Ben retweeted
Everyone imagines communism will free them to write poetry while someone else enthusiastically maintains the sewage system. Your economic model is “what if everyone else had fewer dreams than me.”
unavailable
Ben retweeted
the law required the restaurant to build 14 parking spots, the spots cost more than the kitchen, the burger is $19, and the guy eating it is mad at inflation. he drove there. he parked for free. the free parking is in the burger
Ben retweeted
Pro Waymo, pro data center, pro nuclear, pro solar, pro train, anti zoning, pro housing has to be one of the most correct and unelectable combinations in America
Ben retweeted
twitter has always had this incredible ability to create a “apparently everyone is saying…” talking point, based on the opinion of a singular fifteen year old
Ben retweeted
It’s funny, motocross at the White House is, like, fine with me. But here’s an example of something that is genuinely unforgivable but that a lot of people seem to have moved right past.
Ben retweeted
A lot of people have started saying that the "AI uses all the water" meme started with Empire of AI. I think this is definitely wrong, and what actually started it was the Washington Post article from 8 months earlier claiming that each ChatGPT prompt used a whole bottle of water.
This kicked the meme into the stratosphere. There are so many infographics made about AI mentioning that it uses a bottle per prompt, so many thousands of popular videos and images where someone holds a bottle begging people not to use AI. It got so much news coverage.
My claim in my new post (link below) is that I've found extremely strong evidence that this claim was based entirely on napkin math that ignored lots of simple things we knew about the hardware and software running GPT-4, and if you just account for those the cost drops by 50 to 200 times. This shouldn't have ever been allowed to influence the discourse at all, never mind get an infographic made in a major newspaper.
I think the Washington Post should either retract or correct the original article and make it clear that it was based on napkin math, or publish the methodology. The authors have never made it clear how they got the number, and if I'm right it shouldn't have been allowed to ever be the basis for a claim this strong.
Ben retweeted
Okay here's my argument for exactly how I think the "AI uses a bottle of water" statistic looks like it was miscalculated. It's a little in the weeds. Link below
Ben retweeted
Another way to look at this: Kamala Harris won more votes than any Dem presidential candidate, ever, in NV, NC, GA and WI... but Donald Trump won more than any candidate of either party, every, in those four states.
Ben retweeted
Hey just a reminder: If you want your favorite accounts to get off Twitter, you have to follow them somewhere else first. The sad reality of modern media is that a lot of creatives are contractually obligated to keep their most influential social media accounts. Unrelated pic.
Ben retweeted
The second thing that jumps out is that, in the states where Harris and Trump campaigned the hardest, Harris overperformed. And she overperformed in Wisconsin most of all.
Ben retweeted
Thanks to tens of thousands of heroes—our candidates, the campaign, party infrastructure, allies, and volunteers—we persuaded and turned out even more voters for Harris than we did for Biden in 2020. We lost Wisconsin by just 0.9%—the smallest margin of any state in America.
Ben retweeted
“You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.”
Happy birthday, Carl Sagan ⭐️
Ben retweeted
Just to clarify: this isn’t just the first time since WW2 that all incumbent parties in developed countries lost vote share.
It’s the first time since this data was first recorded in 1905. Essentially the first time in the history of democracy (universal suffrage began in 1894).
Ben retweeted
The narrative that "Dems lost 15 million voters who simply didn't show up" is wrong, and you shouldn't say it.
It was an election lost mostly on persuasion, not turnout.
