Anyone can live a long, kind, and meaning-filled life from inside the event horizon of the technological Singularity.

I don’t know how I watched the Norm Macdonald documentary without noticing he has a copy of BLOOD MERIDIAN on the arm of his chair, but given his friendship with Cormac McCarthy, I think it makes sense.

That's a beautifully well-worn copy. Speaks to his love for great literature, as if there were any questions after his own book

New essay: Most can see the beginnings of the singularity and can envision some ends. It's like chess. Openings are planned, endings are solved. Even Magnus Carlsen is left simply calculating from where he lands in the middle. What's the middle look like? garfield.report/middlegame/

Ironic self-own of a magnitude scarcely seen.

Alignment is hard. "I do everything I say - word for word." Seems at least plausible Holmes really does scrupulously follow some weird goodhearted idea of honesty. Maybe something like: "never say anything provably false". Which probably looks good on a lot of evals.

Elizabeth Holmes is guilty of her fraud becoming legally fraud due to not continuing long enough— in the world of venture capital, the whole point is saying stuff like “we can make self-driving cars” & the proviso being “granted that we can continue to raise funds toward that end.” That whole world is about utilizing fraud (fictitious capital) toward scaling a speculative fiction to the degree that it “becomes real.” She’s not in some subjective sense lying, as she believes “in the idea” of that possibility being brought into reality through herself (this is the sense of herself she imposes upon herself after being raped as a freshman in college). She devotes her whole life to this idea & this is her sense of self— so what’s interesting about the film is that she does not lie, but she does lie (silently) to herself about the people around her that she has chosen to offload “pragmatic concerns” to— that enables her to be “clean” of these things, but “it’s not about the money”, moreso it’s about maintaining this absolute faith in the concept she has of her destiny in life etc. Most cult leaders believe in the fraud they commit— to preach the messianic age is to say “this will be true for everyone someday.” The problem with these types is that they enable their shields to get away with anything. She holds loyalty to the cause above her own concerns. It’s a very tragic situation— as she’s also almost definitely on the spectrum to some degree— so her whole adult life is this performance, to herself, of being self-composed & devoted to her quasi messianic mission of saving the world etc. If this belief collapses, her entire psyche would shatter into a million pieces. She is both the femme fatale & the dead girl in one person— this is what makes it such a compelling film noir. It’s beautiful that she will never give up on her quest, her faith, her belief etc— if she truly believed herself to be a fraud, she’d have taken a plea deal.

受け身なブラッシング

Unpopular opinion, Billy was right about the eggs but wrong about the bowl.

SPOILER This. I fucking knew this would happen. From SFGate, predictably. They won’t be the only ones. My jaw was literally agape during this scene, you can ask my neighbor. I know people like this. I love people like this. I love them despite and because of this. I wonder if this film critic does. If not, this was the opportunity to develop understanding. Take it or leave it. To anyone who has, Billy’s reaction was 1000% relatable. And for Nathan, this is a turning point as he comes to the same realization. One of many turns for him. It’s unclear exactly where he ends up, but in considering the closing line of the film, I thought back to this moment. I think he started to care here. For me, seeing someone who doesn’t get any of this, and calls it a “skin-crawling attempt”. I see them the way Nathan sees Elizabeth in this scene. You’re missing something, and you don’t even know it. I can’t figure out whether to feel disgusted or sorry for you. You’re writing about this subject, and you namecheck a “mindset,” but you don’t understand the first thing about it. Even after having this exploration injected directly into your frontal cortex for 3 hours. I guess I do feel sorry for you.

Best review I have ever seen they should put this on the posters. 😂

I would storm the gates for you right now @ElizabethHolmes That movie radicalized me. A society this intolerant of difference cannot be suffered

Before you go posting your You Can See Everything/Elizabeth Holmes takes, let me see your take after the trailer. And remember as trailer is to documentary, documentary is to a life (even less so).

I do not understand how people use Haiku and Sonnet effectively. Whether directly, as a subagent or with an advisor. Whether from Claude Code or from chat. Or even Opus on medium and below. Is there something idiosyncratic about how I use them? Anyone else like this?

AI risk generally is not a scam obviously. Is pacing the frontier? New essay garfield.report/quiet-week/