Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
how much is hollywood to blame for our elevation of antiheroes to positions of potentially catastrophic authority?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
[new draft post] Alignment is confinement https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2025/05/08/alignment-is-confinement/index.html
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
( riffing off of @michaelnielsen.bsky.social )
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
i ripped off the band-aid, and there was nothing underneath.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
"Even if we preserve our jobs, we are sacrificing our profession." www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/o... ht @trillymopena.bsky.social @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
Opinion | West Point Is Supposed to Educate, Not Indoctrinate
Link Preview: Opinion | West Point Is Supposed to Educate, Not Indoctrinate
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
fast work, conclave.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
at the time the stakes of Trump's second impeachment did not seem so high. of course he should have been convicted and removed, obviously. but Repubicans' cowardice felt like passing the buck on a symbolic act, rather than putting the republic at risk.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
China seems very capable of replacing Western products, even the ones where we still claim to define the technological frontier. It would be good if we were similarly capable. Tariffs won't get us there, at least not on their own.
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Yesterday, I wanted to confirm that "Gambling Device" by Frank Herbert, was the short story I remembered about a hotel that forbade gambling. So I asked Claude and ChatGPT for summaries. They so confidently made stuff up, I assumed I misremembered. 1/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Thankfully, archive.org lent me a collection containing the short story, which I quickly reread. It was, of course, the story I recalled, not the stories Claude or ChatGPT had hallucinated. /fin
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Text: There’s been an enormous amount of discussion about what holds back markets in physical commodities like housing and energy, but also what prevents innovation and invention. One argument is that there are too many government-generated rules and regulations that slow everything down. Another is that the absence of government structuring leads to private regulations, imposed by dominant firms on their own terms to often exclude rivals and extract money. When those private regulations are forced into remission, markets can explode with new products and offers. That’s happening right now in real time in the market for mobile phone apps, and particularly the distribution of those apps to customers. It represents the first real, thorough, and permanent consequences to a Big Tech company for monopolizing markets. And literally within 24 hours of a federal court’s Wednesday ruling imposing sanctions for this misconduct, competitors have been rushing into the space in ways that will make the market fairer, more affordable, and more abundant.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
🧵
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
if we were not idiots, gen AI would be driving us to turn colleges into Socratic spaces. everything would be in-person, synchronous, analog. writing would be blue book. we’d discuss (rather than rate) one another’s work. any “homework” would be productive projects, for which use of any tool is fine.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
is Noah Smith’s portrayal of China’s not-so-great quality of urbanism fair? www.noahpinion.blog/p/thoughts-o...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
we might think of this Trump Administration as an experiment, “What if we tried just being a dick to everyone?” the results of the experiment are beginning to pour in!
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Masked ICE agents are going to detain the Financial Times. www.ft.com/content/f5fd...
The west’s shameful silence on Gaza
Link Preview: The west’s shameful silence on Gaza: The US and European allies should do more to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
if the US is a store and he sets the prices, i guess it’s a consignment store and he sets the commissions?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
[new draft post] The asset side of the balance sheet https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2025/05/06/the-asset-side-of-the-balance-sheet/index.html
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
into what do your recreations recreate you?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
i’m less interested in saving humanity than i am in saving the humans.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
“sure, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter in interpreting the Constitution. but the President is the final arbiter in interpreting the Supreme Court!”
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
my body is operated by a homunculus who lives behind my third eye. but of course it needs to rest, so it has a staff of junior homunculi who take over. anything my body does that seems bad was done by staff. i don’t know anything about it.
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