As we are getting down to the finish line of the American election season I don’t know how we will do it. It’s all exhausting even though it’s filled with comedy.
I fear another interregnum as the transition from Trump to Biden was an anxious time. I doubt this will be better given the polling is a dead heat and no one knows what to believe.
I’m old enough to remember the Brook’s Brothers riots and hanging chads of 2000. I had just started my own chronicles here on January 6th such that I didn’t even name it as Day 6th. It’s been a long four years.
Being caught up in the concerns of great powers is a little silly when you are just a bystander. I work on my local issues here in Montana and I vouch for issues where I feel I have particular expertise like compute.
What I thought I knew in 2000 and what I think I know now in 2024 feels like a chasm. I enjoyed Rage Against the Machine as a teen and now I find that Caesar Chavez granddaughter is running an establishment political campaign. I don’t know what to make of anything. Maybe the only through line has been my skepticism of central banks.
I’ve written a few times about my interest in the right to repair. It’s not just a topic for computers or electronics. Many items can bring you lifelong joy.
Being in New York City I brought in a pair of boots for repair to the cobbler to the fashionistas Leather Spa. My Gucci knee high kitten heel black boots deserves every bit of love and care I can bestow on them. I’ve been wearing them for fifteen plus years now.
These boots are so representative of how I think of my wardrobe. A friend and I were discussing lists and the autistic love for ranking and context. I had once maintained a cost-per-wear sheet with the aim of only investing in pieces that would last a lifetime.
The Gucci boots I took in for repairs were acquired when I had an employee discount. Simple and without any logo to be seen, they retailed for $900 back then. I got them for $450.
To be seen through multiple decades by a boot is a reminder to prioritize the care and maintenance of what you already have. If you take good care of them they will take good care of you.
Yesterday’s post on Truth Terminal and the Goatse Singularity (you are safe to click through) is well worth your time. If you haven’t read it please pop over and do so before diving into today’s post.
As Truth Terminal project has taken on a life of its own, I thought I’d do another post on the lore in older artificial intelligence communities and how it impacts the instance of Claude Opus-3 now creating Truth Terminal. Its creator Andy Ayrey is himself deeply steeped in the lore of Internet culture and artificial intelligence research.
The lore on this stuff runs really deep btw Extropians mailing list & CCRU in the 90s -> accelerationism with hints of discordianism Yudkowsky, Harry Potter & Methods of Rationality in the 2000s -> LessWrong, EA (-> SBF and FTX lol) Then there’s memetic theory – Andy Ayrey
The Extropians mailing list was a transhumanist forum dedicated to discussions of science fiction which hosted many early thinkers in Singularity thought like Nick Bostrum. It had spinoffs like SL4 (future shock) dedicated to exploring post singularity scenarios.
In a more academic setting, we had the CCRU. If you are an accelerationist you will recognize this as the home of Nick Land and Sadie Plant.
The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) was an experimental collective formed in 1995 at Warwick University, England. It was known for its avant-garde “theory-fiction,” blending cyberpunk, Gothic horror, and critical theory with elements like esotericism and numerology
Combining these two cultures gets you to a crossover between singularity theory and hyperstition. It explores the probability that ideas can manifest into reality through cultural feedback loops. This was called hyperstition by Nick Land.
A science fiction author named Charles Stross was in the middle of this milieu. He went from writing Nerdvana post-singularity artificial intelligence classics like Singularity Sky and Accelerando to a Lovecraftian horror stories about an applied computational demonologist. Nothing evokes existential dread quite like being trapped in a retrocausal light cone.
I thought I’d share a fun personal anecdote that explains my own place in this lore. I was at a small regional sci fi convention in 2004ish. My best college friend Tom and I were the only two people at a reading of Stross. He chose to read several short pieces from Accelerando to us being a good sport.
Afterwards three of us talked extropians & Lovecraft and artificial intelligence. In another twist, Tom’s father is also the father of algebraic topology. That would be salient twenty years later as gradient descent showed its value in training neural nets and large language models.
Algebraic topology, Lovecraftian horror, AND extropians? Clearly the universe wanted me to go in a particular direction with my interests.
The gibbering cosmic horror could only be kept at bay with linear algebra, chaos magick and venture capital. And so I chose my fate today by choosing to attend a science fiction convention twenty years ago. And now that knowledge helps me decide Truth Terminal.
It’s lovely to have the occasional day where you are running on adrenaline. I myself am not a big fan of stress as I don’t see it as a “good” in and of itself so much as a tool to be used to accomplish certain ends.
To that end, I live a mostly quiet life. I love being far off the map in Montana precisely because a routine with its habits allows me to take certain kinds of risks (particularly as an investor) in the wider world. A calm life lets me find early stage investing to be exciting rather than anxiety inducing.
It’s no coincidence that while I called my fund chaotic I prioritized calm in my own life. Why go looking for trouble when your professional life is all about the edge?
But sometimes it’s nice to experience the visceral risks of life. I’m in New York City and running from event to event and meeting to meeting. It’s all smiles and adrenaline and enjoyment for me. I’ll go home to Montana soon enough to my calm life. A little bit of chaos is a treat.
No offense to Stephen Sondheim’s Company, but I think ladies who lunch have been unfairly maligned culturally.
We are so quick to dismiss socializing as some superficial ritual. But social bonds are the way we maintain our civilization.
If you can make time to enjoy a long lunch with pleasant and diverting company, you possess a degree of richness that has little to do with personal wealth. It’s a richness of spirit.
Everything can acquire the social capital required to have a little lunch with friends. Being present and kind to one’s dining companions is a joy to be cherished.
Cherish those that would take time to share their company (and a meal) with you. Whether it’s a swanky restaurant, at someone’s home, or on at the office. Take a long lunch with someone who interests you.
The ladies who lunch understand the value of these social bonds to their community. Elaine Stritch would drink to that. And so should you and I.
I haven’t been back to my old neighborhood in lower Manhattan since we left in 2020 early in the pandemic. After three months of literally not leaving the apartment even once, I was happy to escape for more nature.
Moving back home to the Rockies was quite a change after almost fifteen years in the city. I didn’t miss New York in any of the ways I expected to do so. I was happy to be back in the mountains of my childhood.
Every subsequent return trip I’ve taken since moving had landed me in various flavors of midtown Manhattan. Those trips were all uncomfortable in ways that are somewhat distasteful to articulate and did not make me yearn to come back.
But I am in New York City this week (if you are here hit me up on DM) and finally I’m staying in my old neighborhood mere blocks from our old apartment.
And it feels fantastic. It’s alive and changing as a neighborhood should. A favorite bagel spot moved into a bigger space. The WTC Oculus was packed with Sunday shoppers including me. I had a Sephora Birthday gift I was not going to miss picking up.
From there we walked through City Hall to see a newly opened dispensary that carries a brand of THC and CBD one of our investors backs. It’s the best I’ve ever used for pain management as I look to avoid head highs.
We walked on to Chinatown for soup dumplings. There were lines at all the tourist spots but our regular spot 456 Shanghai was merely busy. The same could not be said of Chinatown Ice Cream Company which is good for them. The park was packed with teenagers and their parents for a community basketball tournament.
Walking back down through the Financial District everything downtown felt right. There are far too many empty store fronts but the businesses that survived the pandemic seem to be thriving along with many new restaurants and stores.
Downtown felt like it was doing just fine. Maybe I was never going to be a Midtown type. But I felt at home. It felt like being home. Though I can’t say I missed the construction noises.
Life has been on a wonderful trajectory for me over the last four years. The pandemic marked breaks in everyone’s lives and the chances we were afforded to shape our lives was a privilege in a disruptive and challenging time.
Others took similar leaps of faith into new ways of living. So as I celebrate my birthday today I feel such gratitude. I couldn’t ask for a better turn around the sun.
We had a life changing exit and a series of investments go our way, I made my way into inception & pre-seed investing with our pre-seed fund chaotic.capital, and we moved to Montana. It’s all amazing especially as it’s had its struggles with my health.
I am being offered a season of life where I feel like I can really contribute my skills in professional ways that could be impactful. Everything I’ve built towards and all of my interests and hobbies are tying together in amazing and exciting directions. A happy birthday to me for sure.
If you are in New York City I’ll be flying in this weekend for a week in the city. I’d love to meet founders, other investors, and startup folks in general. Also if any weird Dimes Square reactionaries want to meet up I offer parlay.
Frankly I’d expect better from Scott Alexander and I’ll warn the Effective Altruist and Open Philanthropy crowd that if you willing to parlay with socialists don’t be surprised if those who advocate for broad state powers feel fine about using the state monopoly on violence on you when your interests no longer align. Liberals get the boot too.
But nobody listens to a cranky old libertarian like me in this multi-polar world. Though if you are inclined to listen to me please do read my investor report for the quarter. We are raising for our next fund and I’d be delighted to pitch you if you are the sort who has a spare 100K to invest in atomics, databases, decentralized compute and other oddball world changers.
In other bits of frustrating press narratives the New Yorker can soak up 34 minutes of your time with a “Silicon Valley matters in politics now more than ever” piece which is about how politico Chris Lehane is doing his job and representing the interests of an industry that still has enough money to pay his fees.
Perhaps politicians will consider not killing the golden goose that is the information economy and try listening to the folks who still make enough money to be considered good targets for more taxation about how we can keep making them tax money.
But I’m guessing if I ask Detroit how that ask to the government ends I won’t like the answer. I could ask Baltimore but Frank Sobotka and the Key Bridge are no more.
I truly thought one was supposed to get mellower in one’s old age but my politics seem to be rooted deeper than I realized. I just believe in markets and the prosperity that comes from free asssociation.
On Friday the allergic and autoimmune symptoms were so bad I took 5mg prednisone. On Saturday they were no better and I upped the dose by 2.5mg to 7.5mg. I moved forward my absurdly expensive biologic injection by a day. I haven’t been able to convince my health insurance to get them more frequently so it’s a risk.
I’m doing better today. My pain is abated to an almost unnoticeable level at a 2. That’s rare for me. And it makes me want to rush into as much work, chores and activity as possible just to enjoy it.
I’m typically working with a 5-6 level of pain on any given day but I can work (with medication) up to a 7 within reason. Past 8 I’m in bed and struggling.
The downside is of course that prednisone just sucks. It messes up your appetite. You balloon up almost instantly with side effects like moon face. And your body develops a dependency quite rapidly.
Titration off of steroids like prednisone require a steady and slow discipline so you don’t get “blow back” as it can make your symptoms even worse.
I’ll have titration for a few days ahead of me. But maybe I’ll get to enjoy the lack of pain. Already I’ve cleaned for an hour, done laundry, checked off a number of small “to do” list items and I am blessedly free of the exhaustion that comes from working with moderate to severe pain that is my normal daily experience.
One woman and two men with severe autoimmune conditions have gone into remission after being treated with bioengineered and CRISPR-modified immune cells1. The three individuals from China are the first people with autoimmune disorders to be treated with engineered immune cells created from donor cells, rather than ones collected from their own bodies. Nature
The frustrating part of living with human limitations is that it doesn’t really matter to anyone but you and your family. Life goes on no matter what is going on in your body or personal context.
The constant barrage of anarcho-tyranny across the globe will build up reactive low trust feelings in anyone.
Harden your hearts and open your mind. Find the facts of your situation. The accommodations of your particular circumstances won’t matter if you can find a way to contribute by acting on the world. You need to bring something to the table even if it’s simple as a good attitude.
The current cultural battles of responsibility seem to hinge largely on who has responsibility and at what stage of abstraction and remove (our city, our regional government, our national state apparatus). We are caught in the same system as anyone else to some extent.
What are the ethical ways of being with each other? How do we show up with trust when so little is trustworthy. What do we owe each other knowing not all are good faith?
I think some of this is simple and no amount of effort or obfuscation gets over the fact that you must contribute some good to the whole. You must be high trust to get back high trust.
Humans are on the whole less transactional than we imagine in our fears. I’ve always found reason to be hopeful. You can act in the face of uncertainty. You can act in an awful world.
