The really cynical person and the really docile person have one thing in common: they never make a bold move.

"Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money." —Nat Friedman

Kevin Kelly is a very wise futurist. Here are some ideas I like from his appearance on David Perell's podcast:

I've just published my thoughts on Nir Eyal's book Indistractable. I especially talk about how I reduced my sugar intake using the techniques from the book: alexbensimon.me/thoughts/indis…

Why so many people with a startup idea never ship

what if the real constitution was the friends we made along the way

Have been experimenting with giving ambitious kids money to just build cool stuff, calling it “tiny grants”. I held a contest on TikTok and Venmo’d $200 to this kid who used it to build a 5ft rocket with on-board camera. I think we can scale this model up, here’s how:

Pseudo-intellectual pessimism is the most expensive status symbol.

Your family is weird [credit: evoboek.nl]

1/ On the EU Giving Up I watched a panel on AI (machine learning) at a conference hosted by the European Commission. 9 people on the panel Everyone agreed that the USA was 100 miles ahead of EU in machine learning and China was 99 miles ahead except for those who believed...

Thread: some still open contradictions in my thoughts and my values, that I have been thinking about but still don't feel like I've fully resolved.

It's fascinating what's happening on the Midjourney Discord forums. Here's some highlights:

Feast your eyes on the beautiful spiral structure of the Phantom Galaxy, M74, as seen by Webb in the mid-infrared. Delicate filaments of dust and gas wind outwards from the center of the galaxy, which has a ring of star formation around its nucleus. esawebb.org/images/potm220…

Gary Bernhardt I'm excited to stop writing code and start writing machine-readable specifications of precise intended behavior

most of you have lost the plot

From a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behavior, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition. #21lessons

Imagine a team of the best physicists in the world. Now imagine a team of the best basketball players. Do these two groups look the same? Is it racist that they don’t? What about the top 50 empathetic nurses vs top 50 IT support personnel? Is it sexist how interests and skills

the day i stopped minecraft is when i realized i could do it IRL

Election, debate, polymarket, etc Focus on yourself We have a future to build