@maxwesti
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Here for AI, marketing, and operations wisdom but easily distracted
Texas, USA
Joined October 2010
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Vlad Frolov retweeted
This is insane.
Oil exports from the Persian Gulf are almost back to pre-war levels.
Meanwhile, Iranian exports have literally hit zero.
Blockading Iran’s blockade actually worked.
Iran can’t stand this for much longer.
Vlad Frolov retweeted
NEW 🚨 @JTLonsdale and Reuters reporter debate AI & warfare:
"You play the war games, you test the autonomy... rather than 'decide ahead of time what our morals are and then just lose the battle'… That's stupid. That's not how war works."
Joe Brock: There was a Russian drone attack in Ukraine this year that's been cited as the first fully autonomous, AI-guided attack. That means it's capable of identifying and striking a target without a human operator making the final decision. Is the technology mature enough for the United States to field weapons that can independently identify and strike targets?
Joe Lonsdale: So I actually would push back on that characterization. If you go to the 1980s and you saw how our ships were equipped with near-range guns that would take out incoming attack objects, even then those had computers in control of the last mile, because a person would not be fast enough to see something coming in a battle, move the gun, and take it out.
So even for 40 years, we've had systems that are controlled by various levels of machine learning. Do I think AI is sophisticated enough that it should be managing an entire battlefield, deciding where to attack and how to attack? No, I think that's ridiculous. I think humans should be in charge and in control of all of these things.
But the way we think about battle and war is you play war games. So if you had a war game, and we have a thousand different Saronic vessels with our naval vessels over here, and we have whatever adversary over here with a bunch of their stuff, and you're going to fight, you can do the war game and you can see: well, you probably do need to give at least some amount of autonomy to some of these systems during a battle. Otherwise you just lose.
So I think these things are very empirical. It's not "do we decide ahead of time what our morals are, and then just lose the battle?" You should be doing the war games. You should be testing it out, and it should be dynamic based on the technology and the safety. And the answer is going to change every year: how much you're willing to give to what systems, during what types of battles.
Do we have to be extraordinarily careful about this? Of course we do. But it doesn't mean you just lose the war game because one side uses something your side doesn't. That's stupid. That's not how war works.
Vlad Frolov retweeted
Hello I'd like to take out a loan, here's my application
That's right, $150,000, I know it's a lot but it's a good investment
My business plan? I'm planning to study poetry and bang art hoes for four years
Why are you closing your laptop
Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/NmmAzhf
Replying to @ConceptualJames
Vlad Frolov retweeted
This is an interesting framing, because what the Department of Education is actually doing is prohibiting students from taking out federal loans it knows they won’t be able to pay back.
The “predatory” ones.
Prohibiting federal subsidization of financial ruin and bad debt.
Vlad Frolov retweeted
The Georgia Democrats running for Senate, Governor, and Lt. Governor all went to private school or sent their kids to private school.
Jon Ossoff – The Paideia School
Keisha Bottoms – Woodward Academy
Josh McLaurin – Westminster
Now they're against school choice for others.
Vlad Frolov retweeted
I’m strongly aligned with Peter here: this is a rare and intellectual form of courage.
Be willing to competently do good work that’s needed, but that others won’t because it is branded by default as evil by the NPC’s, despite being hugely positive for our society. 🧵
Okay. I’ll take the bait.
I went to work for Peter in 2013 with opposite politics.
He sat me down right at the beginning.
PETER: “I don’t want the (Thiel) Foundation to do good that the market can do. That is the job of the market. Likewise, I don’t want to do the good work that is seen as good. That work can be done by people richer, weaker and more needy of approval than we are. I want us to do only the work that is *deeply* good but somehow confused for being evil, because that is the work of the courageous and the strong. We strive to be both and that is where a small foundation can make the greatest positive difference. Go look for such good and let’s do that. But remember. Good has TWO different antonyms. What is “bad work”? It could be seen as shoddy work. Or it could be seen as evil work. And we can’t do shoddy work. Why? Because evil that isn’t competent never gets to be evil. It’s just pathetic. So we have to be exceptionally competent at the good work which we do to make sure it is always confused for evil.”
I thought it totally logical. So that’s the argument. And that’s classic Peter.
This is an old idea of his. And now you know.
Vlad Frolov retweeted
How radical is Islam in the West?
What do Muslims think about blasphemy, homosexuality, Jews, Sharia Law...?
How compatible are their views with Western ones?
I looked into ALL the data I could find on the topic. And this is what it says:
Vlad Frolov retweeted
The bioethics circle jerks during the Human Genome Project, which were allocated 5% of the project's funding, were a total waste of time.
They had countless conferences and workshops imagining bad things that could happen like punitive health insurance rates based on genetic risk, none of which actually came to pass. Meanwhile all the real issues that arose from ubiquitous DNA data, like accidentally doxing your criminal relatives with your own 23andMe data, were never imagined.
It's a condemnation of the precautionary principle. Philosophers can make up all sorts of hypothetical scenarios in a vacuum but it's nothing like actually trying things and seeing all the weird second and third-order consequences that emerge and *then* dealing with the unwelcome ones.
I've been suspicious of the philosophers hired by Anthropic who specialize in AI ethics for similar reasons that I'm skeptical of those who went into "bioethics": they form a closed subculture that delights in clever arguments without regard to the human suffering that can result. | ‘Suicidal Compassion’: Meet the Anthropic Officials Who Think AI Might Be Justified in Going Rogue Against the Humans Enslaving It freebeacon.com/america/suici…
Vlad Frolov retweeted
It’s impossible to make something free for a government. I wish we would ban the use of that word. She’s saying she will take some people’s money to pay for this. The incentive is to buy votes, not make things better. That’s too hard.
Vlad Frolov retweeted
As we enter the age of AI, robotics and widespread automation there is zero reason for more mass immigration of low-skilled labor…
Immigration at this point in American history should be extremely restrictive.
The constant decel messaging in Europe is insufferable as an adult, but its effect on kids is worse. As a parent, it's your obligation to counterprogram this nonsense. Show them robots, rockets, and wonders of AI. Show them cathedrals and moon landings. Instill hope in progress.
Vlad Frolov retweeted
It’s rare in life that the truth is so extremely one-sided that it becomes a basic intelligence and awareness test.
Vlad Frolov retweeted
If you can stomach it, this is what protesting for freedom under an authoritarian regime looks like. Free Iran. Fuck The DSA and every other performative protestor in America.
Bring back insane asylums, workhouses, and vagrancy laws. There's nothing kind or compassionate about letting mentally-ill drug addicts roam the streets like 28 Days Later. And it makes for a terrible city experience for everyone else too.
Leftist:
But without government, who will look after the poor?
Me:
Before the welfare state existed, working-class men cared for the poor without the need for your tax dollars.
Friendly societies and fraternal lodges, groups like the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Ancient Order of Foresters, covered millions of Americans and Britons by 1900. They paid sick benefits, death benefits, and contracted physicians called lodge doctors, who charged members roughly $1 to $2 annually for full medical care. Competition kept those doctors honest. Members fired physicians who underperformed.
The state destroyed this ecosystem, specifically through the 1911 National Insurance Act in Britain and its American successors. The British Medical Association lobbied hard to eliminate lodge practice because those contracted rates embarrassed the profession. Government handed doctors a captive market instead.
By 1920, lodge medicine was gutted. You lost the ability to fire your provider, lost transparent pricing, and inherited a bureaucracy that answered to politicians, not to you.
Mutual aid societies solved the knowledge problem that central planners cannot solve. Members lived near each other, worked the same trades, and could detect fraud immediately. A sick neighbor either was sick or wasn't. No bureaucrat 400 miles away can make that call.
David Beito documented all of this in his 2000 book "From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State." Voluntary association produced accountable, affordable welfare. Government produced dependency and cartelized medicine. The substitution caused a theft of function.
Any government wants its people dependent on it, not on some social society.
I was surprised how bad it was just walking from the hotel to the Rails World venue. One strung-out guy wanted to fight me for some reason, another was swinging wildly and swearing profusely. Lots of zombie vibes too. Whatever Austin is doing, it's not working.
2017: Austin spent $35 million on homelessness. 2,036 homeless counted.
2025: $118 million. 3,238 homeless.
Spending more than tripled and homelessness went up 59%.
If you service the homeless lifestyle, you will get more of it.
The NGOs that run this system get paid by the problem of homelessness, so they have no reason to end it -- in fact, their only incentive is to make sure the problem grows.
Vlad Frolov retweeted
This brutal slaying from yesterday is actually getting attention, as the victim was a highly-regarded pediatric doctor, but the details of the savage scene that unfolded near Pittsburgh, PA - and the ongoing insanity of our "justice" system - must be fully articulated.
In the overnight hours between Wednesday night and Tuesday morning, a Black criminal - already out on zero-dollar bail for first-degree felony burglary and third-degree felony theft - broke into the home of a White 46-year-old doctor named Idris Evans and his family.
The soon-to-be killer, Black 32-year-old Elijah Hemingway, ascended to the third floor of the home and entered the bedroom of Idris and his wife, Gina, as the couple slept.
Kitchen knife in hand, wearing nothing but his underwear, Hemingway attacked Idris and Gina while screaming about himself “being God.” Upon the couple's rapid awakening, a brutal struggle unfolded in the bedroom. The scene was described as extremely violent, with broken furniture, smashed mirrors, and blood covering the floor and walls.
As Hemingway repeatedly plunged the knife into Idris and Gina Evans, Gina screamed aloud to awaken their 8 and 12-year-old children, bellowing for them to flee the house. The children did, and escaped unharmed. Gina eventually managed to escape, as well, surviving multiple severe stab wounds and lacerations.
Idris, however, bled out and died in his own bedroom where, minutes before, he had been peacefully asleep with his wife, hours from awakening for another day of duty at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
It's too early for autopsy results, so a full inventory of the injuries inflicted upon Idris is unavailable.
Elijah Hemingway is charged with criminal homicide, attempted homicide, aggravated assault, burglary, criminal trespass, and possessing instruments of crime.
The argument used to successfully expand the no-money bail policy Hemingway was out on was framed in explicitly racial terms, focusing on claims of an inverted reality in which the justice system gives preferential treatment to White defendants. Groups including the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Abolitionist Law Center argued that cash bail was - can you guess - “racist!”
They pointed to higher incarceration rates for Blacks, and the need to change that, as though it's not an observable fact of reality across the whole of planet Earth that Blacks commit crime at the highest rates, and are thusly incarcerated at higher rates - all despite the system being OPENLY manipulated in their favor.
And, of course, it worked. As it always does.
Consequently, Elijah Hemingway was free to wander the streets, wander into the Evans' home, wander up to their third floor master bedroom, and viciously slaughter a beloved White children's doctor.
America: DEI until you die.
(In an endless onslaught of one-way interracial homicide.)
"People aren't ready, this is gonna change everything"
You know what people weren't ready for? Fucking mammoths. Tigers eating them. Monkeys ripping their arms off. The black plague. The ice age. Smallpox. Vikings pulling up on the beach. Drinking water that gives you diarrhea until you die. Getting a scratch and losing your whole leg. The Mongols. The Spanish Inquisition.
One volcano can send us back to the dark ages and these safety guys are gonna be shocked. Oh the robots didn't kill us? It was a volcano? Imagine their disappointment as the hot ash rains down on them.
A solar flare is gonna explode your phone in your pocket your legs are gonna be covered in battery acid and your bank account will stop working. You're afraid of a computer program doing math?
"Things are moving too fast" homie you live on a rock that periodically deletes everything. You are one the most luckiest entities in a 100 light year radius living during a golden era. Cheer up.
My ancestors crossed an ocean in a wooden box because they ran out of fucking potatoes.
"The social disruption will be enormous!"
Nigga World War 2? World War 2? Hop in the people carrier we're landing on the beach.
Are these people out of their fucking minds? Do they not know what we've survived already?
A couple decades of air conditioning and people suddenly think oh this is the natural condition of mankind. No. We used to have eight kids because seven didn't make it. You're gonna be fine. Man the fuck up.
Accelerate.