Andy Sen @senandy

Why did POTUS suddenly pivot from "unconditional surrender" to a deal at any cost in Iran? TL/DR it's the interceptors, stupid. - it takes Lockheed >two years and $5-15m to make a missile interceptor - i.e., $10k drones take a $5m missile to defeat - our forecast was that a) the population was going to rebel and b) we’d quickly take out the missile launchers - But: Iran murdered 50k protesting citizens before our forces were in place; we didn’t defeat the launch capability as fast as expected - we were facing down dwindling interceptor supplies - 50% of patriots are gone and 80% of Thaad interceptors are gone. They cannot be replaced in a relevant timeframe - if we actually ran out of defenses, US and allies in the region would be slaughtered— and the US would be facing a historic defeat - we're already rationing interceptors, which is why our soldiers died in Jordan last night and why there are no more Patriots in Ukraine. - in this context we try to make any deal you can — regardless of cost. Pretend it’s about gas prices if we must. So we are losing this war. Badly. And what really lost the war was the fucked up defense supply chain that can’t make munitions in a relevant cost or timeframe — and we have no technology that defeats the enemy in an economically sustainable way. This is why advanced anti drone and advanced missile defense is so critical. Personally I am bullish on directed energy intercept, particularly space-based directed energy. Regardless of specific technology, we must be able to build interceptors faster and cheaper than any enemy can build offensive weapons. Against China right now we lose. Badly. It isn’t even close. Fortunately we are learning this lesson against Iran not against China—and there is still time to pivot and fix the US industrial base, but only barely.

I just never get tired of re-reading this.

Of course Americans need air conditioning It's 93 degrees in Dallas today, but only 40 degrees in Paris We'll let the Americans continue to destroy their environment and warm their side of th eplanet We're good over here in Europe

It really is PERFECT that several elite economists just spent several weeks debating - with detailed data/charts/analysis/etc - US/EU wealth & living standards, & then a bunch of goofy European tourists simply tweeted abt a Texan gas station & settled the debate in 30 seconds 🤣

a lot of people need to update their mental model of SF the city still has problems, obviously. but most neighborhoods feel clean, lively, and pretty safe these days as long as you stay away from the Tenderloin and some BART stations. The AI boom has been a real blessing for San Francisco

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Referees and the competition committee help craft and enforce the rules that create the conditions for the NBA’s success, but no one thinks they make more important contributions than LeBron James.

Ro Khanna @RoKhanna

2 months ago

The greatest builders were the architects and perfectors of our democracy. The leaders who shaped the laws of the nation created the conditions for liberty and our economic success. Rockefeller or Musk do not rival a Lincoln, FDR or Washington.

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Between 1982 and 2020, the number of the 100 richest Americans who got rich from inheritance decreased from 60 to 27. And yet on the left they think the mid 20th century was the good old days, because economic inequality was lower then. paulgraham.com/richnow.html

222K likes. The fixed pie fallacy is probably the single most destructive delusion on the planet. The belief that wealth cannot be created—only distributed—has done more than any other to stop people from lifting themselves and others out of poverty.

Ro Khanna @RoKhanna

2 months ago

The greatest builders were the architects and perfectors of our democracy. The leaders who shaped the laws of the nation created the conditions for liberty and our economic success. Rockefeller or Musk do not rival a Lincoln, FDR or Washington.

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Today feels like a good day to reshare this clip of Ariane Aerospace’s CEO calling SpaceX’s reusability plans “a dream”

The Spurs know how to TAKE the lead, they just don't know how to HOLD the lead. And that's really the most important part of the lead: the holding

I says something about my fellow Californians that the most sensible electable candidate--Matt Mahan--is in single digits. Not something good.

InteractivePolls @IAPolls2022

3 months ago

CA Governor (@SteveHiltonx internal) 🟥 Steve Hilton: 25% (+5) 🟦 Tom Steyer: 18% (+5) 🟦 Xavier Becerra: 15% (+12) 🟥 Chad Bianco: 12% (-2) 🟦 Katie Porter: 7% (-2) 🟦 Matt Mahan: 7% (-2) 🟦 A. Villaraigosa: 1% (+/- change vs March) —— @EchelonInsights (A) | 5/18-21 | 800 LV

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5 gallons of water = → $132 from data centers → 2¢ from almonds One powers AI, auto safety, space exploration, medical research, banking, and innovation. The other is a mostly exported (75%) snack from drought-prone California fields. Resource allocation in one chart.

Smirkley @Smirkley

3 months ago

A 5-gallon water cooler jug of water produces about $132 in economic output from data centers, but only about 2 cents from almonds.

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SpaceX is only ~200 satellites away from having launched as many satellites as the rest of the world combined (despite giving the rest of the world a 61-year head start)

rien ne ressemble plus violemment au choc de revenir en Chine et de réaliser à quel point l'occident est devenu une civilisation qui demande la permission avant de construire à Shenzhen un gamin de 20 ans qui a une idée à 8h du matin a un prototype fonctionnel à 18h le même jour, dans le même temps un diplômé français achète une formation à 1500 euros pour apprendre à valider son idée avec un canvas notion qu'il ne montrera à personne, attend l'avis de 4 mentors linkedIn qu'il n'a jamais rencontrés, lit 12 livres sur le lean startup pour bien comprendre la méthodologie & 6 mois + tard le hamin chinois a vendu sa boite à Tencent pendant que le français en est encore à choisir le nom de son LLC sur shine je pense que le vrai problème CULTUREL c'est qu'on a appris aux jeunes occidentaux et notamment aux européens que l'entrepreneuriat était une recette de cuisine, ouvrez le bon livre m, suivez les bonnes étapes obtenez le bon résultat alors que que personne ne sait rien, personne n'a jamais rien su et tous les empires industriels de l'histoire ont émergé d'une combinaison de hasard de séréndipité et d'une seule personne qui a juste commencé sans avoir compris d'avance pour rappel Brian chesky (Airbnb) a loué son matelas gonflable parce qu'il ne pouvait pas payer son loyer, Zeng Yuqun de CATL a démonté des batteries dans un garage de Shenzhen sans savoir où ça allait le mener et la vérité c'est que l'illusion du plan parfait est le mécanisme de protection psychologique préféré de ceux qui ont peur de commencer le meilleur conseil que j’ai à vous donner ici c’est juste de commencer, ouvrez votre laptop ce soir et codez la version moche de votre idée, soudez vos premiers prototypes même mal foutus dans votre garage, lancez votre premier produit avec un site web hideux, vendez votre premier service à un client trouvé sur un groupe Telegram… vous comprendrez en 3 jours d’action concrète ce que vous n’auriez jamais compris en 3 ans de réflexion abstraite, le seul algorithme qui a jamais fonctionné dans toute l’histoire de la création humaine c’est commencer mal mais itérer rapidement, échouer publiquement, apprendre violemment & recommencer en mieux foncez comme des bourrins sans vous poser 36000 questions parce que les questions trouvent leurs réponses dans le faire jamais dans le penser et soyons honnêtes sur le vrai blocage, ce qui paralyse 90% des aspirants bâtisseurs c'est le regard des autres beaucoup plus que le manque de compétences, la peur de paraître stupide aux yeux de la famille des collègue ou des amis on préfère ne rien tenter et garder la dignité sociale plutôt que d'essayer et de risquer le ridicule public, c'est exactement le mécanisme qui a tué l'industrie française depuis 30 ans et qui continue de tuer chaque trimestre des centaines d'idées brillantes dans les têtes de gens qui n'oseront jamais les sortir si vous êtes dans un environnement social qui rit des gens qui essaient je ne peux que vous conseiller de juste changer d'environnement, déménagez dans le bon endroit mais sortez de l'écosystème qui vous tire vers le bas je suis persuadé que la seule chose qui sépare aujourd'hui un bâtisseur d'un commentateur c'est le courage de paraître stupide pendant 18 mois en échange d'avoir construit quelque chose qui compte pendant les 30 années suivantes bref je pense que j’ai UNE NOUVELLE FOIS été trop long mais vraiment entourez vous avant tout de weirdos qui construisent, qui échouent, qui recommencent, qui passent leur temps à itérer & surtout qui ne demandent pas la permission et qui se foutent de ce que pense autrui dites vous que dans 10 ans vous serez la moyenne pondérée des 5 personnes avec qui vous passez le plus de temps, choisissez les donc comme vous choisiriez les fondations d'une maison qui doit résister à toutes les tempêtes de votre vie

Friendly reminder, Hinton is the same guy who told us this: "We should stop training radiologists now. It's just completely obvious that within five years, deep learning is going to do better than radiologists.". That was six year ago. He was right about the AI. Wrong about the job. AI already reads scans better than any human. Six years after this nonsense prediction we have more radiologists. That's because Hinton and many others just fundamentally misunderstand that tasks are not jobs and that the job of a radiologist is also interacting with patients, being a light in darkness, providing hope and warmth and care and a thousand other things. Again we need to stop listening to these folks. I cannot say it enough, just because this fellow is brilliant with AI does not mean he has any clue how it will impact society. None. Zero.

Rohan Paul @rohanpaul_ai

4 months ago

Geoffrey Hinton on AI's job loss: History’s tech revolutions replaced one job with another. e.g. Tractors replaced farm jobs with factories & office jobs. But AI will break that cycle, because AI can replace both physical+intellectual labor.

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This is the story of Hyperliquid, the most profitable startup per employee on earth, told from a guarded office in Singapore. Last year, its team of 11 generated $900 million in profit. It's 3 years old, has never taken a dollar of venture capital, and is beginning to change how century-old markets work. Its founder, Jeffrey Yan (@chameleon_jeff), had never taken a physics class when he picked up a textbook at 16. Two years later, he won gold at the International Physics Olympiad. In 2019, he started trading with $10,000 from a living room in Puerto Rico—working off a television because he didn't own a monitor. Within 3 years, he was running one of the largest anonymous crypto trading firms. Then he shut it down. Yan was rich and free, but he had spent years inside crypto, watching it betray itself. Bitcoin's central premise was decentralization. Yet the biggest exchanges were centralized. Crypto kept reintroducing the dependence on trust it was built to eliminate. He set out to create what should have existed. Hyperliquid is a blockchain with a trading exchange on top, and anyone can build on it. Yan's vision is to house all of finance. In 3 years, it has done over $4 trillion in volume. And in the past few months, it has begun to outgrow crypto. Markets for oil, silver, and the S&P 500 now trade on Hyperliquid around the clock, weekends included, and are growing roughly 40% week on week. When the US and Israel bombed Iran on a Saturday in February, Hyperliquid was the venue traders turned to. Hyperliquid's success has cost Yan his freedom. He works out of a secret office in Singapore and cannot travel without two bodyguards. Even the team's housekeeper doesn't know what they do. In January, @domcooke spent a week at their office. Read his profile on Yan and @HyperliquidX below.

Notice in every city where crime is down (most cities), there's no reduction in poverty, no improvement in educational outcomes, no end to systemic racism, no massive increase in affordable housing. If I didn't know better, I'd think those things are unrelated to crime fighting.

Austin Justice @AustinJustice

4 months ago

San Francisco is now a model for how to fight crime. A few years ago it averaged 86 car break-ins per day. Today: 15. SF did two things: 1. Got a DA that prosecutes criminals: Following the successful recall of Chesa Boudin, DA Brooke Jenkins started prosecuting prolific

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This is actually an amazing point. SF should've built way more housing over the years, but I can be sympathetic because it's genuinely a beautiful historic city. But it's absolutely insane that San Jose, in the literal Silicon Valley, doesn't look like a Chinese mega city.

P. Newman @ElonMuskIsAFag7

4 months ago

@YIMBYLAND The sadder thing is the surrounding cities. Maybe there is something special about San Francisco that is worth preserving , but what the hell is the excuse for San Jose. SJ should look like Shenzhen.

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Rich got richer; poor got richer.

Marian L Tupy @Marian_L_Tupy

4 months ago

FACTS, NOT FEELINGS: In 2024, about 19% of American families were considered “poor or near poor,” according to the AEI report, down from about 30% in 1979. wsj.com/economy/more-a…

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The average American today lives better than John D. Rockefeller did in 1926. That is not an exaggeration. It is a fact. Rockefeller could not fly across the country in five hours. You can for $200. He could not video call his family from another continent. You do it for free. He had no antibiotics, no MRI, no air conditioning in July. He could not carry every book ever written in his pocket. You are reading this on a device that does all of that and more. Americans throw away 30-40% of their food. Not because they are wasteful, but because food is so abundant that waste is affordable. Your car has climate control, navigation, and safety systems that did not exist at any price a century ago. Your home has heating, cooling, refrigeration, and entertainment that emperors could not have imagined. None of this was voted into existence. None of it was redistributed from the rich. It was created by free minds operating in what remains of a free market. Every comfort you enjoy today is the product of a man who thought, invented, produced, and traded voluntarily. This is what the remnants of capitalism still deliver, even while it is being dismantled. Imagine what a fully free society could build.