ENTJT, seasteading, psychometrics, social apps, zeppelins, determinism, intentional communities, e/acc
Berlin
Joined July 2021
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jan (e/acc) retweeted
🧵 We spent €100K on one event. The goal: meet M&A targets we had never spoken to before. Here’s what happened:
jan (e/acc) retweeted
>be me
>discover effective altruism
>apparently normal charity is inefficient
>why donate to random sad thing when spreadsheet can tell you optimal sad thing
>fair enough
>buy mosquito nets
>save lives
>numbers look good
>feel powerful
>couple years later
>someone asks an innocent question
>why only count people alive today
>huh
>future people matter too
>obviously
>my grandchildren shouldn't matter less just because they haven't spawned yet
>reasonable.jpg
>keep following logic
>what about their grandchildren
>also yes
>what about people in 500 years
>sure
>5000 years
>why not
>500 million years
>starting to get weird but morality is morality
>open calculator
>humanity could survive for an astronomically long time
>could colonize galaxy
>could have trillions upon trillions of descendants
>maybe digital people too
>maybe simulated civilizations
>maybe dyson spheres full of happy uploaded minds
>calculator starts smoking
>realize currently living humans are rounding error
>8 billion people suddenly looking extremely beta
>future contains potentially 10^something people
>can't even fit beneficiaries in google sheets
>new moral priority unlocked
>protect the long-term future
>stop thinking in units of "people helped"
>start thinking in "fraction of cosmic endowment preserved"
>malaria?
>terrible
>but only kills existing humans
>AI extinction could delete the entire light cone
>nuclear war could permanently derail civilization
>bad institutions could lock in terrible values for ten million years
>someone invents wrong constitution in 2140
>quadrillions suffer
>better fund governance workshop now
>friend says maybe we should improve hospitals
>explain opportunity cost
>friend says hospitals are full of actual sick people
>explain scope sensitivity
>friend stops inviting me to dinner
>need to decide what to fund
>easy
>expected value
>suppose project has one in a million chance of preventing extinction
>sounds tiny
>but extinction destroys 10^50 future lives
>multiply
>mother of god
>$10 million project has expected value of several galaxies
>charity evaluation complete
>someone asks where the one-in-a-million number came from
>expert judgement
>which expert
>us
>how calibrated
>extremely thoughtfully
>reduce estimate to one in ten million to be conservative
>still beats curing cancer by 38 orders of magnitude
>epistemic robustness achieved
>someone says maybe project doesn't work
>assign 20% chance
>still astronomical
>maybe project makes problem worse
>assign 5% chance
>still astronomical
>why 5
>because 30 felt pessimistic
>publish 46-page report
>contains seventeen sensitivity analyses
>every sensitivity analysis begins after assuming intervention has positive sign
>critic says you're multiplying enormous hypothetical stakes by extremely uncertain probabilities
>yes
>that's literally why it's important
>critic says the uncertainty might be structural rather than numerical
>make probability smaller
>critic says no, I mean maybe your model is wrong
>make probability smaller again
>critic begins rubbing temples
>discover AI safety
>perfect longtermist cause
>AI might kill everyone
>or create utopia
>or seize galaxy
>or tile universe with paperclips
>or create billions of conscious software minds
>finally a problem with numbers big enough for me
>start AI safety nonprofit
>mission: prevent dangerous AI
>hire smartest people available
>smartest people immediately start building better AI to understand dangerous AI
>interesting
>we must understand capabilities to understand safety
>we must scale models to study alignment
>we must race ahead so less responsible actors don't get there first
>we must deploy systems to learn how deployment can go wrong
>we must build the thing quickly because building the thing quickly is dangerous
>outsider asks why the people most worried about AI apocalypse all work at AI companies
>complicated field
>company releases stronger model
>very concerned
>company begins training even stronger model
>extremely concerned
>company raises $14 billion
>concern reaches unprecedented levels
>need to influence government
>future is at stake
>normal democratic process too slow
>politicians don't understand exponential curves
>public doesn't understand x-risk
>experts must guide them
>who counts as expert
>people who understand x-risk
>who understands x-risk
>our friends
>someone objects that this seems politically convenient
>explain we're representing future generations
>future generations unavailable for comment
>develop concept of value lock-in
>terrifying possibility that one ideology controls civilization forever
>therefore extremely important that civilization adopts correct values before lock-in
>whose values
>let's circle back
>begin with impartial morality
>end with small group of people deciding what quadrillions of hypothetical beings would want
>beautiful arc
>meanwhile actual humans keep doing annoying things
>voting wrong
>having parochial attachments
>loving family more than strangers
>caring about local community
>getting upset when told their suffering is cosmically negligible
>evolutionary biases everywhere
>explain that moral intuition cannot be trusted
>except intuition that future digital people count
>and intuition that extinction is uniquely bad
>and intuition that our probability estimates are sane
>and intuition that our institutional choices improve the future
>those intuitions survived peer review
>someone donates $5k to local homeless shelter
>inefficient
>could have funded 0.0000000000003% of an AI governance researcher
>think of all the simulated people you just killed
>okay maybe don't phrase it that way publicly
>PR team says "future generations deserve a voice"
>much better
>journalist asks what longtermism means
>say "future people matter"
>everyone agrees
>great
>journalist asks what follows from that
>well technically we should redirect enormous resources toward low-probability interventions affecting astronomical futures
>journalist raises eyebrow
>return to "future people matter"
>motte has entered the chat
>critic: of course future people matter
>me: glad we agree
>critic: I don't agree that your institute knows how to help them
>me: why do you hate our grandchildren
>eventually notice uncomfortable implication
>if future value dominates everything
>then helping people today mostly matters through effects on future
>education matters because future institutions
>health matters because future productivity
>democracy matters because future trajectory
>human beings slowly become instrumental variables in their own moral philosophy
>see starving child
>feel compassion
>check spreadsheet
>child's direct welfare contribution negligible
>but perhaps childhood nutrition improves national institutional quality
>compassion restored
>tell myself this is impartial altruism
>one day assistant asks obvious question
>"how do you know your intervention actually improves the far future?"
>silence
>open spreadsheet
>increase column width
>add confidence interval
>assistant asks again
>"no, I mean how do you know the sign is positive?"
>stare into cosmic light cone
>10^50 people staring back
>none of them exist
>none of them can tell me
>none of them can falsify my assumptions
>realize I have invented the perfect constituency
>infinitely important
>completely silent
>and always represented by me
jan (e/acc) retweeted
Major life hack: Don't complain, ever. Nobody likes a complainer. They drain the energy of everyone around them. It's exhausting spending time around someone who constantly complains about things outside their control. If it’s within your control, go do something about it. If it’s not, you’re just wasting energy thinking about it. Complaining gives too much power to the thing. Take back that power.
jan (e/acc) retweeted
Buena is expanding into banking.
Reimagining how properties, homeowners & tenants bank in the future.
If you want to shape this future and then roll it out to our 70.000+ customers, DM me.
jan (e/acc) retweeted
At Buena, we studied our industry all the way back to 1754 BC and turned what we found into a multi-story exhibition in our offices.
Seeing how property management has been an enabler of cities, progress, and capitalism across centuries is what drives us every day.
One of the most concerning signs for me when investing in a founder is if they do not know the history of their space.
You need to know who has tried this before?
What approach did they take?
Why did it not work?
What did they do that they should not have done? What did they not do that they should have done?
Bonus: Speak to the people and learn first hand from their experiences.
The best founders are students of the failed history of their space.
jan (e/acc) retweeted
This is what Europeans are willing to sacrifice on the alter for their eco calve: Their sleep, their productivity, their learning, and their life. Fits well with the other forms of suicidal societal tendencies flourishing in much of the old world today, sadly.
jan (e/acc) retweeted
4chan is suing the UK government over their speech laws. The opening is quite something.
jan (e/acc) retweeted
We burned $14M, were weeks away from bankruptcy. Today we have $25M ARR and are announcing a $58M Series A.
All in a span of 1.5 years.
Here's the story:
jan (e/acc) retweeted
The typical Sunday at Buena. While Berlin is closed, our office is open. If you're an operator/founder in Berlin looking for a place to co-work on Sunday, shoot us a message.
jan (e/acc) retweeted
If only they’d done this sooner - we could be charging our iPhones with one of these right now.
It’s time for THE charger.
Today, the USB-C becomes officially the common standard for charging electronic devices in the EU.
It means better-charging technology, reduced e-waste, and less fuss to find the chargers you need.
#DigitalEU
jan (e/acc) retweeted
# Letter from Jin-Yang
## Translated from Mandarin
Dear Mother and Father,
America is broken now. Everyone is crying. Even more than before. Special crying for special people who are not special.
Erlich Bachman is still dead in Tibet. This was my best lie. Now everyone here tells worse lies but calls them truth. They say "my truth." Not real truth. My truth better. Erlich Bachman dead. Simple.
Everyone in Silicon Valley is apologizing. So much apologizing. More than Chinese Communist Party requirement. Even Japanese think it's too much apologizing. Richard Hendricks apologizes 500 times per day. New record. He cries when he pees now.
I take over Erlich Bachman's incubator. Now I call it "Cultural Exchange Innovation Space." Americans love this. Very stupid. I just put up Chinese flag and free Huawei phones. Now government gives me money for "diversity in tech." Next week I tell them I'm 1/16 Native American. More money.
You ask about my old colleagues:
Richard Hendricks - His company is dying because he said "mankind" instead of "humankind." In China, we just say "shut up and code." Better system.
Gilfoyle - Satan worshipper now must go to meditation classes. Very funny. I send him email about inner peace every day. He wants to kill me but can't say it. Not allowed.
Dinesh - His dating app is racist. Not because he's racist. Because math is racist. I don't understand. In China, all apps racist. No one cares.
Monica - White woman. Now this is bad thing. Last year was good thing. Next year, who knows. I tell her I'm afraid of strong women. She apologize to me. I don't know why.
Big Head - Still same. Too stupid to be canceled. Americans can't tell if he's offensive or just Big Head. He's now on three corporate boards. They think he's AI expert because he said "neural" when he was trying to say "nurture."
New things I learned about America:
1. Code has feelings now
2. Everything is violence
3. Saying "no" is hate speech
4. Being successful is shameful
5. Being unsuccessful also shameful
6. Everyone is racist, especially anti-racists
7. Twitter more powerful than nuclear weapon
I'm making good money selling "anti-colonizer" NFTs to white tech people. Just regular monkey JPEGs but with guilty face. They pay extra for more guilty face. Next week I launch "Privilege Offset" cryptocurrency. Like carbon offset but for being white. Will make billions.
Also starting new company. App that scans your social media and deletes everything that will be offensive in future. Calls itself "progressive" but actually just deletes everything. Americans love it. $50 million seed round. All investors white women trying to not be white women.
I hired Richard Hendricks as intern. He doesn't know it's me. Company is registered in Cayman Islands under name "Ethical Innovation Solutions." He writes apology emails all day. I don't read them. No one reads them.
Gavin Belson tried to buy enlightenment. Cannot afford anymore. Now he's teaching mindfulness to robots. Robots also offensive now. Everything offensive.
Good news: I now own Pied Piper patents. Bought them for $7 and bag of rice. Richard too afraid to say "that's racist." Called it "cultural exchange" instead. Added rice to company diversity statement.
The incubator is now most profitable in Silicon Valley. I just rent desks to canceled people. They pay triple because no one else will rent to them. They apologize when they pay rent. I say "apology accepted" but add 10% fee for emotional labor.
Father, you ask if I'm coming home soon. No. America is crazy now but still better for business. In China, government controls internet. In America, internet controls government. More opportunity.
Plus, I'm now teaching "Introduction to Mandarin for Decolonizing Tech Spaces" at Stanford. $4,000 per student. I just show them TikTok videos and say "very problematic" every 5 minutes. They take notes.
Send more dumplings. American food now criticized for existing.
Your son,
Jian-Yang
P.S. - Eric Bachman still dead. Very dead. Most dead.
P.P.S. - I now identify as "tech-fluid." Americans don't know what this means. I don't know what this means. But I got grant from Google.
# Private Journal Entry - Monica Hall
## DO NOT SHARE - WILL BE USED AGAINST ME IN THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION
### Date: [redacted because linear time is a construct of the patriarchy]
I can't believe I'm writing this in an actual paper journal like it's 1995, but here we are. My Notes app is apparently "problematic" because Apple is problematic because phones are problematic because mining rare earth metals is problematic because everything is problematic and I want to scream into the void but I CAN'T because the void is probably problematic too.
Let's recap how I got here:
1. Spent 15 years fighting to be taken seriously in VC
2. Finally made it
3. Started women-focused fund to help other women
4. Discovered that "women" is now a problematic term
5. Everything exploded
6. Currently hiding in my apartment drinking wine that's probably problematic because the vintner once liked a Joe Rogan tweet
How did this happen? I used to be one of the good ones. I was on the right side of everything! I had my pronouns in my email signature before anyone else at Raviga! I took unconscious bias training VOLUNTARILY! I put my preferred pronouns on my COFFEE MUG for god's sake!
But apparently I'm now the "white woman of white women" which makes me basically Hitler? The mental gymnastics required to follow this logic would win Olympic gold if the Olympics weren't problematic (which they are, I got a Slack message about it).
Today's crimes against humanity that I apparently committed:
- Said "you guys" in a meeting (muscle memory - I'M SORRY)
- Used the phrase "let's brainstorm" (ableist against... storms?)
- Referred to my "crazy" schedule (obviously hate speech)
- Wore a blazer (power dressing = perpetuating patriarchal structures)
- Existed while being a cisgender white woman (fair)
Someone started a thread about how my success in VC is actually proof of my privilege because I "had the confidence to succeed." I CAN'T WIN. Should I have failed on purpose? Should I have just stayed Peter Gregory's assistant forever, fetching coconut water and nodding supportively? But wait, that would have been enabling the patriarchy. But succeeding is also enabling the patriarchy. Is there perhaps a middle ground where I just cease to exist entirely?
The latest Medium piece about me is titled "The Girlboss is Dead and Monica Hall Killed Her (And That's a Problem)". WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? I never even called myself a girlboss! I literally just did my job! Also apparently "just doing my job" is what Nazis said at Nuremberg and someone actually made that comparison on Twitter and it got 40,000 likes and I want to die.
Called Laurie for advice. She just laughed for 10 minutes straight and hung up. That's the most human emotion I've ever seen from her and it had to be at my expense.
Current status of the fund:
- 3 major LPs pulled out because I once shared an article about women in tech from 2016 that didn't include a land acknowledgment
- 2 portfolio companies asked to be removed from our website because association with me is "potentially triggering"
- 1 viral TikTok comparing my investment strategy to colonialism (???)
- 0 allies remaining
- -500 social credit score (I assume)
Richard called to commiserate but honestly made it worse. He tried to tell me about his problems but kept apologizing for mansplaining his own trauma. Then he apologized for apologizing because it might seem performative. Then he had a panic attack about having a panic attack because anxiety is apparently his privilege showing. I had to hang up because I could feel my brain starting to leak out of my ears.
Gilfoyle sent me a text that just said "lol." I hate that I found it comforting.
Things I miss about 2016:
- When "disruption" just meant destroying existing industries
- When the worst thing about tech was the Juicero
- When I only had to deal with regular misogyny instead of whatever this is
- When Erlich was our biggest PR problem
- When "founder-market fit" wasn't considered a microaggression
Should I pivot? Options:
1. Start a DAO (but crypto is problematic)
2. Join a startup (but startups are problematic)
3. Become a DEI consultant (but that would be problematic because I am problematic)
4. Move to a cave (caves are probably sacred to someone and I don't want to appropriate cave culture)
Maybe I should call Big Head. He's somehow failing upward through all of this. Yesterday he got praised for "decolonizing the programming paradigm" because he accidentally deleted all instances of "master/slave" architecture in some codebase while trying to order UberEats. HOW IS THIS REAL LIFE?
Note to self: This diary will absolutely be leaked and every word will be used against me. I should probably burn it. But burning things is probably problematic because of climate change. Maybe I'll just bury it in my backyard. Wait, no, that's probably land theft.
I need another drink.
P.S. - Someone just DMed me to say that my teacher in 3rd grade once voted Republican, so clearly my entire education is tainted and I should shut down the fund. Honestly considering it just so the madness will stop.
P.P.S. - Is writing "P.S." ableist against the postal service? I need to lie down.
[Wine stain]
UPDATE: Jared just sent me a 47-page document on "How to Apologize for Things You Didn't Know Were Things to Apologize For: A Guide for the Privileged and Confused." It's color-coded and indexed. I'm both impressed and deeply, deeply depressed.
End log. End everything. End me.
- Monica
P.P.P.S. Even my sign-off is probably problematic because it assumes everyone can write their name. I give up.
jan (e/acc) retweeted
The media tried to deplatform you.
They ended up deplatforming themselves.
Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X theguardian.com/media/2024/n…
