays on anything they may care about.
• 30 August 2020: How does remote help?
• 30 August 2020: That essay is 💯
• 30 August 2020: That’s not essays!
• 30 August 2020: Yeah Kling’s model is really good
• 30 August 2020: Thanks. Personally I wouldn’t say extremely disturbing but definitely awful. Hope his exgf is ok.
• 30 August 2020: No it doesn’t because this model isn’t any better than rural/urban model, or high trust/low trust, or Arnold Kling’s three axes of politics (which I think has the most explanatory power)
• 30 August 2020: What were the details of the assault? Do you have a link to a summary?
• 30 August 2020: Could you recommend similar books? 3/3
• 30 August 2020: Here are some I love: Gibson’s distrust this particular flavor, Stephenson’s some remarks, Montaigne’s essays, Montesquieu’s Persian letters (technically fiction, but come on), Sowell’s controversial essays, PG’s essays binder, etc. 2/3
• 30 August 2020: Book recommendations thread (please help!) I’ve been categorizing and donating books for the first time in years. I learned I really like books of essays, single author per book (so I can get to know them), clear language, each essay not too long. 1/3
• 30 August 2020:
• 30 August 2020: Not if it got to that point
• 29 August 2020: It doesn’t sacrifice twitter if he wins.
• 29 August 2020: Signal boost: follow @JulieMixtape. I disagree with her on almost everything, which is why I follow her. She’s incredibly sensitive soul, you will learn a lot if you listen to her. Amazing capacity to arouse the better angels in us.
• 29 August 2020: It’d be good in the long term too, if he were to win.
• 29 August 2020: That’s not how I would do it and I don’t think it’s the best way, but I think that’s a reasonable stance.
• 29 August 2020: Then he should bring it to the people and fight for it publicly. If we don’t have a culture of free speech, we don’t have anything.
• 29 August 2020: I can invent an impressive-sounding casuistic argument for almost anything. Twitter banned a germinating third political party. This isn’t a gray area. It’s an outrageous assault on the culture of free discourse in a liberal society.
• 29 August 2020: Yes, I feel this pretty deeply too.
• 29 August 2020: I heard multiple people say “he doesn’t do anything. He just tells everyone else what to do and they do it for him.” 🤯
• 29 August 2020: I really hope it’s a mistake.
• 29 August 2020: Dear professor Antonova, Go fuck yourself. - Sincerely, Everyone who doesn’t want to live in your dystopian woke monoculture nightmare.
• 29 August 2020: Wow, we’re really starting to get into a third world country territory.
• 29 August 2020: There are shortages of a very common medication in multiple pharmacies in San Francisco. I’ve never seen anything like this since I came to America in 1996.
• 29 August 2020: Hmm I feel envy really strongly, I can’t even imagine feeling it so strongly that you basically become delusional.
• 29 August 2020: ITT: choreographed reusable rocket drone landings aren’t impressive, aren’t a good business, and really no one doubted it was possible all along. Some people really do live in a fantasy world 🤔
• 29 August 2020: This is extremely important. We must pressure Twitter to unblock the link! @jack
• 29 August 2020: Find three twitter users you’ve had strong disagreements with before and DM them something kind today.
• 29 August 2020: Hang in there ❤️
• 29 August 2020: There is a lot of anthropological evidence that seeing people who look different from you as “other” is innate. But it’s not just skin— it’s garments, jewelry style, even haircuts. Still there is no need to do all this bullshit— just teach your kids to be respectful to everyone.
• 28 August 2020: I think the reason people don’t report is that they weigh these things and, like you, decide the child wouldn’t be better off in state’s care. It isn’t out of indifference (or at least for me it isn’t).
• 28 August 2020: The absolute saddest problem in the US is that unless there is serious violence or sexual abuse (and often even then), the state simply can’t make it better, and often makes it worse. It’s just the way things are, there doesn’t seem to be a solution, and it’s very very sad.
• 28 August 2020: No, we were all just kids. But given how politicized everything is today, it’s not a stretch to imagine that mature people wouldn’t have been able to agree even on an incident as clear cut as this.
• 28 August 2020: This is super harsh but also I can’t find a single counterexample.
• 28 August 2020: (I haven't thought about the acid girl for years. I wonder how she's doing now, and if her art got any better.) 17/17
• 28 August 2020: It's really late and I'm running out of steam, so I'll leave you with this. We are not a free country for as long as parents don't have the right (and ability) to pick a school for their kids. It's nearly enough to make me a single issue voter. 16/17
• 28 August 2020: So a father giving a child who probably can't read or write LSD was a beautiful search for truth, while parents who want to give their kids christian education are obviously bible stumping nutjobs. 15/17
• 28 August 2020: These same people are the ones who would die on the hill of keeping creationism out of public schools, having the government set common core, and opposing school choice at all costs because it would hurt minority children for some vague reason. 14/17
• 28 August 2020: At the time I assumed the grown men and women telling her how amazing she is are just being polite, or are maybe wrapped up in the moment. But we saw her around in the next few days, and talked about her privately, and everyone continued insisting that she's amazing. 13/17
• 28 August 2020: All right, so we covered huddling in the cold and LSD. But what does it have to do with school choice and my political beliefs? Well... 12/17
• 28 August 2020: As they were talking I seriously deliberated on whether and how to report this, but eventually decided that this is a grey enough area that it doesn't quite cross my threshold for sticking my nose into other people's business. 11/17
• 28 August 2020: At this point there are a few more people, a small crowd maybe, listening to her and in the spirit of the festival everyone tells her how amazing she is, and how incredible it is that she is seeking truth with her dad and makes art. 10/17
• 28 August 2020: Of course my liberal friends enthusiastically tell her her art is beautiful. As they talk more I discover to my horror that she's here with her dad, all they do is festivals, she doesn't go to school, and dad's been letting her drop acid since she was a child. 9/17
• 28 August 2020: ...is to pretend that everyone is important and equally valuable, so we all say yes. She sits down and opens her notebook, and there are just... colorful lines drawn with crayons. The kind a three year old would draw on a page because they have no hand-eye coordination yet. 8/17
• 28 August 2020: The girl comes up to us and shows us her notebook. "Would you guys like to see my art?" Naturally nobody wants to see her art because fourteen year old daughters of hippie parents aren't known for groundbreaking artwork. But one of the unspoken rules at these festivals... 7/17
• 28 August 2020: So we jump into a giant public tent in the center of the place, take out some blankets, and huddle together for warmth. Right next to us is a very young girl who looks like she was born at Woodstock and lived there her whole life. (I later found out she was 14) 6/17
• 28 August 2020: As the sun sets, everything cools off, people put on their costumes, and go do whatever it is young, horny, high people do. On this particular night as me and my liberal friends were walking around being young, it got deathly, unbearably cold. 5/17
• 28 August 2020: If you haven't been to those things, it's extremely miserable during the day because it's HOT and it's California desert, so there is no natural shade. Most of the magic happens at night. 4/17
• 28 August 2020: How could liberals and conservatives go to a shared event? Well, it's 2014 remember? Anything is possible! (plus I did stick out like a sore thumb) Anyway, so we're at the festival. Everything looks like a giant movie set- cool when you're sober, even cooler when you're not. 3/17
• 28 August 2020: Years ago, I think it must have been 2014, me and some liberal hippie friends went to Lightning in a Bottle-- a festival in the desert where people camp, do drugs, and pretend to seek spiritual experiences as they spend memorial day weekend trying to get laid. 2/17
• 28 August 2020: On school choice, huddling in the cold, LSD and an important experience that (in hindsight) shaped my political beliefs. Story time! Thread 👇 1/17
• 28 August 2020: I didn't know that. That's cool and kudos to SF.
• 28 August 2020: I bet if electrification were happening today San Francisco would ban it.
• 28 August 2020: That also badly sucks. The parties trade favors and jockey into two equally powerful coalitions. Then become hostages to some fringe party to get a few extra seats they need for majority. It’s constant gridlock and crazy legislative bundles. Like the US, but via a different path.
• 28 August 2020: I am not fooled by your walls, I can see through them like they’re glass. Open the gate and answer my question.
• 28 August 2020: These are the people the Democratic Party not only refuses to denounce, but tells us don’t exist.
• 28 August 2020: A lot more.
• 28 August 2020: I agree.
• 28 August 2020: I mean forces that are many millions of times bigger than you are; forces of such enormity that you may not even be able to perceive them until much, much later.
• 28 August 2020: People say the U.S. foundation was flawed as if they’re Columbus discovering the New World. What foundation did they expect? One that’s perfect in every conceivable way?
• 28 August 2020: Why do you seek communion with awesome natural forces?
• 28 August 2020: The problem I think is that in a parliamentary democracy everything still ultimately resolves to a binary choice (yay/nay). So regardless of the number of parties the Nash equilibrium is still two coalitions.
• 28 August 2020: It’s the fact that they’ve gerrymandered everything to hell so very few seats are competitive.
• 28 August 2020: Imagine what a breath of fresh air it would be to have a third political party.
• 28 August 2020: One more wonderful account to follow - @KalasiaRicher. She has very positive, gentle, nurturing energy, but has her views and doesn’t let anyone push her around. She also doesn’t get swept up by noise, a quality I’m trying to cultivate in myself.
• 28 August 2020: No man is powerful enough to tear down this great experiment. He is just a symptom. The tectonic plates were in motion for a long time. (Of course he didn’t help either, he’s more of an accelerant type character)
• 28 August 2020: More great accounts to follow. @katgleason – very positive, warm, personable creative energy. We could all use more of that right now. @marlomajor - he seems like the sort of person who’d blend in quietly in basic training and then turn out to be an amazing leader in battle.
• 28 August 2020: Eugene Wigner must be spinning in his grave (wave in the comments if you get this)
• 27 August 2020: Distributing a factual video is not incitement.
• 27 August 2020: Look 'em in the eye and speak from the heart.
• 27 August 2020: They gave people two years in jail for distributing a shooting video.
• 27 August 2020: A hispanic kid who shot three white men is now dubbed a white supremacist by most MM outlets. What a topsy-turvy world.
• 27 August 2020: ah found it!
• 27 August 2020: Err, I can't find it :( Basically that one should model politicians as cybernetic organisms in human form that input poll numbers and output a sequence of sounds to maximize them. (But much better phrased) @zackkanter was that you?
• 27 August 2020: There is a tweet that will explain it, one sec.
• 27 August 2020: Sure, but that doesn't make the situation any less alarming.
• 27 August 2020: They've been gaslighting us about the riots for months! The American people aren't nearly as dumb as the politicians think we are.
• 27 August 2020: 1A is the biggest thing that attracted my family to America (perhaps not explicitly, but the culture that arises from it). It's mind-blowing to me that New Zealanders are ok handing the reigns to some government bureaucrats to ban books and movies.
• 27 August 2020: The Kenosha shootings prompted me to do a bit of research (Brenton Tarrant's manifesto, various militia Twitter accounts, etc.) I changed my mind. The far-right is real and the situation is alarming.
• 27 August 2020: Source:
• 27 August 2020: TIL I learned from a friend that New Zealand has an office of censorship led by Chief Censor, over a thousand books are banned, and 'knowingly' possessing or sharing objectionable material carries up to a 14 year jail term. (And they do occasionally enforce this.)
• 27 August 2020: No. Thanks, will take a look.
• 27 August 2020: I'll take a look, but that makes sense
• 27 August 2020: Yup.
• 27 August 2020: May the games be ever in your favor.
• 27 August 2020: Spain and Italy hover around 0.4 - 0.6, I think.
• 27 August 2020: Sources:
• 27 August 2020: Homicide rate in Maine is 1.8 per 100,000. Here are seven representative EU countries: - France: 1.2 - Germany: 0.95 - Belgium: 1.7 - UK: 1.2 - Finland: 1.63 - Denmark: 1.01
• 27 August 2020: (Ruined in translation, of course, but you can get at least some of the flavor)
• 27 August 2020: There was even a song for it-- Song of the Bureaucrats. Here's an example verse: Our service is difficult from the start One needs to know what the boss wants. Guess, agree, do not argue, And you can't ruin your career.
• 27 August 2020: Maine has practically no gun laws-- conceal and open carry without any permits, no magazine size limitations, no accessories limitations (e.g. suppressors/silencers), nothing. It's also the safest state in the union with the least violent crime in all of the US.
• 27 August 2020: I used to, but never got anything out of them, so I just skip them. Cut them out with a razor if you have to. If a book needs background to engage with, you need a companion book anyway. An introduction won’t help you.
• 27 August 2020: Do the book publishers know that nobody reads five prefaces and three introductions that they put in every modern edition?
• 27 August 2020: Yes, it didn’t work for me. I think he’s just not my man.
• 27 August 2020: Yes, that happens to me too, quite often.
• 27 August 2020: I tried reading Vonnegut three or four times over the years, and still can't understand wtf he's talking about or why it's good.
• 27 August 2020: an important aspect of illusions is that we're not supposed to notice
• 27 August 2020: Do you read any of them?
• 27 August 2020: wow
• 27 August 2020: Would you take a rifle you're not legally allowed to own across state lines to take it upon yourself to patrol a riot in a state you don't reside in?
• 27 August 2020: Hmm he doesn't really give off libertarian vibes IMO.
• 27 August 2020: Well, we'll find out if it's real soon enough.
• 27 August 2020: source?
• 27 August 2020: We're trying. Empirically, it not easy to fix here.
• 27 August 2020: I didn't create anything. You asked me a hypothetical question and I answered it.
• 27 August 2020: I completely agree the standards should be well defined, exactly the same for every person, the officers should be rigorously trained, and there should be proportional consequences when these conditions don't hold. No argument from me there.
• 27 August 2020: I very strongly recommend following @kmele if you aren't already. He's a calming influence and a voice of compassion and reason. I'd count myself lucky if I had 5% of his equanimity. Wish our democracy was set up in a such a way that people like him ended up in public office.
• 27 August 2020: (That is, I'm ok with 49 so long as the officers in those cases are tried in a court of law and get the same sentence anyone else would, adjusted for obvious differences between civilians and officers)
• 27 August 2020: According to WaPo 2% of police shooting victims were unarmed, out of 1000 annually. That's 20 people. I just checked, and it looks like 49 Americans get struck by lightning annually [2]. So let's say I'm ok with 49. [1] [2]
• 27 August 2020:
• 27 August 2020: Another obvious explanation is that in the former case the suspect was actively aggressive toward police during an arrest and reached for an object out of sight, whereas in the latter case the person wasn't yet a suspect, was polite, and was in an open carry state.
• 27 August 2020: I get "tweet unavailable". What does it say?
• 27 August 2020: I don't believe I did that, at least not deliberately. If I did, please point it out.
• 27 August 2020: 👇
• 27 August 2020: My view isn't betrayed, I am expressing it openly. If you have a record of violent crime, disobey police instructions, behave aggressively, and reach for an object out of sight, use of deadly force is 100% justified. I respect other views, but unapologetically maintain mine.
• 27 August 2020: With respect, police have shot and killed 1,000 Americans in the past year, half of them white[1]. That's over 100 white Americans since George Floyd's death. Can you name just one of them? This race war has been manufactured by profiteers.
• 27 August 2020: Somehow having a word for it makes it way easier to stop.
• 26 August 2020: doom scrolling 😍
• 26 August 2020: Ah. I'd call that reasonable but criminal act of defense, actually. As in, a reasonable and honest person could see themselves doing the same thing in that situation, but it's still a crime nonetheless.
• 26 August 2020: I don't think there is such a thing.
• 26 August 2020: Maynard Webb's Letters to a Founder is a very underrated book. Down to earth, pragmatic, in bite-sized chunks that you can read cover to cover or use as a reference in times of need. If you're working on a company, strong recommend.
• 26 August 2020: Anonymous poll (fixing the previous one missing a choice). Until we get more evidence, Jacob Blake’s shooting likely was:
• 26 August 2020: The days of waiting for evidence are over.
• 26 August 2020: Anonymous poll. Jacob Blake’s shooting likely was
• 26 August 2020: an aside, but this is a gorgeous gif
• 26 August 2020: fair enough
• 26 August 2020: The DNC putting Billie Eilish on stage is such a perfect metaphor for the Democratic party. Their best ideas for America's future are apparently the same ones I had in high school as an angsty teenager.
• 26 August 2020: Thanks will check out! Didn’t know about unknowledge
• 26 August 2020: Ah yes I bring invaluable intellectual insights like this one
• 26 August 2020: I miss the days before the normies flooded in, and "tech" was only filled with people who programmed for the love of programming and built things for the love of building things.
• 26 August 2020: You can't see it here, but there are detailed screenshots all around twitter-- many of the people chasing the guy with the AR had pistols.
• 26 August 2020: Best part is that you don't need to read the whole book, or even read in order. Just open on a random essay and read.
• 26 August 2020: I want to read every word the man has ever wrote 😍
• 26 August 2020: ouch
• 26 August 2020: Caption this
• 26 August 2020: Just an average American city on a typical Tuesday night. Totally normal stuff.
• 26 August 2020: No, I meant change to the rules of the game, which it is.
• 26 August 2020: Because your campaign strategy when ballots are mailed to everyone is completely different from your campaign strategy when whoever wants to shows up to polling places. These are totally different mechanics.
• 26 August 2020: It would be within capacity, but it’s a big enough change that it constitutes a qualitative change to the rules.
• 26 August 2020: When quantitative changes in scale are big enough, they become qualitative.
• 26 August 2020: Switching to mail in ballots, destroying post office machines, the whole thing.
• 26 August 2020: Changing the rules of the election right before the election is a very bad idea.
• 25 August 2020: I don't know for sure, of course, but I think he might be feeling the same way.
• 25 August 2020: As president. I watched Obama's too, but it was much less interesting because it's too recent.
• 25 August 2020: Watched George W Bush’s last press conference. He seems incredibly honest, thoughtful, and personable. Strong recommend. Gives a great sense of perspective.
• 25 August 2020: A very strong recommendation: start by watching Trump's inaugural address, then work your way backward and watch addresses through every transition of power. It's a fascinating and truly breathtaking lesson in our history.
• 25 August 2020: In the state of New York where I'm from, the law permits abortions up to 24 weeks.
• 25 August 2020: sorry sorry i'm backing away now
• 25 August 2020: I just rewatched Obama and Trump's inaugural addresses. To be honest, both fill me with terror. Not because of the presidents, but because of how small they seem to me now in the face of history.
• 25 August 2020: Calling black republicans "uncle toms" is going to do exactly the same thing as calling white republicans "the basket of deplorables". They're just going to lie at the polls and then surprise everyone on the election night.
• 25 August 2020: The real felon here is whoever did the color composition in this frame.
• 25 August 2020: I've made promotional videos before, and have worked with the pros who make them. Amazingly, they still take you even if you know how the sausage is made. Media is power.
• 25 August 2020: I just reread this tweet like three times, and I still can't see how anyone would interpret it as "programming is blue collar".
• 25 August 2020: 747 now. Thanks for sharing.
• 25 August 2020: I am studying Go through Level Up books. They're amazing Korean books for kids translated to english, I mentioned them before. Problems are interspersed with morality tales- study hard, have fun, persevere. Study, fun, perseverance. Unpublishable in the West. The future is Asian.
• 25 August 2020: congrats!
• 25 August 2020: That's an amazing quote. Do you keep it down to a certain number of books (or range)?
• 24 August 2020: You're splitting hairs. God uses natural events to punish people all the time. He burned Sodom and Gomorrah, for example.
• 24 August 2020: Yes it is. Why did the great flood happen?
• 24 August 2020: Damn dude, that’s some heavy hitting stuff. Sound kind of cool actually.
• 24 August 2020: Mine is full of weeds.
• 24 August 2020: That’s fair, I did.
• 24 August 2020: Bannon is very slippery but is undeniably brilliant.
• 24 August 2020: Yeah, I’m definitely simplifying. But I really like the view that it’s a way for us to clear dead wood, pun intended.
• 24 August 2020: Everyone I know from Harvard has actually been a very kind, well-meaning person. They don’t tend to stab other people in my experience.
• 24 August 2020: Well, not exclusively an Italian thing!
• 24 August 2020: Not an italian thing!
• 24 August 2020: I think you're misreading my tone. I'm not angry at all. (I am sometimes angry, but not today)
• 24 August 2020: This is 100% not a joke.
• 24 August 2020: My Jack Vance collection isn't going nowhere!
• 24 August 2020: Interesting correlation: folks who are most upset about my hypothetical shinto phoenix argument are also the ones who are totally ok with actual arsonists.
• 24 August 2020: easy to lie to yourself
• 24 August 2020: Ooh I really like this!
• 24 August 2020: that's exactly why it's so hard to give them away
• 24 August 2020: Good list. And then the next ten? And the next?
• 24 August 2020: no space for the boxes, but I'd feel stupid renting out storage to keep stuff there for years.
• 24 August 2020: not how to give away, but how to decide which ones
• 24 August 2020: Yeah but I often buy too many books, don't get to some of them, and then pick them up years later...
• 24 August 2020: The collective we.
• 24 August 2020: How do you guys decide which books to give away (if you ever do)? I have too many books-- shelves, boxes, spilling out on the floor, and no space for all of them. Have no trouble getting rid of my things (and do regularly), but not books. How do you decide which ones to let go?
• 24 August 2020: Your belief in spherical Earth actually is not that different from their belief it's flat. You haven't checked yourself, have you? Do you even know how?
• 24 August 2020: You can learn a tremendous amount from religion without believing in any deity.
• 24 August 2020: Maybe we’d finally be able to build things?
• 24 August 2020: Yes
• 24 August 2020: Christian view is that natural disasters are divine punishment for our sins. Shinto view is they’re divine assistance. A clearing of senescent social structures we’re unable to clear ourselves. If you hold the Shinto view, California fires are net good long term.
• 24 August 2020: American institutions need a frontier. A possible take is that falling behind CCP for a bit is great.
• 24 August 2020: Because it's fashionable. As to your second question, I don't know.
• 24 August 2020: we're overdue!
• 24 August 2020: The best outcome for San Francisco long term is if it burned down in the California forest fires.
• 24 August 2020: Imagine: you major in African studies at Harvard. Volunteer at Niger. Then what? To meet expectations you have to somehow beat Harvard, but no one wants you. So you get a $40k job at a NGO and pretend it’s by choice to save face. Give them a better path and they’ll kill for you.
• 24 August 2020: The elites want that cheap labor, but you want to take it away.
• 24 August 2020: That’s very Trumpian of you.
• 24 August 2020: Re economists and immigration— I think the argument is that immigration is net good, but not evenly distributed. Re sacrificing efficiency: agree it sounds like a very temporary patch at best. We won’t rebuild the middle class on shitty air conditioning manufacturing jobs.
• 24 August 2020: Really good summary on Bannon and quite objective IMO. Quick read. Strong recommend.
• 24 August 2020: This was great, thanks!
• 23 August 2020: No it isn’t. It’s from град обречённый.
• 23 August 2020: Just looked it up, it’s in град обречённый.
• 23 August 2020: well...
• 23 August 2020: which major?
• 23 August 2020: Far too many white girls go into african studies and volunteer in niger for that too be true.
• 23 August 2020: Unfortuntely no. Maybe someone else here knows of a good one?
• 23 August 2020: Harvard grads in bullshit studies make amazing employees. They have high IQ so you can teach them anything, no marketable skills so they have no good options, intense need for status so they'll work hard, and unwavering respect for authority so they'll do what you tell them.
• 23 August 2020: Tweeting and then complaining the crowd is mean is like getting into a boxing ring and the complaining when you get punched.
• 23 August 2020: I’d say it’s equally asinine.
• 23 August 2020: Ah! Ok that’s fair.
• 23 August 2020: I did say “I feel immeasurably rich” not “I don’t need a lot of money to be rich”.
• 23 August 2020: I think "hard to be a god" but I don't remember 100%
• 23 August 2020: Whenever you think culture explains something, it's probably economics: Polyamory in SF rationalist community: not enough women, duh Broken families in black communities: not enough men (the 13th) "Millennials buy experiences"-- no shit they can't afford a house to put things in
• 23 August 2020: I lived on $15k/year. It wasn't great (mainly because I had to share a bathroom with a roommate), but it was fine.
• 23 August 2020: Actually upon re-reading this it occurs to me that my family isn't exactly blue collar but also not white collar-- they're on the edge. Soviet Union collapse and immigration make it complicated. But the original point still stands.
• 23 August 2020: Strugatsky brothers (a duo of Soviet scifi writers) wrote in one of their novels that there are two types of riots: hunger and decadence riots. In the latter people have no real needs (other than self-actualization), so they riot out of unbearableness of having nothing to do.
• 23 August 2020:
• 23 August 2020: In russian we say "пока гром не грянет мужик не перекрестится" which roughly translates as "a man doesn't cross himself until he hears thunder". Gratitude is more difficult than it should be.
• 23 August 2020: Yes, but I meant it relative to people who make $300k/year and are working like mad trying to make $350k. It's one thing if they loved the work, but many are miserable.
• 23 August 2020: hope you're doing well
• 23 August 2020: Oh wow, never knew about this. Also I don't think I know of anyone who's doing it.
• 23 August 2020: That is what I said though-- that it feels like immeasurable riches.
• 23 August 2020: twitter has a live stream feature??
• 23 August 2020: i started out as a philosophy major, no thanks!
• 23 August 2020: I think we'd need to clarify our definitions. Is it nazis? Armed militias? How many people involved? etc. What I mean by "far right isn't real" is that I genuinely don't see fringe groups somehow turning the US into a fascist ethnostate.
• 23 August 2020: just tried to print from linux, lol
• 23 August 2020: I'm not really a book club kind of person. Every time I did it, I hated it :(
• 23 August 2020: TL;DR: Oath Keepers / 3% are far right, but not nazis.
• 23 August 2020: I have very conflicting feelings on the militias. I simultaneously strongly believe it's reasonable for armed citizens to defend themselves against government overreach, and also strongly believe in monopoly of force. I would say that once you take up arms, you are a radical.
• 23 August 2020: I've never heard of any of these people, but glancing at wikipedia/websites: Save America: no threat whatsoever. Oath Keepers / 3%: they seem like a libertarian equivalent of black panthers. I'm simultaneously glad such militias exist, but they also terrify me.
• 23 August 2020: You can move.
• 23 August 2020: Going on a reading binge. Which cluster of books should I read?
• 23 August 2020: A 500k air filtration system is absolutely signaling.
• 23 August 2020: definitely
• 23 August 2020: They did not, but I think it's a brilliant idea.
• 23 August 2020: If you were to guess, what percentage of americans do you think would self-identify as nazis, and what percentage would self-report positive impressions of nazis? (Assume the self-reporting is honest)
• 23 August 2020: When I say "not real" I don't mean literally zero people are into it. I mean it has zero chance of taking over the country.
• 23 August 2020: Yes. I don't know how much of what he's saying is accurate, but if any of it is, he effectively pulled off a revolution.
• 22 August 2020: I don't think "far right" is real.
• 22 August 2020: Yes (but not really). You can live comfortably on far, far less than you think.
• 22 August 2020: (3) allows women to use their sexuality at work while everyone has to pretend they don't
• 22 August 2020: That’s kind of what I mean. I don’t think the far right is real.
• 22 August 2020: Flattery will get you everywhere.
• 22 August 2020: I make a “Japanese bowl”— brown rice, edamame, tofu, mixed greens, avocado, sprouts. Soy sauce + rice vinegar + sesame oil for sauce / taste. Almost no effort with a rice cooker. Also easy to rotate ingredients in and out.
• 22 August 2020: Cool, thanks for additional recommendation.
• 22 August 2020: Might be famous last words, but I am not worried about the far right at all. I have many “far right” friends— all see modern nazis and kkk as an embarrassing joke. My “far left” friends, however, mostly stopped talking to me because I’m evil.
• 22 August 2020: I do too, but smoking let me meet 30x more people. There is no substitute.
• 22 August 2020: Comparing yourself to people better off than you is just one mechanism. (It’s a really powerful one, of course)
• 22 August 2020: Learning Baduk, hacking on personal projects, reading, talking to people.
• 22 August 2020: Also, until you train yourself to know, signaling doesn’t feel like signaling.
• 22 August 2020: One sign that swimming pools are mostly signaling is that people use them less than ten days/year, even though the weather allows it.
• 22 August 2020: Our first apt in Mountain View was literally not horizontal. If you put a ball on the floor, it would roll 😂
• 22 August 2020: The difference is imperceptible, at least in his case.
• 22 August 2020: All of these things are 90% signaling. Possibly more.
• 22 August 2020: I read his papers.
• 22 August 2020: Oleg is mentally ill.
• 22 August 2020: give five examples
• 22 August 2020: Ian's awful code torments me on this covid summer day
• 22 August 2020: Not many.
• 22 August 2020: :(
• 22 August 2020: Voted
• 22 August 2020: I refuse to vote on this, it hurts too much.
• 22 August 2020: Luxuries are primarily used to impress people. The people I love and who love me aren’t rich, so I don’t need to be rich to impress them.
• 22 August 2020: You can make this about gratitude or freedom. If your labor is worth $200k but you’re happy with $100k, you’re giving the employer a 50% discount. You’re uncancelable. You can take every other year off. You can pursue any end you desire.
• 22 August 2020: @antoniogm why do you think left wing populism is good for the upper class? Not abstractly “they’re uniting with the poor against the middle”, but concrete policies? What possible benefit are they getting from getting taxed into oblivion for being rich, male, and white?
• 22 August 2020: Yeah. Wrt human connection it really was a different mode of being.
• 22 August 2020: A read you might enjoy: Montesquieu’s Persian Letters.
• 21 August 2020: Drunk smoking is the best.
• 21 August 2020: Could never get into cigars. I can smoke one a year with friends, but no more than that.
• 21 August 2020: Sounds like you came from a really rough place. Kudos on overcoming it all.
• 21 August 2020: I used to smoke for years. I'd go to 7/11, buy a pack, and smoke outside with people from all walks of life. I loved asking older people if they remember historic days-- moon landing, Nixon impeachment, etc. Amazing stories. I don't miss anything about smoking except this.
• 21 August 2020: 🔥🔥
• 21 August 2020: A blue collar family has been a huge blessing because I don't need a lot of money to feel rich. Friends are killing themselves in a corporate Game of Thrones trying to climb just one more step. I felt immeasurably rich when I got my first $90k/year programming job, and still do.
• 21 August 2020: Wow just found out that there is still no easy way for someone to collect payment in Rwanda. Global financial infrastructure still has a very long way to go. #RootingForStripe
• 21 August 2020: Met @RobertTumai, an entrepreneur from Rwanda. He's smart and driven-- managed to start from a cell phone (!!) with early signs of success. He has no money for a laptop yet. I encouraged him to start a gofundme: . Donate!
• 21 August 2020: Oh, just because he's adamant about not getting into these malthusian races and offers a credible operating alternative.
• 21 August 2020: Have you read Zero to One?
• 21 August 2020: That as cynical as I am about politics, there are people so much more cynical than me that I can't even conceive of it.
• 21 August 2020: Looking forward to reading it! Link me to one media appearance where he presents himself differently but sounds equally candid?
• 21 August 2020: It's a consequence of the global economy. Firms are competing with everyone in the world. If Patrick Collison doesn't read the Art of War, Pieter van der Does will. We're in an equilibrium trap.
• 21 August 2020: I extremely strongly recommend this interview. It's 2.5 hours, but I learned more about American politics from it than the last few years, probably.
• 21 August 2020: The economy's not a car There's no engine to stall No expert can fix it There's no "it" at all The economy's us We don't need a mechanic Put away the wrenches The economy's organic
• 21 August 2020: The best hiphop song of all time 😍😍
• 21 August 2020: The leads are weak!
• 21 August 2020: First high profile democrat to explicitly mention violence and destruction in American cities wins a Cadillac Eldorado. The second wins a set of steak knives.
• 21 August 2020: For some reason I never found this concept useful. It always was subconsciously natural without ever explicitly knowing the term.
• 21 August 2020: Linus was fine. I guarantee you none of the people who had a problem with him had the chops to make meaningful kernel contributions.
• 21 August 2020: She’s not an SJW. But the fact they’re now important enough for VP to pander to is the scary part.
• 21 August 2020: Pronoun people’s central function is also racist advocacy.
• 21 August 2020:
• 21 August 2020:
• 21 August 2020: No, I'm saying that even though the KKK happens to advocate for family values, we shouldn't give them a national platform.
• 21 August 2020: You'd be right if that group were primarily about advocacy for trans rights, which they aren't.
• 21 August 2020: Hmm not many people at that level. Have to think about it a bit.
• 21 August 2020: '12: the pronoun ppl are a bunch of mentally ill professors in irrelevant departments, nobody cares '14: the students are all using pronouns, silly kids '16: hmm pronoun ppl took over tech '18: shit, they got Linus now: VP candidate has pronouns on her twitter bio...
• 21 August 2020: 😳
• 21 August 2020: The tides are turning, thank god.
• 21 August 2020: ??
• 21 August 2020: thanks!
• 20 August 2020: Where did you look up 1/15,787 - 1/1,744,288? I did back of the napkin, would be nice to have a precise calculator accessible on the go.
• 20 August 2020: No question there is attack on religion. They wouldn't say that explicitly and I bet they don't think that internally, but that's obviously what they're doing.
• 20 August 2020: So they're releasing violent criminals from jail so they don't get COVID, but putting pastors in jail for attempting to hold services? Makes total sense.
• 20 August 2020: you're a ginger?!!
• 20 August 2020: Did I screw up my math? 4sd > u is ~1 in 25k ppl, or about ~14k people with that IQ in the US. Back of the napkin, that sounds totally plausible. I agree that 5sd is extremely unlikely.
• 20 August 2020: "Now"? It's always been like that.
• 20 August 2020: if someone emails you shit like that, you get to post their email publicly
• 20 August 2020: I'm a sucker for unique minds, and he definitely is one. (Also, strongly agree on the breaking things; I wish he spoke more about the personal underpinnings of that philosophy)
• 20 August 2020: I feel like if someone sends unsolicited mail like that, it's fair game to post their contact publicly. P.S. your kids are cute, but I'm biased 'cause I'm a ginger.
• 20 August 2020: Mine is about 135 (so ~2sd > avg). I've never been formally tested.
• 20 August 2020: Fast recall of a broad range of subjects (names, dates, places, etc.) is strongly correlated with high IQ. The video I posted is in Oxford, so everyone is in top IQ bracket. But the students forget names, take time to remember things, etc. But Bannon is instantaneous.
• 20 August 2020: 4.5k likes. That's where we are now.
• 20 August 2020: Roughly 0.5 - 1 standard deviation below-- pg. About the same level-- patrick collison. Higher than that is imperceptible to me, so I don't know.
• 20 August 2020: Even a working clock is wrong twice a day. Oh wait that’s not how that works 🤦‍♂️
• 20 August 2020: No way, he fights technocrats with all he has.
• 20 August 2020: 👏
• 20 August 2020: Sure!
• 20 August 2020: He is very clear about political objectives. You’re just not in the target audience, so you can’t perceive them. He wants to (a) dismantle the Byzantine bureaucracy and hand the reigns back to the people, and (b) dismantle the international order. That’s it.
• 20 August 2020: Strong disagree. I think he’s an honest man of deep conviction, and a patriot. (And I’m strongly opposed to many of his policy tenets)
• 20 August 2020: The media definitely does not care about truth and reality— it cares about clicks. Barack cares about truth, but is blinded by ideology like everyone else. He didn’t mention the violence all over the country, for example, because it’s a part of their election strategy.
• 20 August 2020: I said 4 - 5. And yes.
• 20 August 2020: Nope. I know what ~1, 2, 3, and 4. Look like. He’s definitely in the latter.
• 20 August 2020: I mean, he is a once in a lifetime talent. You have to be blind not to see that.
• 20 August 2020: 😍
• 20 August 2020: I think he's a man of conviction, has good intentions, and believes what he says. I don't think he's a liar.
• 20 August 2020: Barack is a spectacular orator. The kind of talent we're lucky to witness because it comes once in a generation.
• 20 August 2020: Ooh, I've collected more! Need to update this list.
• 20 August 2020: I don't think he's a sophist. I think he believes what he says, and seems to have a consistent framework. I don't know enough to fully evaluate his arguments, but it's a good direction to learn, if only to convince yourself that he's wrong.
• 20 August 2020: I strongly disagree with Steve Bannon on many of his principles and conclusions (I'm a technocrat first), but he has an IQ ~4-5 standard deviations to the right of the mean. He's worth learning from.
• 20 August 2020:
• 20 August 2020: Someone should write a book called Brahmin Fragility. Oh, is that socially unacceptable? Then why is White Fragility a bestseller?
• 20 August 2020: Either the brahmins and white ppl have nothing to apologize for, or both have something to apologize for. Which one is it?
• 20 August 2020: Politics is downstream from culture. Trump will be gone in four years. But all the young people have a socialist bent and are willing to fight for it. In twenty years they'll be running everything; AOC is their guiding light. Ultimately she has all the power. Trump's irrelevant.
• 20 August 2020: Got a chance to see a demo of by @danvelton. Really interesting take on programmable text-based collaboration. Glad to see people are working on pushing the envelope beyond Slack. Check it out!
• 20 August 2020: “I want to rip his throat out and eat his intestines, but he’s too big and there is no other food around, better act adorable so he feeds me.”
• 20 August 2020: Yes.
• 20 August 2020: 1. That was the point 2. You're leaking information
• 20 August 2020: Yes. But I would challenge the claim that they'll force you to sell at C. They'd certainly prefer a $1.5B exit to $150M :)
• 20 August 2020: Indian folks in DMs: omg this is so true!!! Indian folks publicly: this is outrageous!!!
• 20 August 2020: I know that. I am not on board with pitting classes against each other. At all. I'm pointing out the irony of her platform.
• 20 August 2020: I've heard this from a few indian friends I trust, but I haven't checked myself. So I'd say 75% sure.
• 20 August 2020: Which assumption?
• 20 August 2020: Right now my plan is to write in libertarian. That's what I'll likely do unless they explicitly send a strong centrist signal. If they do, I'd gladly vote for them. That's my honest stance.
• 20 August 2020: Ah got it. I think the balance of probabilities is that they are more likely to make you richer than the counterfactual.
• 20 August 2020: Should have clarified, this is for A/B stage. I have no experience with growth rounds and am not qualified to give advice at that stage.
• 20 August 2020: Yet nearly everyone in the higher echelons in the US are in the upper castes. All you have to do is look. Of course I don't buy into this frame either. But since she's running on a "white privilege/woman of color" platform, I feel at liberty to ironically use this against her.
• 20 August 2020: Did you watch John Kasich's dnc speech? That, basically.
• 20 August 2020:
• 20 August 2020: I'll stop when they stop.
• 20 August 2020:
• 20 August 2020: I need further elaboration.
• 20 August 2020: My advice to founders raising money in descending order of importance: 1. don't give up control. 2. don't give up control. 3. optimize for valuation. 4. don't compromise the first two for advice. 5. if you get a termsheet from Sequoia/a16z, ignore all of the above and sign it.
• 20 August 2020: This is rude, but Kamala uses her identity to get ahead, so it's fair game. She's a brahmin, the illustrious caste of privilege. Why "is"? Because Indian diaspora imported caste into the U.S. They keep lower castes out of media, business and now politics.
• 20 August 2020: Or Baltimore.
• 20 August 2020: That's a surprisingly difficult but good question. Let me think about it.
• 20 August 2020: Let's do San Francisco first.
• 20 August 2020: If you want to learn more about Argentina and the parallels with today's political climate in the U.S., follow @AleResnik. He has unique cultural insight and shares high quality information. Strong recommend.
• 20 August 2020: just don't let the kid blow their hands off
• 20 August 2020:
• 19 August 2020: The right-wing flavor is fascism, the left-wing flavor is socialism. Both are authoritarianism. I disagree with you on which flavor is more likely, but that doesn't matter. I think we both want the reigns to be back in the people's hands.
• 19 August 2020: You assholes have immigrants from ex-socialist countries all over the world giving you every warning we can. From LATAM to Eastern Europe to Asia. And you’re still toying with this shit. You deserve everything that’s coming. (Yeah I victim-blamed. Call the social workers)
• 19 August 2020: The only thing I want to know from Biden/Kamala is what they’re going to do to make sure the squad never gets elected again. Just give me the most faint of signals and I’m in.
• 19 August 2020: Look at San Francisco, Baltimore, etc and tell me if it looks like Denmark to you.
• 19 August 2020: Do you also ask your barber if you need a haircut?
• 19 August 2020: I’m Ukrainian. I’ve seen this movie too. I second Ale— this is a movie you never ever want to watch.
• 19 August 2020: Look up Hillary Ronen on youtube and listen to her talk for three seconds. SF residents elected her! They don't deserve competent leadership.
• 19 August 2020: I seriously would rather kill myself.
• 19 August 2020: Thanks, I didn’t know any of that. Which community?
• 19 August 2020: I actually only partially agree. I think 1->N you’re right. But 0->1 you’ve got to do both, inspire of the fact that it’s two full time jobs.
• 19 August 2020: Ah, got it.
• 19 August 2020: Why do you believe the diaspora moving back would close the window?
• 19 August 2020: Actually one more thing. If you look at the bolsheviks you'll say "those ppl are crazy, that's not what we're doing." Of course you aren't. But in almost every case the majority is represented by the mensheviks- reasonable people trying to fix injustice. Just nobody studies them.
• 19 August 2020: How do you think every other country wrecked by marxism got there? They weren't stupid or alien-- they were like you and me. They saw injustice, tried to fix it, fell for the siren song, and ended up with the gulags. It isn't as remote as you may think. 2/2
• 19 August 2020: I agree with all that, and that there is injustice and that it must be fixed. However, the culture of viewing the world through the lens of oppressors vs oppressed is Marxism, and starting to see first signs of the outcome-- strongmen, populists, division, violence. 1/2
• 19 August 2020: I 100% think internal company cultures verge on marxism. I oppose the very framing of "x% [color] [gender]". At this point it's the lube that makes a huge part of the cultural machine work. It's collectivist class war rhetoric.
• 19 August 2020: I am talking about political expression among employees.
• 18 August 2020: lol, I thought it was a metaphor, but nope
• 18 August 2020: Hey @Zipcar, your signup flow has opaque "something went wrong" errors at every step, and it takes >45m to reach a representative each time. Barriers to entry will only last for so long.
• 18 August 2020: Are you talking about smtg specific?
• 18 August 2020: I too am getting older.
• 18 August 2020: Zuck has not encouraged conservative political activism to an extreme degree. It’s true he resisted complete liberal takeover, but it isn’t the same as encouraging conservative activism. It took him years to confront the monster inside his own company (is great that he did)
• 18 August 2020: I doubt they're financially motivated. Michelle believes what she says. Obama endorsed Biden because he knew Yang was unelectable.
• 18 August 2020: 🔥🔥🔥 wish the gyms were open here :(
• 18 August 2020: This is what @MichelleObama didn't mention tonight.
• 18 August 2020: That's why I'm not too worried about the pronouns (but worried nonetheless).
• 18 August 2020: Just remember that Kamala has gender pronouns on her twitter bio.
• 18 August 2020: Michelle Obama's speech rang hollow to me. She says she cares about resolving our differences, but she still hasn't acknowledged a single concern of "the other side". She talks of empathy but insinuates everyone who isn't on board is a racist. I expected way, way better from her.
• 18 August 2020: Why is she the one giving a speech now?
• 18 August 2020: How much money would all of them combined cost? We're already printing trillions of dollars like it's nothing...
• 18 August 2020: Hopefully I didn't get fooled into retweeting something dumb.
• 18 August 2020: отнять и поделить
• 18 August 2020: It would have been lovely if @MichelleObama gave an impassioned speech on national TV when all our cities were on fire.
• 18 August 2020: Sanders and Warren are the top two, and they're actually full blown communists.
• 18 August 2020: which they should know better
• 18 August 2020: Also, I think your model is wrong. Your average tech employee is also extremely pro-marxist, but not nearly rich enough to hop on a private jet and escape to their villa in New Zealand. Sometimes the market is just fucking stupid.
• 18 August 2020: Do you mean fission or fusion? Also, the timelines on climate change seem to be pretty tight. Offloading a large chunk of carbon emissions now would be really nice.
• 18 August 2020: For now it's the best solution we have to climate change, given the enormous scale of the problem. But it's not even on the table; completely politically untenable.
• 18 August 2020: Yes that too.
• 18 August 2020: The monster grew out of their control in their own companies. What makes them think it won't grow out of their control in their own country? It's only good for them if they can't see past their own nose.
• 18 August 2020: I pretty much agree with you on this. I was very encouraged when they picked Kamala as VP. Also, probably the only two things I want out of the Democratic party is medicare for all and nuclear power, and we're not going to get either of these :(
• 18 August 2020: Have you been to a library in San Francisco?
• 18 August 2020: The craziest thing about this timeline is that I regularly find myself on the internet trying to convince people with >100x my net worth that marxism is bad for them.
• 18 August 2020: Likely true, but I didn't mean either social networks or tech in general. I mean that Zuck actively encouraged progressive political activism at his company until it grew into a monster he himself can't control. Same for Google, Stripe, etc.
• 18 August 2020: Agents in human form with no soul. In this case I meant Trump.
• 18 August 2020: To flip it around, do you think Zuck has contributed to the fact that he has to contend with insane employees who seriously demand he ban the sitting U.S. president from fb?
• 18 August 2020: For those of us who strongly oppose both the leftist path and p-zombies it's a very, very tough choice this election.
• 18 August 2020: No.
• 18 August 2020: my gf cuts my hair. Somehow she's pretty good.
• 18 August 2020: I'm saying that marxism is bad.
• 18 August 2020: I am also glad people who otherwise can't afford it can access books. But there are much, much better ways to do that than libraries.
• 18 August 2020: Everything I said above still applies. I guarantee Vitalik knows C.
• 18 August 2020: With respect, you've contributed "your fair share" to our collective journey on the road to serfdom. You can't have social justice and economic opportunity. Something about it always decays minds and elevates nutjobs to power. We just learned it again for the hundredth time.
• 18 August 2020: You will never really understand software until you learn C and then write a mini-programming language interpreter in C. Whether you want to really understand them depends on your goals. You can have a great career without it. I'm a traditionalist, and encourage ppl to learn.
• 18 August 2020: I wouldn't worry about reading people's code. Get a good Python book and read it cover to cover. Study a good algorithms book and practice algorithms challenges. Learn another programming language to see what's possible. Write a lot more code.
• 18 August 2020: Oh don't forget dvd rentals.
• 18 August 2020: In almost all cities they're dilapidated, smelly buildings full of books nobody wants to read, homeless people, people who need help filling out government forms, laptop rentals, etc. They don't know what they want to be, and if they didn't exist no way we'd create them now.
• 18 August 2020: And libraries.
• 18 August 2020: It really depends on what you want to accomplish. Tell me a little more about what you’re trying to do?
• 18 August 2020: No, they were all just better programmers than me.
• 17 August 2020: Made them review each other's code and took myself out of the loop.
• 17 August 2020: After twenty years of programming, for the first time in my life I'm learning to enjoy reading other people's code.
• 17 August 2020: Goddamn it you guys, we need a schelling point!!
• 17 August 2020: To clarify, the difficult part isn't the implementation, it's figuring out what the natural behavior is.
• 17 August 2020: yes
• 17 August 2020: DOM focus management is hard.
• 17 August 2020: Boy do I look stupid now for buying into “the end of history” hypothesis.
• 16 August 2020: Any advice on how to operate in a world where knowing anything is impossible?
• 16 August 2020: That's a great quote.
• 16 August 2020: Most college graduates don't work for Elon, though. They work as Starbucks baristas.
• 16 August 2020: I don't have a particularly good recommendation beyond what's already popular in nerd circles.
• 16 August 2020: Amazing quote, thanks for linking. Expresses what I was trying to, but much much better.
• 16 August 2020: I've been on welfare. "Traditional" social programs are insane. If we want to help, direct cash transfers is the way to do it. But we'd have to fire legions of federal, state, and municipal employees administrating those programs, which they'd fight tooth and nail to prevent.
• 16 August 2020: Because there aren't enough weirdos to fill that many seats in the academy.
• 16 August 2020: But I don’t know if that will work ever again.
• 16 August 2020: What I personally want: fire all SJW professors and 90% of administrators. Cut the cost 5x. Reduce admissions 5x. Drop the incentives to publish incremental papers. TL;DR: make it a home for smart eccentric weirdos and leave them alone.
• 16 August 2020: @tulhmc I was a teenager in Ukraine when we had 100% inflation per day. It was awful, but it still isn’t the gulags. I completely agree that opportunists can destroy a country. Still, if those are the choices, I’d take that over Fidel Castro.
• 16 August 2020: 😍
• 16 August 2020: You should be too.
• 16 August 2020: True. But she’s no Stalin.
• 16 August 2020: They didn’t set up gulags, though.
• 16 August 2020: Bernie is a committed communist.
• 15 August 2020: You're right. But that's a slow decline out of ineptitude and weakness. Which is bad, not nearly as bad as Fidel Castro type leaders.
• 15 August 2020: That’s beautiful, thanks for linking. Do you have a source?
• 15 August 2020: Yeah, I’ll take that over Karen Bass any day.
• 15 August 2020: Opportunists don’t serve the people either, they serve their ambitions. But ambition alone is insufficient to wreck republics. You need to have Napoleon-level ambition and genius for that, which Kamala doesn’t have.
• 15 August 2020: 👇
• 15 August 2020: This is a really really good thing. Cold-hearted opportunists don’t cause tragedies. Committed communists do. America dodged a bullet to the head.
• 15 August 2020: I don’t know that that’s true. It’s correlated, but not so strongly I think.
• 15 August 2020: Modern JS is pretty good I think. They’ve done a good job hiding much of the legacy stuff.
• 15 August 2020: 💯
• 15 August 2020: I did use React without hooks and strongly disliked it. I think the may difference is that when I wrote old-style components (or read someone else's) the code never looked beautiful to me. It was just an ugly mess. With hooks it's almost poetry.
• 15 August 2020: It's amazing how much fun it is to work with React + hooks. I've been doing it for a couple of weeks, and as I get better at best practices, it's still becoming more fun. I feel like hooks is React 2.0. It's almost like a different framework.
• 15 August 2020: I don't discount it. It's a different abstraction level. Accepting the stated motivation doesn't help explain why we evolved to be outraged about the outgroup's sexual behavior more than e.g. their breakfast. Another example of this is homosexuality. Why do people care so much?
• 15 August 2020: defund the police
• 15 August 2020: It's well established in anthropology that human customs, from hairstyles to divination, are a means to bind us into networks and adapt us to environmental constraints. There is a lot of falsifiable evidence supporting this model.
• 15 August 2020: We don't have good introspection into our motivations.
• 15 August 2020: I agree that it's an awful idea. The kind of awful that sounds worth trying.
• 15 August 2020: The truest sentence that's ever been spoken
• 15 August 2020: I really really hope so.
• 15 August 2020: Tbh I get about half of them, and vibe with about a third of the ones I get :)
• 15 August 2020: or unconditionally
• 15 August 2020: For anything in particular? :)
• 15 August 2020: Bernie’s biggest contribution to politics is inventing a rhetorical device of restating collectivism in the language of individual rights.
• 14 August 2020: I agree with everything you said. Except perhaps the last part— we’re redefining what today’s American project is about as we speak. I think it would be very difficult to argue it’s about individualism anymore. That faction is in the minority.
• 14 August 2020: And yet statistics is a useful thing.
• 14 August 2020: Dude, I got anxious writing it and hitting send. Like, actually.
• 14 August 2020: I’ve wobbled on this a lot. My stance now is that women cannot be free without legal abortion, but I am not so sure I have a moral high ground to tell other cultures how to live. The only thing I can demand is that they allow dissatisfied members to leave.
• 14 August 2020: Agency is best treated as if it is fully materialized when dealing with individuals, and as if it’s a probability distribution when dealing with populations.
• 14 August 2020: not yet
• 14 August 2020: @raghavar0 lol
• 14 August 2020: Every once in a while someone tries to do open salaries, and it never works out. You can do it in government jobs where money isn't the point, but it doesn't work in a competitive environment like industry.
• 14 August 2020: Sometimes for tactical reasons you need to overpay for someone, but don't want to raise everyone else's salaries. Sometimes people disagree over how good they are relative to their coworkers. It gives external recruiters a huge advantage. Lots of reasons!
• 14 August 2020:
• 14 August 2020: Yes.
• 14 August 2020: the best kind of twitter
• 14 August 2020: May be you're significantly less susceptible to social pressure than median?
• 14 August 2020: I wonder if it's possible to run a startup completely openly on Twitter. Use Twitter instead of Slack, or a Slack-like client built on top of Twitter. Keep secrets to an absolute minimum (salaries, security, etc.). Then harness Twitter crowd wisdom to run the company better.
• 14 August 2020: "It's really demotivating and makes me feels like failure." I know that feeling very intimately. Learning when it's telling you the truth and when it's lying, and how each of these cases feel, smell, and sound, is going to be extremely valuable.
• 14 August 2020: (That is, they may be willing to pay, you're just not offering them anything worth paying for, and all the value is in the free offering)
• 14 August 2020: The idea of game-changing features applies fractally to your pricing bundles. For users to switch to a paid plan it needs a feature they really want. But it's possible that people really want your core product but don't care about any of the paid features.
• 14 August 2020: Yes, absolutely. For example, if you're a woman in a big city who wants to start having sex only after marriage, your life is going to be difficult. In some aspects, very difficult.
• 14 August 2020: Epistemology is the study of knowledge-- how we know something to be true. I meant that we collectively agreed to abide by and enforce SCOTUS decisions because it makes building a society possible (legal sense), but they don't tell us what is and isn't "real" (epistemic sense).
• 14 August 2020: I wasn't there so I don't know for sure. But I had conversations with multiple women who worked there, and they all loved it while Travis was there, and hated it after he was forced out. Did you work at Uber?
• 14 August 2020: The claim was that C-level people knew about sexual harassment all over the company and encouraged it. Which I really don't think they did.
• 14 August 2020: That the claim that Uber was "structurally sexist" is horseshit.
• 14 August 2020: I'm saying even more than that-- Uber is amazing for the drivers. Drivers can stop any time, yet they don't. New drivers join all the time despite information being more freely available than ever. They're' clearly offering a better opportunity than literally everyone else.
• 14 August 2020: yes, because it's the only way to fix it
• 14 August 2020: Wrt to California government I'm an accelerationist. This is great news.
• 14 August 2020: Calls for #GeneralStrike in the United States. Demands: -Free money -Shut down energy sector -Disarm the opposition -End monopoly on force -Ban Christianity -Legalize arson -More projects -End STEM -Kill the rich -Start nationalizing businesses #GeneralStrike2020
• 14 August 2020: Thanks!
• 14 August 2020: There aren't any good ones because the axes aren't orthogonal :)
• 14 August 2020: Do you think there is any root to it beyond people trying to spread a way of life they prefer (on both sides)?
• 14 August 2020: "Suck drivers into a financing scheme and then drop driver fees such that drivers have to work all the time just to cover their financing costs, yet this information hasn't propagated in the age of the internet and thousands of new drivers still keep falling for it somehow"
• 14 August 2020: You don't believe that women are fundamentally not free unless abortion is a legally available option? "Control your own body" isn't how I'd phrase it-- it's more "control your own destiny without trading off sexuality", but I do feel that the question of liberty is at play.
• 14 August 2020: I suppose the evolutionary pressure is that cultures who cared enough about outgroup's behavior to go to war for it were more likely to spread than those that didn't. Which makes sense.
• 14 August 2020: But both groups could be happy if they chose to live their life as they want and leave the other group alone.
• 14 August 2020: The Supreme Court upheld segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson and then reversed it in Brown v. Board of Education. They're the ultimate authority in a legal sense, not in an epistemic sense.
• 14 August 2020: Unless other people aren't fragile too :-D
• 14 August 2020: I know, but it's a thing a bunch of people got together and made up. It's an abstraction that doesn't really fit natural reality very well.
• 14 August 2020: Ah interesting. That actually seems quite compelling to me. I don't think I understood the other explanation.
• 14 August 2020: Sorry, I don't see how that answer my question. What is the individual or group evolutionary advantage in caring about the out-group's sexual behavior?
• 14 August 2020: I'm asking from an anthropological standpoint, not legal. (As an aside, the constitution says nothing about this particular topic. The re-interpretation of due process clause is just made up to give the ruling an air of authority)
• 14 August 2020: Why would humans (or cultural values) evolve to care about sexual behavior of the out group?
• 14 August 2020: Rural women don't want abortion in their communities. Chastity is essential to their social incentives and way of life. Urban women want abortion in their communities. Promiscuity is essential to their incentives and way of life. But why demand compliance from each other?
• 14 August 2020: (And they're using the lower classes to make it happen)
• 14 August 2020: How many new banks start every year?
• 14 August 2020: The root cause is that the elites hate Trump so much for disrupting their plans for the new world order, they're willing to excuse arson, robbery, aggravated assault, and even murder just to get him unseated. 2/2
• 14 August 2020: Of course we should improve things. That's reasonable. But the statement that the police is the root cause of the carnage is absurd. 1/2
• 14 August 2020: Both of those are highly regulated. Like the unions, we've outlawed competition in those two industries, just by a different means.
• 14 August 2020: We’re a massive heterogeneous country of 350m people with 30k shooting deaths per year. You have to look at police action in that context.
• 14 August 2020: The assertion that police kill people in cold blood or disproportionately kill black people is completely unsupported by data.
• 14 August 2020: Show me a fat, bloated, uncompetitive industry and I’ll show you a union. If it were up to me I would bust these fucking things like my life depended on it.
• 14 August 2020: The distinction between “employee” and “contractor” is just a thing someone made up. It isn’t real.
• 13 August 2020: "Sister" is the new "comrade".
• 13 August 2020: And do you have any allergies?
• 13 August 2020: (Admittedly that was true about bad shows/films before the woke changes too. A good example is jar jar binks Star Wars era. If you didn’t know the character’s name/gender/race you could basically swap anyone for anyone else and not notice the difference)
• 13 August 2020: Something I find offputting about the woke shows is that the characters are bland blobs. You can swap in an actor of any ethnicity and it won’t make any difference. A notable counter example is Luke Cage. His ethnicity mattered to the story, which significantly enriched the show.
• 13 August 2020: Another example is that I know multiple women who said they’d prefer to work in Travis’s work environment than the bland corporate grayness in the post-Travis Uber. Doesn’t mean Uber is perfect or that anyone is defending sexism.
• 13 August 2020: No
• 13 August 2020: Hmm, I’ve been on it longer than that. Where is the invite feature?
• 13 August 2020: Do I have any friends on Clubhouse who can give me the power to invite folks?
• 13 August 2020: When all this is over people will recognize Terry for the voice of love and reason that he is.
• 13 August 2020: Will check it out, thanks!
• 13 August 2020: You’re welcome to point out how it isn’t factual.
• 13 August 2020: Not sure which way you mean, but this is a pretty factual description of what happened.
• 13 August 2020: 1. Create Uber from thin air. 2. Offer better work opportunity than literally everyone else to thousands of people who switch to driving for you. 3... 4. Get accused of worker exploitation.
• 13 August 2020: Is Kamala basically Cersei?
• 13 August 2020: Thanks, I'll listen!
• 13 August 2020: I know you reach a lot of ppl. But I can't understand how some people say racism and oppression is at the center of everything, while others say "eh, it's occasionally a thing but nbd". (You're not american but I see that here too). So I'd love to see a discussion like that.
• 13 August 2020: ooh cool, thanks for linking, I wasn't aware of this one. Trying now.
• 13 August 2020: Would really love to see a debate (or an interview) between Zuby/Candace and someone like Dave Chapelle. Without that it's just preaching to the choir.
• 13 August 2020: Thanks, I read some of that, that stuff's a goldmine. Also if you haven't seen it his Bear notes script to generate backlinks is really good. (I decided to do something slightly different though, will hopefully show it off soon)
• 13 August 2020: You mean supporting the argument that the axes are orthogonal?
• 13 August 2020: I read it, this book is great!
• 13 August 2020: Negligible. (But the odds of microblogging being overtaken by something else are higher)
• 13 August 2020: Both the road to serfdom and capitalism and freedom offer very compelling arguments, which is a hell of a lot better than nothing if you've read neither of the two.
• 13 August 2020: Re the 3x number, I read that here, which is admittedly a bit inflammatory because they picked a particularly bad week, but it's still insane.
• 13 August 2020: The same article also has this chart. One of the statistics is that there were over 60 shootings in one weekend, which is absolutely fucking insane.
• 13 August 2020: yeah I agree. It's a vertical but e.g. Google Photos has a much better paradigm IMO (though of course it's far from perfect).
• 13 August 2020: If we're totally honest it's not actually a replica. It's very different, but we appropriate some familiar concepts and stuck them on the new system to make the transition easy. But yeah, path dependence is huge.
• 13 August 2020: Maybe something by Mises? (I've never read anything by him) cc @ATabarrok
• 13 August 2020: I've heard two people say that capitalism<->socialism and democracy<->authoritarianism are orthogonal axes. What's the most accessible and persuasive book I can recommend that debunks this argument? I've never asked for this before, but it's incredibly important. Please retweet.
• 13 August 2020: I use feedbin for that. It's great.
• 13 August 2020: The reason it doesn't bother you is because you think it won't happen to you since you lean left. But we have politicians who support this and refuse to enforce civilized rules. In nyc violence is up 3x. It went from the safest city in America back to Taxi Driver in a few years.
• 13 August 2020: We collectively agreed on a set of rules. We battle out ideas in our living rooms, near water coolers, and on TV, and then go to the election booths and cast our votes. But the rules of the game have changed now. I can get fired for wrongthink. I can have my business burnt down.
• 13 August 2020: That isn't how Soviet dictatorship (or any dictatorship) arose. It doesn't start with an evil charismatic politician amassing unchecked power and terrorizing people against their will. That's the very last step. It starts with citizens terrorizing other citizens.
• 13 August 2020: This is an elected congresswoman's position on violent unrest. As far as I can tell, it's also the position of the democratic party. "Support our position or we'll burn shit down" is the definition of tyranny.
• 13 August 2020: The Russian revolution wasn't started by middle/lower classes. It was started by university intellectuals and upper middle class elites who took advantage of disenfranchised factory workers. Exactly the same way it's happening now (except now we bundled race into it).
• 13 August 2020: Do they burn buildings and destroy businesses in Norway and have half the government pretend it isn't happening?
• 13 August 2020: These aren't orthogonal axes. The Soviets weren't an abstraction that's different from us. They were just like us. They also didn't want Soviet-style dictatorship. Respectfully, you just don't know enough about how it comes to be. (And I also support universal healthcare)
• 13 August 2020: STUDY YOUR GUARD
• 13 August 2020: Doing that now, except the big pile of money part.
• 13 August 2020: Incidentally, you would never say "the caveman-level politics of democracy good, fascism bad" or "equality good, kkk bad". But somehow it's ok to call oneself a communist when these motherfuckers killed 20M ppl in russia alone, probably 100M in the world collectively.
• 13 August 2020: I still don't follow :(
• 13 August 2020: Yes, I think it's a very interesting direction!
• 13 August 2020: Our brains are messy. But good software primitives should be able to make that invisible.
• 13 August 2020: Well, if you create too many tags you forget which ones you have, and now you have to organize your tags. It's just too hard.
• 13 August 2020: BC?
• 13 August 2020: Me too! (emacs ido mode especially for fuzzy matching, it's amazing for just getting what you need in a few keystrokes). Works for code, but it's not so good for discovery I think.
• 13 August 2020: that's not really for me, I'm generally all in or all out
• 13 August 2020: but it sure does help
• 13 August 2020: (By "we" I mean political opposition abstractly, not you and me)
• 13 August 2020: 2/2 But politics isn't about policy. It's about power. I'm willing to play by the rules until murder rate goes up 3x and sitting senators refuse to condemn it. That's the point where all bets are off for me and we turn from competitors to enemies.
• 13 August 2020: 1/2 A (liberal) friend recently told me: "i think you're an almost reasonable person that's been pushed into a corner by the current environment". I would have 100% agreed with you six months ago.
• 13 August 2020: Can't do that for a few years, possibly more. I'm way more sensitive to these things than almost anyone I know. So I have to have everything in life aligned before I can embark on another adventure.
• 13 August 2020: Just looked up some stats: ~420m firearms, ~20m assault rifles, 8b rounds of ammo produced per year. Not so easy here.
• 13 August 2020: They steal labor and products of other people's labor. (It took me a long time before I could convincingly imitate a communist too, it's really hard)
• 13 August 2020: they meaning the guy i quote tweeted or they meaning me?
• 13 August 2020: god that's brilliant
• 13 August 2020: In the interest of bridging the political divide, @walkerb what do you think about this guy's stance?
• 13 August 2020: I gotta say, I read a lot of leninist literature back in my day, and even those guys (the ones who went on to murder ~20,000,000 people) weren't as batshit fucking crazy as modern radical left.
• 13 August 2020: Look at the schedule. Bigger discussions with celebrity speakers can be good. But also extreme IMO. For example, on clubhouse reparations are fait accompli, while only 20% of americans support it.
• 12 August 2020: ah poetic irony
• 12 August 2020: Yup. It is 100% not an accident and trivial to fix if they wanted to. Writing a custom client just made it obvious.
• 12 August 2020: A note-taking app. I'll show it off, but it's not meant for public consumption. Every design decision meant to fit my idiosyncratic preferences.
• 12 August 2020: Notes. If you write a lot and keep tons of notes around, they're impossible to organize. You may be right that "organizing information" is the wrong problem statement, and the solution may be specific to verticals. (Docs organization, like notes, still sucks)
• 12 August 2020: Thanks-- I might give it another try then.
• 12 August 2020: Yes, I like Roam a lot, but something still feels very incomplete.
• 12 August 2020: Thanks, I have. I think PARA is basically bullshit, like GTD.
• 12 August 2020: I think any solution has to be very simple. If you make it complicated like that, people just won't use it because it's the path of least resistance.
• 12 August 2020: Yeah, I think roam has done the most work in this direction. But it still feels messy.
• 12 August 2020: I think there is a good chance some kind of "least recently used" system is part of the solution.
• 12 August 2020: I once tried to write my own Twitter client. I gave up because they deliberately gutted the API. But I learned this in the process: 95% of "inflammatory" tweets in my timeline came from a tiny number of follows. Twitter could fix twitter in a week, had they wanted to.
• 12 August 2020: Looking for a backend engineer. Five years experience with Python and APIs. CS degree preferred. White only plz (but Asian candidates will do in a pinch).
• 12 August 2020: I’ve been thinking about UI primitives for organizing information (files, emails, docs). Folders kind of work, until they get messy. Tags barely work. Search works. But it still feels unsolved. There’s been little innovation in 15 years.
• 12 August 2020: Facebook is censoring the following link: (h/t @samuhyu)
• 12 August 2020: Aside from YouTube, Google is (very) slowly growing irrelevant.
• 12 August 2020: You're definitely right, thanks for pointing it out. Twitter brings out my worst possible self, but it's also fun as hell to use. I'm still trying to figure out how to use it without the demons arising from their psychotic depths. (With the current UI that may be impossible)
• 12 August 2020: Also, I'm really happy with Kamala as a choice despite this painful transgression on her part.
• 12 August 2020: This is a joke. I don't actually think we should amend the constitution to bar people from public office based on what they once had in their twitter bio.
• 12 August 2020: I'd like to propose a constitutional amendment. Anyone who has ever had pronouns in their twitter bio is permanently barred from holding a public office.
• 12 August 2020: To me vey means oi-vey :(
• 12 August 2020: You get zero incentive to do that. If you're advocating for the customer, you're effectively doing that on your own dime.
• 12 August 2020: what are they gonna do, cancel me?
• 11 August 2020: Evolution/maturation of thought. 1. Good vs evil 2. Good vs evil is an abstraction, it's all complicated forces 3. Hmm maybe good vs evil wasn't as off the mark as I thought
• 11 August 2020: @homsiT That's arguably true of all Stephenson books :)
• 11 August 2020: I have not (started it, but got distracted).
• 11 August 2020: I read HRC as more principled and more elitist. She wasn't just shocked she lost to Trump for vanity reasons, she genuinely believed her worldview is the only acceptable worldview. Kamala doesn't have either of these qualities.
• 11 August 2020: I don't think she has any values.
• 11 August 2020: My guess is that after the next election cycle all the local crazies will be out of a job. People basically don't vote, unless their personal safety is threatened, which it is now.
• 11 August 2020: I think she believes literally none of these things.
• 11 August 2020: I may be underestimating her. We'll see.
• 11 August 2020: To me she parses as a child who has the right attributes to be charismatic to a particular subset of the voter base.
• 11 August 2020: I would have preferred a candidate more grounded in economics, and more idealistic, but that wasn't even an option. Overall, I think we could do much, much worse. This isn't "ideal" but it won't be a communist clusterfuck like Bernie or Karen Bass. We'll be ok. 6/6
• 11 August 2020: Given this read, I think she'll steer America left, but she's smart enough not to go too far off center. Which translates to actually positive leftist reforms (i.e. healthcare). She's also politically ruthless and I'm not concerned radical left will trample over her. 5/6
• 11 August 2020: I read her as politically skilled, pragmatic, center-left ideologically, no strong values beyond power (and soon legacy). She knows where the wind blows, and knows how maneuver herself to harness it without going too far. She isn't insane like Warren, or naive like AOC. 4/6
• 11 August 2020: I wish Biden many years of life (as I wish to anyone), but there is a very real chance he will die, and a very real chance he cannot run anything in practice. So it's reasonable to treat Kamala as presidential nominee. What does that mean for us? 3/6
• 11 August 2020: It isn't like Trump picked Pence purely due to his skill and experience, or Obama picked Biden, etc. They just got a lot more brazen about it now. I'm not happy about that, but in the grand scheme of things when everything is going to shit, it's a small price. 2/6
• 11 August 2020: Unlike most right-leaning people, I find myself being happy with Kamala as the VP pick. People are upset that she was picked by skin color and gender. Theoretically that's a problem, but real talk, it doesn't matter. The pick has always been extraordinarily political 👇 1/6
• 11 August 2020: To clarify-- there best practices people developed around it. I avoid all the context binding stuff, so I don't know what they are (active JS programmers will be more helpful here). My explanation is sort of a meta explanation that doesn't really answer your question :-D
• 11 August 2020: Hope this helps!
• 11 August 2020: The best way to really understand all this is to write a toy programming language interpreter. You'll understand where call comes from, and context (which you refer to with this). Don't assume any of this was designed for the end user. They just had to ship fast.
• 11 August 2020: I other programming language (Python, Lisp) you don't normally see this because they had more time to file off the sharp edges. But they shipped JS in two weeks and then got millions of people using it, so they couldn't fix all this stuff. And now we're all stuck with it.
• 11 August 2020: So call takes a function and a context to run the function in. That's the this you refer to in the function. When you call call manually and give it a string, you "hack" into that context. Again, interpreter bones showing.
• 11 August 2020: Now, when the interpreter evaluates a function, the function needs to access global variables. A really quick and easy way to do it is to have a dictionary along with the function. When you refer to a variable, you just look it up in that dictionary.
• 11 August 2020: If you write a quick and dirty language interpreter, you'll have a call command that takes a function and runs it. You'll then implement foo(x, y, z) in terms of that command. It's also convenient to expose interpreter commands to the user, so you can also call call.
• 11 August 2020: Your confusion comes from an assumption you unwittingly hold. You think everything in JS makes sense. That's wrong. The guy wrote the interpreter in two weeks because they needed to get it in in time for launch. What you're seeing here are the bones of the interpreter showing.
• 11 August 2020: I once met Frank Drake at a talk he gave, and he spent quite a bit of time talking about this.
• 11 August 2020: I think this technology is unlikely to appear in our lifetime.
• 11 August 2020: They've already switched.
• 11 August 2020: No, this part makes sense. But there is definitely more to it than that-- many people believe sex change itself is impossible, period, and are digging in on that hill.
• 11 August 2020: The weaker argument that today's tech isn't sufficiently advanced to flip the bit seems reasonable. But the puritanical attachment to "SEX CANNOT BE CHANGED" is just dogma and a serious failure of imagination.
• 11 August 2020: Attachment to the idea that sex is determined at birth and can't be changed seems obviously misguided. I can easily imagine a future where we hot-patch DNA in vivo. In ~50-500 years that's likely. From there you can mentally backtrack to today. Our sex change tech is just shitty.
• 11 August 2020: That's an amazing quote, thanks! In my case it's @StevenSkiena.
• 11 August 2020: I'm doing so many linear scans that I'll "fix later", I can feel my algorithms professor's look of contempt.
• 11 August 2020: Jews are generally a matriarchal society. Powerful, dominant women, fairly submissive men.
• 11 August 2020: I think I don't quite agree with it either :) Israel is maybe a good counterexample, matriarchal society, but none of the symptoms we have.
• 11 August 2020: This is a beautiful headline.
• 11 August 2020: ah looks like portland
• 11 August 2020: where is this? can't figure out from the tweets
• 11 August 2020: Thanks, looks like I was wrong here!
• 11 August 2020: You're right-- I meant that they couldn't have put the names of just the few senators who really wanted it. Once you must put one, you must put them all.
• 11 August 2020: Everything seems planned, very little is organic.
• 11 August 2020: That's like going on a first date immaculately dressed trying to put your best foot forward, and then making a misogynistic joke.
• 11 August 2020: IQ tests are illegal in the US (I believe)
• 11 August 2020: but also true
• 11 August 2020: It shouldn't scare you. It doesn't mean gpt-3 is magical, it just means people aren't as unique as we like to think.
• 11 August 2020: I remember thinking the same thing when I heard it!
• 11 August 2020: It will do an ok job with three tweets.
• 11 August 2020: Yup, IQ tests are illegal (you might want to double check that, this is something I've internalized, but not 100% sure of the source).
• 11 August 2020: Also very accurate at estimating how sharp someone is. So congrats!
• 11 August 2020: Wow, I can't believe I hadn't considered that!!!
• 11 August 2020: Well, Drake was reasonably young when he did this, and the senators are naturally older. So they're probably all gone anyway.
• 11 August 2020: What I'd personally prefer is to give them raven's matrices and call it a day. But unfortunately that's illegal, so we give them a proxy for an IQ test and collectively pretend it's anything but.
• 11 August 2020: They don't put this in the history books, but it's something Frank Drake regularly mentions in his talks.
• 11 August 2020: Next time you're in the election booth, remember this. As NASA was choosing what to put on Voyager Golden Records in case of first contact, senators in both parties unanimously demanded their names etched on before permitting the launch. Yup they're still there on the spacecraft.
• 11 August 2020: thanks!
• 11 August 2020: Thanks. Specific reference? Also-- my only argument is that the character of war in a matriarchal society would be very different that the character of war in a patriarchal society. (Also jewish culture is matriarchal and sees none of our symptoms, so there's that)
• 11 August 2020: when covid is over or when the zombie apocalypse starts, either way there will be a lot of campfires
• 11 August 2020: You mention Jean-Pierre Dupuy/bootstrapping the future, and Jordan Hall's sovereignty after hitting rock bottom. Can't find anything on this. Could you point me at what to read?
• 11 August 2020: ya'll are misreading me
• 11 August 2020: irl I did open the cobweb door. Don't regret it, but definitely made my life dramatically more difficult and took multiple years to learn to live with the knowledge. Tread carefully, go into those things with trusted, experienced guides if possible.
• 10 August 2020: it's safe in here, except that mysterious oak door with cobwebs on it...
• 10 August 2020: @vicramon That's not what that means, though. Think of it as a 2x2 or possibly a d&d game-- female/masculine, good/evil. Feminine evil looks very different from masculine evil, which is all I'm saying.
• 10 August 2020: In e.g a work environment men will form an informal dominance hierarchy. Women will do the “ohhh haaai, so good to seee youu!!!!!” thing, and turn life into hell that way. The political environment rn resembles the latter IMO
• 10 August 2020: “When women run the world, there will be no war.” True, but there will be social justice. Peak nightmare of unrestrained masculinity is World War I and II. We’re now firmly on the path toward peak nightmare of unrestrained femininity.
• 10 August 2020: I am flattered, thank you. Perhaps that says more about the state of tech than it does about me.
• 10 August 2020: No, thanks for linking!
• 10 August 2020: I needed a view to operate on an arbitrary number of notes, so I implemented something similar to Emacs's Dired mode (in a web app). It's a pleasure to use. Wikipedia tells me Dired dates back to 1974. A 50 y/o UI, and it still beats everything I've seen to date (IMO)
• 10 August 2020: Politicians optimize for votes.
• 10 August 2020: To clarify: not just politicians, but politicians and bureaucrats.
• 10 August 2020: Maybe blame your politicians rather than businesses that have nothing to do with it.
• 10 August 2020: If you want to make it about race: Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot is black, police chief David Brown is black; School District CEO @janicejackson is black, city clerk Anna M. Valencia is a woman of color, city treasurer Melissa Conyears is black, 40% of council members are black.
• 10 August 2020: Fair enough. I'll wait and see and keep an eye open.
• 10 August 2020: I've made no such assumption. You're presupposing quite a lot by assuming I can't imagine a counterfactual world. Actually, I grew up in a world without billionaires (there were still elites, though).
• 10 August 2020: If the goal is gun control, they really got the strategy wrong. After current events, gun control isn't going away for a long, long time.
• 10 August 2020: Whatever you think about Trump, this is A+ trolling.
• 10 August 2020: That's actually a great question. Let me write smtg down.
• 9 August 2020: There may be some high profile woke restaurants protected by barriers to entry (such as Michelin stars). But if you look at the sector as a whole, wokism is tiny compared to e.g. universities. Markets can't solve everything, but they sure can solve a lot.
• 9 August 2020: this is excellent, thanks for linking!
• 9 August 2020: Incredibly sad. We may have to see another century of unthinkable tragedy before this sinks in.
• 9 August 2020: Ultra-progressive ideology only thrives in institutions that cornered the market and established impossible barriers to entry (universities, movie studios, tech giants, school boards). You don't see unconscious bias training in restaurant or textile business.
• 9 August 2020: Strongly disagree. Movie studios and universities have impossible barriers to entry, so there is no turnover. Schools are closer to restaurants-- cheap to start, quick to close. When's the last time you heard about unconscious bias training in a restaurant?
• 9 August 2020: 👇👇 (Good paper and bibliography on what's actually going on in the justice system-- . Definitely work to be done, and much to be gained with the right approach)
• 9 August 2020: 👇👇 (Good paper on bibliography on what's actually going on in the justice system-- . Definitely work to be done, and much to be gained with the right approach)
• 9 August 2020: 🔥🔥💯
• 9 August 2020: We don’t need any of this shit. We need vouchers. This (and many other) problems will then solve themselves.
• 9 August 2020: I tried to think of something, but that’s the wrong question for me (and lots of other people, I think). Of all my regrets, spending habits don’t even make the list.
• 9 August 2020: Same. In fact I use that as an alarm— if I start getting depressed I know it’s time to do it.
• 9 August 2020: I use a slightly modified LRU algorithm for this. Every few years I throw out everything in the L3 cache. It’s absolutely liberating.
• 9 August 2020: I'd recommend LKY bio. Not much on three letter agencies, but a lot on the fight against communism. And I suspect behind the scenes we did the same thing. Re counterfactual: yes. Also western european countries (did they help de gaulle?) and America itself.
• 9 August 2020: I think they contributed to USSR collapse. I don't know the extent of the contribution. More importantly: huge contributions to other countries either not succumbing or minimizing the damage. Including even the US itself.
• 9 August 2020: Strong disagree (I think perhaps the first major disagreement I've noticed I have with you). You're a horrible person and I'm gonna block and report you. Just kidding, I'm not insane and enjoy talking to people I disagree with :-D
• 9 August 2020: At least they gave us another fifty years.
• 9 August 2020: Yes. I wonder what transformation it would take. This obviously doesn't seem like an easy patch, it's something fundamental to the western idea. What would the west look like if this got fixed? I don't know, but I think it'd be very different.
• 9 August 2020: man that felt good, I'm gonna try to do it daily (we'll see if I'm imaginative enough)
• 9 August 2020: that's a really really good point
• 9 August 2020: I know you all think three letter agencies should operate by the book without exception, but you're all wrong. They were right to do shady shit domestically and internationally to crush the communist cancer, and they'd be right to do it again today.
• 9 August 2020: Would you support the US government doing shady shit to kill the cancer?
• 9 August 2020: Dear older people, You assholes raised this generation. What do you have to say for yourself?
• 9 August 2020: Who's your favorite standup comedian?
• 9 August 2020: It isn't a threat. I denounce violence in all forms except self-defense. But she is basically Trump of the left. Except much prettier.
• 9 August 2020:
• 9 August 2020: I'm guessing for most commodities latency can basically be arbitrarily low (within some reasoning bound, of course).
• 9 August 2020: We don't want to be western europe.
• 9 August 2020: me too!!
• 9 August 2020: Surely latency doesn't matter for a huge class of products, only throughput does?
• 9 August 2020: You're shifting the goalposts, that's a motte and bailey fallacy. I'm talking about your statement that people don't need more than a billion dollars.
• 9 August 2020: You're getting tons of responses, but none seem like legitimate showstoppers. This sounds like a great idea (with insane capital requirements, unfortunately).
• 9 August 2020: Shout out to . This project saved me many hours in aggregate time 😍
• 9 August 2020:
• 9 August 2020: All the guns are sold out. (Or rather, you can buy a gun, but beggars can't be choosers).
• 9 August 2020: The reason it's the wrong question is that literally every single country on Earth so far that had the hubris to try and collectively decide how much people "need" ended up with gulags. So you better have a REALLY good argument why this time will be different.
• 9 August 2020: Probably not, but I am saying that empirically countries without billionaires have no disruptive companies.
• 9 August 2020: You have to justify your claim. Out of a universe of questions, why is this the right one?
• 9 August 2020: I reserve the right to invoke godwin's law, say, once a quarter.
• 9 August 2020: Aside from the fact that some of these things (such as federal jobs guarantee, for example) are a horrible idea, wanting to do things doesn't qualify anybody for anything.
• 9 August 2020: I mean that it's "obviously" everyone who bought into it "obviously" seems stupid when you're safe, but not so stupid when you're in danger.
• 8 August 2020: I'm starting to think McCarthyism wasn't as clear cut as we were led to believe.
• 8 August 2020: I'm starting to think McCarthyism isn't as clear cut as we were led to believe.
• 8 August 2020: Forget the markets then. It's still pretty obvious that Bezos and Musk are adding enormous value.
• 8 August 2020: Perhaps in the short term. But the original argument is that after some point billionaires stop adding value. That's obviously false. (Market cap is just one indicator. You can look at others if you want.)
• 8 August 2020: so did hitler though
• 8 August 2020:
• 8 August 2020: Amazon is 26 years old. Do you think Amazon at 13 was exactly as valuable as Amazon now, and all the growth comes from monetary policy? Same for Tesla. Same for Facebook.
• 8 August 2020: If they aren't adding much value, why do market caps of their companies keep growing?
• 8 August 2020: The clouds just parted and an angel came down from heaven. He's about to completely erase the existence of one of the following four people. For some reason, you must choose which one.
• 8 August 2020:
• 8 August 2020: phew
• 8 August 2020: I dare @AOC to a public debate with me. Why me when she has so many high profile detractors? Because I haven't seen a single debate where anyone asks her the right questions. In this case: please point to one country without billionaires where the working class does well.
• 8 August 2020: Startup life. The struggle is real.
• 8 August 2020: is that me?
• 8 August 2020: My favorite euphemism for "no" in the VC world is "we will watch from the sidelines".
• 8 August 2020: What was notable about that comment is that he thinks of all of us as just votes. Not surprising of course, but it was an interesting temporary glimpse into the mind of a politician.
• 8 August 2020: Good luck!
• 8 August 2020: Nobody wants to play with commoditized Lego blocks, though.
• 8 August 2020: 90% of modem programming is like playing with Lego blocks. The other 10% is like playing with a cheap third-world knockoff of Lego.
• 8 August 2020: The experience seems simpler/nicer to me. It’s how I would have designed it (if I did a really good job). But if you already know Heroku, I’m not sure why you’d switch.
• 8 August 2020: Thank you. I already wrote a bunch of code, but it’s only like 200 lines. I’ll try it!
• 8 August 2020: I haven't played with it yet, but upon cursory inspection is excellent. Sensible, composable, clean, simple. Looks like an amazing offering.
• 8 August 2020: What's the community/experience of ham radio like? I've never gotten in involved in that, but from afar it looks like it may be the last bastion of sanity in a crazy world. What's it like playing with this?
• 8 August 2020: 🔥🔥
• 7 August 2020: There are only a few things humans want, and a million ways to get them depending on your strength and weaknesses. I try to understand that. That tells me what their incentives are. Once I know the incentives, I can predict most of their behavior. (Also their big 5 and IQ).
• 7 August 2020: I want the administration to be 100% managed.
• 7 August 2020: This isn't meant for production. It's meant to give people an opportunity to quickly start using the API.
• 7 August 2020: Where did you go?
• 7 August 2020: But the question is what to do when you respect it but the counter party doesn’t. Then it’s not so easy.
• 7 August 2020: Not yet.
• 7 August 2020: Here is an example: when I created a firestore they let me not worry about security rules and told me they’ll automatically turn them on in 30 days. Nobody comes close to a touch like that, and it’s just one thing.
• 7 August 2020: After some investigating, Firebase beats everyone else on developer experience by a huge margin. There isn’t a close second.
• 7 August 2020: You mean Sun Tzu? Don't recall this in Tao te ching.
• 7 August 2020: It doesn't matter that that's all we are to them. We're just money to a business, and yet businesses work great. I don't need politicians to care about me in their heart. I need them to do their job.
• 7 August 2020: Just, you know, totally normal stuff.
• 7 August 2020: Source:
• 7 August 2020: Joe Biden's diversity comments were factual. Only 8% of black americans vote republican. By contrast, 28% of hispanic americans do-- a factor of 3.5X! He's a politician; all he thinks about is votes. He said exactly what he was thinking, and in this case he is correct.
• 7 August 2020: "If you're worried about things you can't say, why don't you just say them?" is roughly the same as going back to 2005 and saying "if you're worried about IE 6 stifling the web, what are some examples of missing features?"
• 7 August 2020: Thanks for writing this @bryan_caplan. Much needed.
• 7 August 2020: i'll try it now if you let me in
• 7 August 2020: programmer time
• 7 August 2020: I'm blown away by how mediocre almost everyone is at e-mail to this day. Supposedly "polite, terse, personal, to the point" is common knowledge everywhere you look. But most emails are still the 2020 equivalent of "Dear Sir/Madam, it has come to my attention that.."
• 7 August 2020: Programming in React is a ridiculous amount of fun. (Caveat: with hooks only.)
• 7 August 2020: It is.
• 7 August 2020: Good communication is a useful tool, as is crushing your enemies. They always tell you about the former, never about the latter. Get good at both.
• 7 August 2020: There are at least three stories I can tell here, and some day (possibly really soon) I will.
• 7 August 2020: Equally true in love, friendship, business, and politics.
• 7 August 2020: Aella nails it. Also, from life experience-- go to great length to understand people. It's always good. But when you sense they don't extend you the same courtesy (even though they say they do), fuck 'em. Walk away if you can, crush them if you can't walk.
• 7 August 2020:
• 7 August 2020: @nolnholdn Yeah, it's really really good.
• 7 August 2020: Just like a landing page or an investor pitch-- give me the information I need when I need it in the right order, without drowning me in a bunch of irrelevant details.
• 7 August 2020: Yes. They also have twenty services that seem to do the same thing. What's the difference? Ah wait, there is no difference, they were just built by different teams who never talked and probably don't know or care that the others exist. Which one should I use? Call a friend.
• 7 August 2020: FIrebase and Digital Ocean docs are also great.
• 7 August 2020: Looking into some basic cloud services and the docs are horrendous (aws, gcloud, doesn't matter). By comparison, Stripe docs are absolutely incredible. I was going to say "given its size", but actually, no. They're incredible period.
• 7 August 2020: Sure. But starting at the median is a reasonable step 1.
• 7 August 2020:
• 7 August 2020: Don't need transactions. It doesn't need to be super fast, but a reasonable latency would be nice.
• 7 August 2020: Holy shit is that true?
• 7 August 2020: Storing JSON blobs, roughly 200b - 100kb in size. Only ever need to access by key, no other queries. Mostly writes, occasional reads. Doesn't need to "web scale". Ease of use/dev+deploy experience very high priority. No other data to store.
• 7 August 2020: Great list, thanks!
• 7 August 2020: Once you get enough fundamentals in. A good CS degree, basically.
• 7 August 2020: What are some examples and anti-examples?
• 7 August 2020: Basically all of them. React and any associated library, Node.js, AWS services, etc.
• 7 August 2020: People who complain representation is centered around cis white men never invite folks like Thomas Sowell, or Janice Brown, or Andrew Sullivan, or Blaire White, or Shelby Steele to their "diversity" panels.
• 7 August 2020: When we put our culture through a crucible and burn away all the noise, we aren't just left with one thing. It's more like a binary star system.
• 7 August 2020: With modern developer technologies it takes a couple of hours to start doing what you want, a couple of days to become proficient, and a couple of weeks to hit the inflection point of productivity. Learn the fundamentals and don't worry about the noise.
• 6 August 2020:
• 6 August 2020: But why is it so difficult to acknowledge our concerns? I acknowledge your concerns even though I've never myself experienced them, and am willing to work toward a solution. Why don't I get the same courtesy?
• 6 August 2020: “I didn’t know how big of a deal throwing explosives at law enforcement was”?
• 6 August 2020: interesting, thanks for linking!
• 6 August 2020: no, thanks for the recommendation!
• 6 August 2020: Don't go after people's children. It's a low blow and there is no need for it. Their policies speak for themselves.
• 6 August 2020: An interesting analogy I haven't seen before. Also somehow very comforting.
• 6 August 2020: Thought the same thing the moment I saw the logo :(
• 6 August 2020: We can't even agree whether arson and aggravated assault should be illegal anymore.
• 6 August 2020: React, emotion, pullstate, material-ui, slatejs. Storing data locally for now; will have to figure that out soon.
• 6 August 2020: React. Not even thinking about mobile.
• 6 August 2020: Teach