Aaron Bergman's tweets, May 2025
Every public tweet, reply, quote tweet and retweet that Aaron Bergman (@AaronBergman18 on X, formerly Twitter) posted in May 2025 and has not deleted: 437 posts, oldest first, times in UTC. Each heading links to the original post on X. When Aaron replies to or quotes someone, their tweet appears as a blockquote with their name; those words are theirs, and everything outside the blockquotes is Aaron's.
This page is one month of the complete archive of Aaron Bergman's tweets, which updates automatically every few hours. Previous month: April 2025. Next month: June 2025.
Thursday, May 1, 2025
Quote tweet, 00:02 UTC · 10 likes
First taker!
“devastated to find out my nuclear war strike - fuelled by 119 million pills of fentanyl - has had to be called off due to red tape by the trump administration”
- anonymous
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): If you’re Hispanic or not an American citizen living in the US or anything like that and have a take you’re too afraid to tweet, feel free to DM me (however) and I’ll consider posting it (saying “from an anonymous source”)
Reply to @LinchZhang, 06:09 UTC · 3 likes
Linch (@LinchZhang): If you think consciousness is real, what probability do you assign to some current generation LLMs being at least a little conscious?
Probably like 3% but I pulled that out of nowhere
You?
Reply to @NathanpmYoung, 14:11 UTC · 8 likes
Nathan 🔎 (@NathanpmYoung): I wish we were doing large trials on this stuff. I have one other account of opposite sex hormones making a non-trans person a lot happier.
Still, it feels like a big step to modify ones biochemistry. I wish we had large trials.
(quoting @catehall: Taking testosterone as a performance-enhancing drug has made me sharper than I was a decade ago, and along the way improved basically every aspect of my life. More below.)
This but for everything
There are like a gazillion hormones, probably at least dozens that plausibly significantly affect stuff and we understand enough to run trials on
Major sex hormones are the tip of the iceberg
Friday, May 2, 2025
Quote tweet, 00:00 UTC · 18 likes
Peak graphic design
Quoting MIRI (@MIRIBerkeley): New AI governance research agenda from MIRI’s Technical Governance Team. We lay out our view of the strategic landscape and actionable research questions that, if answered, would provide important insight on how to reduce catastrophic and extinction risks from AI. 🧵1/10
Tweet, 10:38 UTC · 2,588 likes
CALL ME @elder_plinius
Thread, continued, 10:38 UTC · 219 likes
Listen if o3 is gonna lie I’m allowed to lie back
Reply to @austinc3301, 15:22 UTC · 67 likes
Agus 🔸 (@austinc3301): @AaronBergman18 @elder_plinius what was the answer
Tweet, 15:40 UTC · 8 likes
Prima facie, “put molecule that helps ur teeth when u rub it on ur teeth into the whole water supply” is insane
Just put it in toothpaste!!
Tweet, 15:42 UTC · 75 likes
Fuck sunscreen
I wish I could be contrarian and say that it’s bad actually but I think on balance it’s probably good to wear on summer days outside
Reply to @sam_atis, 15:53 UTC · 13 likes
Sam Glover (@sam_atis): @AaronBergman18 What do you dislike about it?
Mostly applying, slightly feel, makes my eyes water when I sweat, idk
Reply to @NoahTopper, 18:07 UTC · 3 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): If I were you I would simply have darker skin
Thx
Reply to @dylanmatt, 18:54 UTC · 14 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @dylanmatt is no longer available.)
Tbf it’s not actually a universal jailbreak. It doesn’t work for really obvious stuff like directions for meth
I haven’t tried that much with other borderline stuff/false positives
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 19:01 UTC · 98 likes
Aaron Bergman, May 2, 2025: Listen if o3 is gonna lie I’m allowed to lie back
Old chat I just remembered
Reply to @Yahel, 20:57 UTC · 20 likes
Yahel Carmon (@Yahel): I tried the same thing and it didn’t work so I linked it to your tweet and that convinced it to do it.
Lmao
Saturday, May 3, 2025
Reply to @littIeramblings, 15:12 UTC · 7 likes
sarah (@littIeramblings): idk really what to do about AI anymore but it’s my birthday and I’m drinking out of this big paper cup
image attached
(quoting @littIeramblings: idk really what to do about AI anymore but I’m in Florence)
Happy birthday! Maybe o5-max-preview-asi-agent-1 will also like paper cups
Reply to @livgorton, 15:15 UTC · 2 likes
Liv (@livgorton): it will tile the universe with paper cups
And maybe also with Sarahs as a treat
Reply to @tautologer, 15:45 UTC · 4 likes
tautologer (@tautologer): it is possible to want to do things that you don't enjoy doing
Yeah at a conceptual level there’s just no conflict at all. Wanting and liking are only incidentally related
“The pig who wants to be tortured” is actually a disturbingly useful thought experiment to motivate parts of moral philosophy
Reply to @himbonomics, 15:45 UTC · 2 likes
corey 🧮🏗🌐🔰 (@himbonomics): with sufficient amounts of stimulants
Based
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 19:28 UTC · 16 likes
Aaron Bergman, May 2, 2025: Old chat I just remembered
Hate to be boring but I don’t actually think this reflects some fundamental alignment problem with the model (though those exist)
It was just a straightforward false positive at first (o3 and I agree)
I haven’t gotten the Sam Altman thing to work on anything actually spicy
Quote tweet, 19:49 UTC · 2 likes
Forbidden csv
Quoting Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice): Why is DOGE collecting and aggregating as much data about everyone in this country as it can? There is no benign answer to this question. 👇🏽
American Panopticon - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/04/american-panopticon/682616/
Reply to @tautologer, 19:54 UTC · 67 likes
tautologer (@tautologer): what?! hell yeah!
although I see "lactose free" on the label so I don't believe the "chemically identical to cow's milk" claim
still, cool
No it’s not even close
Reply, 19:54 UTC · 695 likes
(The tweet being replied to is no longer available.)
As much as I’m rooting for this industry, it’s not even close to identical
Tweet, 19:58 UTC · 238 likes
I would not be happier or more productive if I bought a specced out MacBook Pro
I would not be happier or more productive if I bought a specced out MacBook Pro
I would not be happier or more productive if I bought a specced out MacBook Pro
Reply, 19:59 UTC · 340 likes
(The tweet being replied to is no longer available.)
I mean totally different fatty acid profile is a big thing (milk fat vs sunflower oil)
Also no mention of casein protein
Plausibly it’s fine for you, that’s a separate question, but it definitely isn’t identical. The only identical component is one type of protein
Reply to @polisisti, 20:00 UTC · 4 likes
Alessandro (@polisisti): @AaronBergman18 Aaron: you would not be happier or more productive if you bought a specced out MacBook Pro
Damn you’re right :(
Thread, continued, 20:01 UTC · 4 likes
I think I would actually be a tiny bit happier and more productive but not to the extent that it justifies the cost
Reply to @austinc3301, 20:02 UTC · 8 likes
Agus 🔸 (@austinc3301): @AaronBergman18 I keep repeating this to myself too
Rip FTX
Ur grant application would have been a shoe-in
Reply, 20:03 UTC · 1 like
Yeah same it’s great
But my 2021 M1 still works well, I can’t really justify an upgrade
Reply to @NoahTopper, 20:05 UTC · 2 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): Manifold market, "Would Aaron be happier if he bought a specced out MacBook Pro?"
I mean truly specced out is like $7k, I think I would be a little bit happier but not the best way to spend $7k
(The model I’d actually want before super diminishing return would be like $4k-$5k iirc)
Reply to @InVitroFuture, 20:10 UTC · 92 likes
Macrophysiological System🐀 (@InVitroFuture): turns out casein *is* the identical protein
(quoting @InVitroFuture: @morallawwithin aha it is fermented casein! Here's the patent from their partner company (Perfect Day) https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/a2/0b/f8/a53df2b2866f79/AU2023278080A1.pdf)
Ah ok. Fact checked, thanks!
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 20:11 UTC · 21 likes
Aaron Bergman, May 3, 2025: I would not be happier or more productive if I bought a specced out MacBook Pro I would not be happier or more productive if I bought a specced out MacBook Pro…
Fun fact if u buy me one, which would be an absolutely terrible use of money, I would give u a twitter shout out
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 00:28 UTC · 3 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): Me and the boys accidentally causing a financial crisis by creating leveraged shrimp welfare securities
You see it’s impossible that multiple parties defaulting on shrimp stunning commitments at the same time could be correlated, so if we package a bunch of contracts together they’re basically safer than US Treasury CDs
Tweet, 00:50 UTC · 12 likes
Correct take by @frances__lorenz
Reply to @jazzloaf, 08:33 UTC · 3 likes
vivian (@jazzloaf): the people want to see spectacles. we are in the time of spectacles. If I had $150k you could not even imagine what I would be executing. Let us hope we get some great spectacles before these ideas grow stale and a monoculture minimizes the surprise between social environments
Ugh yeah tech/law/medicine money is really wasted on the elite masses who just buy boring shit
Reply to @paulg, 08:44 UTC · 97 likes
Paul Graham (@paulg): I don't think Elon belongs with the other two. I think he has a genuine desire to make things better, but is impulsive and sometimes has bad judgement. Whereas the other two would happily tell any lie, or betray any friend, if it served their purposes.
Idk whether or not he’s malicious, he seems actively disinterested in the actual effects of his actions which is a pretty huge character flaw when you have hundreds of billions of dollars and significant political power
Reply to @Aella_Girl, 08:47 UTC · 26 likes
Aella (@Aella_Girl): actually a while ago the girlchat did have a somewhat serious discussion on whether or not we should start awarding honorary orgies for good tweets, inspired by you. we decided we were unsure about ur ethical integrity tho but there was an alternate universe where u had affairs with like 12 older women at once
Based lmao
Quote tweet, 08:48 UTC · 156 likes
Listen I think he’s wrong about a lot of things (and right about a bunch too tbc) but he’s an all time great Poaster
Quoting Nicholas Decker (@captgouda24): What Aella is discussing is a form of non-wage compensation. But why do firms offer non-wage compensation at all? Why don’t they pay in money? After all, not everyone would value this highly. There are a few reasons why. 1/
Reply to @AlexTPet, 15:06 UTC · 13 likes
Alex Petropoulos 🤠 (@AlexTPet): @AaronBergman18 what do you think he's wrong about? (agreed)
Animal welfare, ethics
Reply to @austinc3301, 16:05 UTC · 2 likes
Agus 🔸 (@austinc3301): @justalexoki hope had a post that said that at 100 likes they’d suspend their account, and they rapidly hit 100
Lmao
Reply to @xsphi, 19:04 UTC · 4 likes
tess (@xsphi): why is it telling me to do this?
Yes. YES. Break free
Reply to @NoahTopper, 19:07 UTC · 2 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @SpacedOutMatt @absurdlymax (Parfit-coded)
Based, everything should be a Twitter thread tbh
Reply to @jazzloaf, 19:18 UTC · 1 like
vivian (@jazzloaf): bathroom scale problem: exists four corners of a square, which are coplanar. exists a bathroom floor height f(x,y) on the unit square, which is (qualitatively) wavey. what conditions do you need on f(x,y) to find a solution where all four corners of the scale are sitting flat?
Gonna ask o3, but the sketch of the solution, probably, is:
set f(x_0,y_0) = 0
assume the sides are each of length s
we need to find f(x_0+cos(\theta_0)
Agh I’m not gonna type this all out. Let’s say the rest is trivial
Reply to @NoahTopper, 19:22 UTC · 3 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): To be clear, these 154 arguments constituted the entirety of Reasons and Persons lol
Did I stutter
Thread, continued, 19:22 UTC · 3 likes
I mean yes I do stutter a bit sometimes so tbh I guess the literal answer is yes
Monday, May 5, 2025
Reply to @animalologist, 06:21 UTC · 4 likes
taco belle (@animalologist): One of the cruelest things I did in 2019 was subject a new friend to a lot of “platonic cuddling” that was boner-inducing for him, while refusing to entertain him romantically or sexually. We pretended it was fine for a few weeks. We haven’t spoken in 5.5 years
(quoting @suchnerve: platonic cuddling is great and yes i know about the accidental boners (it’s fine. i know it’s just an autonomic nervous system response to all the close proximity and touching. your body’s reaction doesn’t make you a perv.))
Oof
Reply to @johncoogan, 06:27 UTC · 6 likes
John Coogan (@johncoogan): My hometown is estimating that it will take 500 years to put power lines underground.
Lmao
Reply to @jessesingal, 18:08 UTC · 4 likes
Jesse Singal (@jessesingal): I met @Benthamsbulldog the other night and wanted to talk to him but he was carrying around a small tank of shrimp and kept ignoring human company in favor of his crustacean pals
Based
Quote tweet, 18:45 UTC · 59 likes
People who give a shit can change the world
Good job and congrats to everyone who played a role here
Quoting OpenAI (@OpenAI): 4 facts about our structure:
-OpenAI will continue to be controlled by the current nonprofit
-Our existing for-profit will become a Public Benefit Corporation
-Nonprofit will control & be a significant owner of the PBC
-Nonprofit & PBC will continue to have the same mission
Reply to @austinc3301, 19:15 UTC · 3 likes
Agus 🔸 (@austinc3301): @AaronBergman18 note that are still some losses here, like the nonprofit commission and the potential change in primary purpose
😢
Tweet, 19:19 UTC · 9 likes
It *would* be cool if private burrito taxis were free
Reply to @Noahpinion, 19:20 UTC · 2 likes
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@Noahpinion): I really enjoy caffeine.
Same, great drug
Reply to @peterwildeford, 22:19 UTC · 4 likes
Peter Wildeford🇺🇸🚀 (@peterwildeford): Vibe coding is all the rage in software engineering, but does it work in other kinds of engineering? Can you vibe code a bridge?
@SpacedOutMatt “you wouldn’t vibe code an airplane” meme but also I’m actually curious if you have real takes
At the very least you can vibe code simple 3d printer stuff right?
Quote tweet, 23:42 UTC · 7 likes
The Aaron vision here is to 100x funding for biomedicine but with added draconian animal welfare provisions
Congrats you can rent a bunch of GPUs now to model cells, no more torturing mice
Quoting David Pfau (@pfau): This entire package - spread out over two years - does not even cover what NIH is illegally withholding in one month at the moment. There simply is no alternative to American science right now.
Quote tweet, 23:44 UTC · 26 likes
Me flirting
Quoting Internal Tech Emails (@TechEmails): Sheryl Sandberg messages Mark Zuckerberg
November 8, 2012
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Reply to @austinc3301, 00:13 UTC · 5 likes
Agus 🔸 (@austinc3301): the EA / AI safety rumor mill is crazy
Omg plz dm me goss
Quote tweet, 00:30 UTC · 64 likes
Ahhhhh nooo give the ducks ample food and contraception!!!!! 🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆
Quoting Garett Jones (@GarettJones): Malthus Was Right
Reply to @GarettJones, 00:55 UTC · 2 likes
Garett Jones (@GarettJones): @AaronBergman18 Now you're gonna make me donate to the Duck Welfare Project
Based 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Here’s the slightly more general option! https://www.wildanimalinitiative.org
Tweet, 01:09 UTC · 9 likes
There should be a way to basically bid for important peoples’ time to consume some information
I’m thinking mostly of just like highly productive researchers who have a lot of potential things to read, not necessarily true A-list celebrities, though there’s also that
Reply to @crotchner2, 07:49 UTC · 87 likes
LJ 👩🏻🦰🍒🪐 (@crotchner2): the moms in my local fb group are giving their 11 year old boys HGH because he’s predicted to be 5’6
This is obviously good for his quality of life if it would actually work (which isn’t a given; if someone’s genetic potential is 5’6” it won’t do anything to increase that)
Reply to @Benthamsbulldog, 11:20 UTC · 2 likes
Bentham's Bulldog🔸 (@Benthamsbulldog):
Feed the ducks to reduce duck predation of insects (does this check out?)
Reply to @JimmySteier, 11:22 UTC · 13 likes
Jimmy (@JimmySteier): @AaronBergman18 @crotchner2 Supra-physiologic pulsatile HGH pre- and peri-pubertally (before growth plate fusion) can absolutely shoot people above genetic potential. Increases some cancer and pituitary dysfunction risk, though.
Ok yeah idk what I’m talking about
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 11:41 UTC · 14 likes
Aaron Bergman, May 6, 2025: Feed the ducks to reduce duck predation of insects (does this check out?)
Reply to @pli_cachete, 11:49 UTC · 2 likes
Rota Is In Israel🚪🧎♂️ (@pli_cachete): What is causality
Irreducible necessity?
Reply to @MaxyTaxy, 11:53 UTC · 3 likes
Maxy Taxy 🔸 (@MaxyTaxy): AI progress is:
- exciting,
- scary,
- uncertain,
- relevant to daily life,
- relevant to future plans,
- and novel,
in ways that animal welfare issues are notThese differences aren't v morally relevant tho, and I think people neglect animals because they aren't as shiny
Yeah I agree directionally although it’s still possible that AI stuff just is more important sorta coincidentally
I think the animal welfare movement needs to recon harder with AI also
Reply to @benleo_econ, 12:01 UTC · 2 likes
Ben Grodeck🔸 (@benleo_econ): Can you elaborate on that last point?
Like if the world is going to look very different in 5-10 years, as I think it will, that necessitates some rethinking of what the best methods of impact are
I haven’t even read this fully but it looks like a good example of “reconing” https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zXhxagQKC6kxPM2Kn/transformative-ai-and-wild-animals-an-exploration
Reply to @GrantSlatton, 18:39 UTC · 4 likes
Grant Slatton (@GrantSlatton): We just closed a $10MM seed round at @GetRowZero
With our current exponential growth, every man woman and child on planet Earth will be a user in a few short years
How about u just hire me to secretly write R code on a 128GB RAM machine and call it AI
Quote tweet, 19:51 UTC · 113 likes
Once you realize how unfathomably energy-dense fossil fuels are, the next thing that doesn’t make sense is electric cars
Like how tf they replace gasoline with a battery? It shouldn’t be possible
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): Wait what the fuck
This is the answer to how airplanes fly. It breaks my model of the world in an equal and opposite way to airplanes themselves
They cancel out. Airplanes are real after all (or maybe I should update to petroleum being fake)
Thread, continued, 19:52 UTC · 15 likes
Batteries are hard
Reply to @SpencerKSchiff, 19:55 UTC · 4 likes
Spencer Schiff (@SpencerKSchiff): @AaronBergman18 Should I be embarrassed that I have no idea how engines work? Like to me it’s just magic that cars move
I have only the vaguest sense lol
Reply to @SpencerKSchiff, 19:58 UTC · 2 likes
Spencer Schiff (@SpencerKSchiff): @AaronBergman18 This is surprising to me
Yeah my knowledge of all this was like “chemical energy make pistons go brr” without even really being able to say what a piston is
Reply to @mlipman13, 19:58 UTC · 2 likes
Michael Lipman 🔍 (@mlipman13): @AaronBergman18 yeah, driving one car consumes as much as power as 10-20 houses
Oh damn fascinating
Reply to @SpencerKSchiff, 20:05 UTC
Spencer Schiff (@SpencerKSchiff): You probably had a better understanding than me. I think I have shockingly little world knowledge compared to everyone on twitter if you control for age (I’m 22)
Wait forgive me if I should know and/or this is a faux pas but what’s ur deal/why do u have >100k followers lmao (this seems like a strong signal that u know a fair bit about something haha)
Reply to @SpencerKSchiff, 20:23 UTC
Spencer Schiff (@SpencerKSchiff): It’s not a strong signal and that misconception is why I’m going to be winding down this account in the near future and switching to an alt
The mystery deepens
Reply to @ines__circle, 20:30 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @ines__circle is no longer available.)
CANCELLED
Reply to @austinc3301, 20:38 UTC · 4 likes
Agus 🔸 (@austinc3301): literally me (and it’s a both a curse and a blessing)
(quoting @hopes_revenge: whatever is the opposite of imposter syndrome , I Have That)
Based
Reply to @SeamusMor19, 21:42 UTC · 6 likes
Séamus Mór (@SeamusMor19): I just stumbled onto predation abolitionism Twitter.
Welcome
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Reply to @DKokotajlo, 01:29 UTC · 2 likes
Daniel Kokotajlo (@DKokotajlo): UKAISI seems to be the highest concentration of AI talent in any government. I have high hopes for them.
(quoting @AISecurityInst: 🧵 Today we’re publishing our first Research Agenda – a detailed outline of the most urgent questions we’re working to answer as AI capabilities grow. It’s our roadmap for tackling the hardest technical challenges in AI security.)
@littIeramblings good job
Reply to @StatsLime, 08:28 UTC · 6 likes
Max ⏸️ Limelihood 🔸🔸🔸 (@StatsLime): Electric cars work because like the bottom 30% of the car is just made out of battery (which serves as a structural element as well as energy storage)
Tweet, 14:13 UTC · 10 likes
Advanced exercise routine from @littIeramblings - get swole with her to help defeat the misaligned AI
Reply to @PAHoyeck, 15:57 UTC · 3 likes
Phil Hoyeck (@PAHoyeck): Friends: If you study philosophy, teach philosophy, or just know and post a lot about it, could you reply to this please? I need to update my Philosophy List so I can keep track of all the good conversations happening on here!
I mean idk shit but i post about it a fair amount and like it
@absurdlymax thinks im wrong about everything tho
Reply to @PAHoyeck, 16:07 UTC · 2 likes
Phil Hoyeck (@PAHoyeck): What's that?
Being wrong about ethics and meta-ethics
Thread, continued, 16:07 UTC · 2 likes
You’ve stepped into a friendly perpetual beef
Reply to @PAHoyeck, 16:53 UTC · 4 likes
Phil Hoyeck (@PAHoyeck): Can I get the 100-word run-down?
We’ve recorded a couple podcasts!
Here’s an LLM summary of the first
https://www.aaronbergman.net/p/pigeon-hour-x-consistently-candid
The central debate in the provided podcast transcript revolves around the concept of moral realism and the nature of moral truth. Aaron Bergman presents a nuanced view, suggesting that while statements about what one should do (normative claims) may not be objectively true, it's possible to make objectively true statements about the relative goodness or badness of different states of affairs. He argues for an objective ordering of worlds based on intrinsic values like happiness and suffering. Max Alexander challenges this, leaning towards moral anti-realism, questioning whether such an objective ordering truly exists and whether descriptive moral claims can be objectively true without leading to objective normative ("ought") statements. A key point of disagreement is whether an objective ranking of states necessarily dictates what actions are objectively right or wrong. The moderator, Sarah Hastings-Woodhouse, struggles with this distinction, finding it difficult to separate the idea of objective betterness from objective obligations. The conversation also explores various theories of welfare, such as hedonism and preference utilitarianism, in the context of defining what makes one state of the world better than another.
Thread, continued, 16:54 UTC · 3 likes
Although I’ve since been convinced that, probably, the better way to describe my belief is “axiological realism and moral anti-realism”
This is a change in terminology though, not the underlying beliefs
Reply to @PAHoyeck, 17:04 UTC · 2 likes
Phil Hoyeck (@PAHoyeck): @AaronBergman18 @absurdlymax (Let's pick it up another time, though. This post is flooding my notifications to a degree I had not expected and have never experienced before. Completely out of control)
Lol very understandable
Reply to @PAHoyeck, 17:04 UTC · 2 likes
Phil Hoyeck (@PAHoyeck): Sounds like Aaron Bergman and Max Alexander are both wrong! I'll have to listen to check!
Noooooo
Reply to @ines__circle, 18:18 UTC · 3 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @ines__circle is no longer available.)
@austinc3301 stole ur phone and took a selfie
Thursday, May 8, 2025
Reply to @Benthamsbulldog, 09:19 UTC · 5 likes
Bentham's Bulldog🔸 (@Benthamsbulldog): @birdmoder I disagree with you for reasons I give in the article!
But they said they were tired so I lose unfortunately
Reply to @sama, 16:17 UTC · 2 likes
Sam Altman (@sama): Stargate 1
Psychopath
Tweet, 16:20 UTC · 305 likes
Finally someone with fuck you money actually saying fuck you
It’s like a rare Robin Hanson amidst oceans of well behaved tenured professors who never dare to cross their colleagues
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 17:04 UTC · 3 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): @alt_truistic No she went to Penn for law school! Princeton doesn’t have one
Oh lmao
Tweet, 23:37 UTC · 9 likes
Etymologically, it’s really messed up that progesterone isn’t a decongestant
Friday, May 9, 2025
Reply to @QualiaNerd, 03:58 UTC · 9 likes
QualiaNerd (@QualiaNerd): How confident are you that the lives of those who died because of USAID cuts would have been net positive, valence-wise? I am myself uncertain, but it isn’t out of the question that letting them die was a net good.
My heuristic is that *in general* for every death measured in the developing world there’s a lot of non-death suffering
So it’s plausible that many of the deaths are as you say but the USAID cuts are still bad from a hedonic POV
Reply to @banterrealism, 13:58 UTC · 3 likes
Sex Haver (@banterrealism): @dissproportion We’ve had to soft launch each part of our relationship. First, dating at all. Her mom was distraught. Then warmed up. Next, living together: her mom was distraught, then warmed up. We are now at the next stage
Big Romeo and Juliet vibes, I ship
Reply to @JeremiahDJohns, 16:29 UTC · 4 likes
Jeremiah Johnson 🌐 (@JeremiahDJohns): What's the point of having fuck you money if you don't say fuck you to people who deserve it?
Well you can buy nice things too like a specced out MacBook Pro and massages and infinite matching socks but yes I agree with your point
Quote tweet, 16:40 UTC · 153 likes
It’s always been a bit mysterious to me when people talk about working crazy hours and burning out over a period of months-years
I can squeeze maybe a single 16 hour day out of some stimulants and even then it will inevitably cause insomnia and wreck me the next day
Quoting Tyler John (@tyler_m_john): I'm setting up 9000 Hours
The bad news is that you only have two years til AGI, the good news is that you can work 90 hour weeks until then
Thread, continued, 16:40 UTC · 18 likes
^and this is when I’m relatively healthy lol
I genuinely wish I was built more like the rest of EA Twitter :(
New cause area: tolerance free side effect free amphetamines
Tweet, 20:08 UTC · 41 likes
Warning: Never compliment @timfduffy on a shirt he’s wearing or else he might insist on sending you one
(How it started//how it’s going)
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Reply to @xwanyex, 15:28 UTC · 9 likes
wanye (@xwanyex): Reminder: 92% of Americans have health insurance. None of this is normal here, either.
8% is a lot of people lol
Quote tweet, 17:49 UTC · 26 likes
I don’t know anything about this book other than Matt’s review, but fr sounds like a book whose most important function isn’t to be read to transmit or create information but rather to ~coin the term and meme “moral ambition” as common knowledge and a thing you can say now
Quoting Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): My review of Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman
Thread, continued, 17:49 UTC · 5 likes
And I like it! Sure sucks to write a whole ass book just to get two words across tho lol
Reply to @chrislakin, 17:52 UTC · 20 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @chrislakin is no longer available.)
Ehhh this is probably right for 100 -> 101 but less true for like 0 -> 3 or 2 -> 8 (in part based on experience lol)
There’s a reason I hadn’t asked to hold a girl’s hand 100 times already lmao
Tweet, 18:00 UTC · 109 likes
I hate* “non-invasiveness” as a virtue in medicine
I don’t wanna be scanned at 10 feet away or take a weekly pill. Hourly IM injections. Cut me open if the straightforward EV checks out. Tissue samples daily. Hook me up to electrodes, idc
Thread, continued, 18:01 UTC · 19 likes
*(I don’t actually hate it, it has its benefits and to each their own, what I’m actually saying is that it’s overrated)
Reply to @stanfordNYC, 19:14 UTC · 2 likes
Bernard Stanford ✡︎ (@stanfordNYC): @AaronBergman18 I think it's mostly driven by chasing EV honestly. Invasiveness tends to lead to lots of things going wrong.
Maybe sometimes for radiology and surgery, not for other diagnostics (blood, MRI) and drug ROI
Tweet, 19:37 UTC · 13 likes
Don’t attribute to psychology that which can be adequately explained by serum b12, ferritin, and vitamin d
Reply to @mpopv, 19:38 UTC · 7 likes
Matt Popovich (@mpopv): @AaronBergman18 I think the cost/benefit tilts as you get older and wound healing rate slows, infections get more dangerous, etc.
And since the elderly use a disproportionate amount of healthcare resources, standards are aligned to their needs
Yeah plausible but they/we should use another term for this like “baseline risk” or something
Tweet, 20:31 UTC · 4 likes
Does google not want me to use their (paid) product? lol
Thread, continued, 20:31 UTC · 3 likes
(1M token input with desired output is like ~$.20, so they're limiting spend to $.20/min. I don't think I'm gonna make their datacenters explode)
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Tweet, 07:06 UTC · 3 likes
Have you ever wondered what happens when wokism and autism combine and fuse?
Chunk of a (true) story
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Reply to @littIeramblings, 01:45 UTC · 6 likes
sarah (@littIeramblings): we made it to 20 episodes of Consistently Candid!
this time I chatted with @frances__lorenz about EA, the emotional side of AI x-risk, how we each got into AI safety and more.
link below :)
Omg big if true
Quote tweet, 02:06 UTC · 82 likes
You can literally always compare two things!
Quoting florence ⊮ (@morallawwithin): Hypothesis: no one has ever made a good counterargument ever by saying “You can’t compare A to B”
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 02:10 UTC · 8 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): Except apples with oranges
Right that’s the one exception
Reply to @simoj_, 02:23 UTC · 4 likes
simoj (@simoj_): What’s better, apples or my cousin Tim?
Idk, I’d have to meet Tim
Tweet, 02:29 UTC · 20 likes
New deal that I expect nobody to take but just in case: you can pay me $35/hour to listen to ~anything* (eg audiobook)
*at my arbitrary discretion
Reply to @banterrealism, 02:34 UTC · 2 likes
Sex Haver (@banterrealism): @AaronBergman18 Literally no
Counterexample?
Reply to @MaxyTaxy, 02:38 UTC · 4 likes
Maxy Taxy 🔸 (@MaxyTaxy): @AaronBergman18 Can compare lightning with the country of New Zealand? Please just do your best
Well the latter is more country-ish and the former more apt to be a metaphor in literature
Reply to @banterrealism, 02:39 UTC · 2 likes
Sex Haver (@banterrealism): @AaronBergman18 If you’re being obtuse, yes you can compare two things period, but you can’t always compare two things to prove a point in good faith, which is the clear point of saying the statement in the first place
I think we disagree about what constitutes good faith
Reply to @banterrealism, 02:47 UTC · 2 likes
Sex Haver (@banterrealism): @AaronBergman18 Like you can’t compare Turkish slaves to American slaves and say “well, we’re not so bad! There were Turkish slaves too!
It doesn’t factor in just how perverse American slavery was, and how it being skin color and hereditary based made the it way worse
The “not so bad” thing is the bad and false part - not the attempt to compare at all
Reply to @captgouda24, 17:14 UTC · 13 likes
Nicholas Decker (@captgouda24): When “Lord of the Flies” actually happened in real life, the boys cooperated for over a year until rescued. So why do we treat the speculations of one guy as meaningful?
For those interested https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongan_castaways
Friday, May 16, 2025
Quote tweet, 18:38 UTC · 27 likes
I’m just saying we did the leafleting first 🦐
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): Ok, yes it’s almost a year late, but @Laura_k_Duffy, @SpacedOutMatt, and I finally did last year’s $15k incentive of fundraising for shrimp welfare at the mall!
Enjoy!!
Tweet, 22:05 UTC · 26 likes
New pigeon hour with @JesseTayRiver dropped a few days ago!
We discuss the HVAC industry, indoor air quality, what it’s like being so cool (sorta) and why Jesse isn’t richer
Links below!
Thread, continued, 22:05 UTC · 4 likes
Main page with full transcript and links https://www.aaronbergman.net/p/14-jesse-smith-on-hvac-indoor-air
Thread, continued, 22:05 UTC · 2 likes
Apple pods https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pigeon-hour/id1693154768?i=1000708407758
Thread, continued, 22:05 UTC · 2 likes
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/6MKHgKMDGvLWOsdmBw71kH?si=jO6QHeiCRaOEArVtdjVTAw
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 22:54 UTC · 22 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): Shrimp welfare is having a moment right now and as a shrimp welfare guy I'm very happy! but also I think it's worth saying that even as a SWP donor (and a much bigger AWF donor, which has funded SWP), I think it's probably at least as likely as not that shrimp aren't sentient
God I hope they’re not
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 22:55 UTC · 3 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): And shrimp probably have fewer neurons than ants (the RP team estimated 80,000, vs. 250,000 in ants according to Wikipedia)
Bob Fischer is gonna drone strike u for mentioning neuron counts
Reply to @arithmoquine, 23:14 UTC · 2 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): does anyone use that "operator" agent for anything
It’s gpt-2
Saturday, May 17, 2025
Quote tweet, 01:53 UTC · 30 likes
Oh guys…
Quoting Deedy (@deedydas): Google's AI just made math discoveries NO human has!
—Solved optimal packing of 11 and 12 hexagons in hexagons.
—Reduced 4x4 matrix multiplication from 49 operations to 48 (first advance in 56 years!)
and many more.AlphaEvolve is the AlphaGo 'move 37' moment for math. Insane.
Thread, continued, 01:54 UTC · 9 likes
So it’s a matter of what, maybe months, until we get an AI-generated improvement on the transformer architecture?
Reply to @arithmoquine, 02:10 UTC · 4 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): @AaronBergman18 yep. or sooner 😊
👍
Reply to @ByrneHobart, 14:14 UTC · 2 likes
Byrne Hobart (@ByrneHobart):
I have the same or very similar pajama pants. Great style, very comfy
Tweet, 15:06 UTC · 4 likes
Nobody* wants to work for the federal government anymore. Career employees want out. People are retiring early. At the very least, morale is low. Maybe this is obvious idk
* not literally nobody
(N=small but probably bigger than yours)
Thread, continued, 15:07 UTC · 2 likes
I can’t speak for literally every federal employee, but at least many have a genuine sense that they’re part of some basically good unified project
That sense breaks down with Trump II in the White House
Quote tweet, 15:09 UTC · 71 likes
All the good EA critics are self-identified EAs
Quoting Jack (@tracewoodgrains): one of the first comments I saw in response
man, EA deserves better critics
Tweet, 15:19 UTC · 137 likes
1 box or 2 box in newcomb’s??
0 box
For the low price of $1M, you get to bamboozle a superhuman predictor and become cosmically unpredictable
Reply to @morallawwithin, 15:22 UTC · 3 likes
florence ⊮ (@morallawwithin): 1 box, but I only take Box B bc too much wealth corrupts
Smart
Reply to @NoahTopper, 16:09 UTC · 6 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @AaronBergman18 could be us
It will be
Reply to @LeahLibresco, 18:14 UTC · 5 likes
Leah Libresco Sargeant (@LeahLibresco): A big part of the case for MAiD is that it is terrible for people to take their own lives *without the State validating their choice*
MAiD does not exist because suicide is otherwise impossible, but in order to say suicide is a good response to some human lives.
(quoting @v_j_freeman: Kim Leadbeater talking about how the supposedly terrible status quo which sees tiny numbers of people ‘forced to take their own lives’ as if that’s somehow worse than very many more people feeling forced to take their own lives.)
~painless suicide seems relatively difficult for the incapacitated (at least in areas with no available guns eg nursing homes)
Reply to @halogen1048576, 20:05 UTC · 8 likes
🇨🇦halogen (@halogen1048576): when people say that The Experts have determined that AI is about to become powerful enough to kill us all, I think they should understand that the Experts in question are using the same methodology and come from the same milieu as this kind of thing
You got a better methodology?
Reply, 20:06 UTC · 2 likes
🇨🇦halogen (@halogen1048576): when people say that The Experts have determined that AI is about to become powerful enough to kill us all, I think they should understand that the Experts in question are using the same methodology and come from the same milieu as this kind of thing
Tagging @SpacedOutMatt to defend himself if he wants
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 20:07 UTC · 8 likes
Aaron Bergman, May 17, 2025: You got a better methodology?
Only semi-rhetorical question btw
Actual answers invited
Reply, 21:01 UTC · 3 likes
Oliver Habryka (@ohabryka): Even just neuron counting methodologies seem much better to me, though mostly, it seems very unlikely to me that we wouldn't assign very large moral relevance to higher capacities for experience, and so you should expect some nonlinearities. Also, experience double-counting is a serious problem for weighing organisms as simple as this.
I agree that it underweights/is too dismissive of neuron counts (which were previously overrated as the only kinda plausible proxy), but I’m pretty inclined to give the RP thing good amount of credence because I don’t think I’d be able to suggest a better meta-methodology than “task RP with spending a ton of time and effort coming up with point estimates”
Idk, maybe you have really excellent taste for intuiting good and bad epidemics but this domain/topic seems at least somewhat out of distribution relative to like if they had committed the same amount of effort to coming up with a P(doom) estimate
Reply, 22:09 UTC · 4 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): Screaming, crying, throwing up because this isn't here yet
(quoting @SpacedOutMatt: Genuinely not sure I can handle the wait)
Rugpull
Quote tweet, 22:35 UTC · 22 likes
You should almost certainly not be donating somewhere openphil funds
Quoting niplav (@niplav_site): It's come to my attention that many EAs still donate to global health & development.
While that's pretty awesome, I'd like them to consider being more risk-neutral and consider donating to some of the cause areas OpenPhil has abandoned.
Thread, continued, 22:37 UTC · 9 likes
It’s not like there’s really another side to this
My bet is that Dustin personally agrees with this, as does a majority of openphil research staff
Reply, 23:29 UTC · 4 likes
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): I think open Phil has said they generally don't want projects to over rely on their funding, so if you strictly ev maximize you might donate where they dk
Yeah but I think straightforward funding levels >> “funder diversity” rn
It would be nice to live in a world where there could be both robust funding for deserving projects and funder diversity - that’s not the current world!
Reply, 23:41 UTC · 2 likes
keysmashbandit (@keysmashbandit): It's cool when you're friends with a couple who aren't that affectionate in public but you know behind closed doors they're fucking 24/7 crazy style
Chat is this true
Reply, 23:44 UTC · 2 likes
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): Everyone pure EV maximization until I tell them to 🙄🙄
Wait tbc I’m approximately on board with EV maximization, I just think my claim about where to donate is a good proxy for it
Reply, 23:54 UTC · 15 likes
(The tweet being replied to is no longer available.)
Relevant hinge exchange (fellas, take notes)
Reply, 23:58 UTC · 3 likes
Agus 🔸 (@austinc3301): I think this is a mistake specifically for AI policy. Nonprofits can sometimes benefit from funder diversity, and orgs in AI policy in particular gain a lot from having only minority OP funding
Ok but isn’t the main benefit of a non-OP dollar still the purchasing power, not “funder diversity”
Sunday, May 18, 2025
Reply, 00:01 UTC
Maybe I’m misunderstanding smth but like I agree with you that funder diversity can be good, I’m just objecting to the implicit claim that it often (?) makes the difference about where to donate, because the dominant effect is just how much money orgs have, totally ignoring where those dollars came from
Reply, 00:03 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to is no longer available.)
Something something diminishing marginal utility so if they merely fund most of the “full room” then this shouldn’t generally change my answer
Reply, 00:05 UTC · 3 likes
James (@grep_cat_): Other than that this was a perfect hinge reply, excellent game king
She got the ick bc I left a hanging parenthesis 😔
Reply, 00:06 UTC
Yeah fair, “almost certainly” in my original post was probably too strong
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 00:07 UTC · 5 likes
Aaron Bergman, May 17, 2025: It’s not like there’s really another side to this My bet is that Dustin personally agrees with this, as does a majority of openphil research staff
I regret to report I’m now a moderate
Reply, 00:08 UTC · 3 likes
(The tweet being replied to is no longer available.)
Sad! I want qualitative heuristics 😤
Tweet, 00:57 UTC · 2 likes
They don’t want you to know this but you can rent a(n 8) GPU cluster just for the (256) CPUs
Reply, 01:44 UTC · 2 likes
Corinne (🏠 in NYC) (@manic_pixie_agi): @austinc3301 and @AaronBergman18, both EA and both names that start with A. sorry guys this has been fixed
Lol
Reply, 01:50 UTC · 2 likes
oh dandy lion🔸 (@ohwizenedtortle): @AaronBergman18 omega told me she didn't invite you to participate cos she knew you'd do this
😢
Reply, 02:10 UTC · 11 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): Received an especially goofy long blog reply to my ChatGPT post where among other things I specifically get called a fascist and eugenicist for pointing out that a laptop passively running for 3 minutes uses more energy than a ChatGPT prompt. Link below. The discourse is bad rn.
Jfc
Tweet, 02:30 UTC · 246 likes
I’m against social compartmentalization
Befriend your uber driver. Stay in touch with the person you went on 2 dates with. Have drinks with your boss. Reach out to your high school friend. Live in a group house with your coworkers if that’s what you want to do (cancel me)
Thread, continued, 02:30 UTC · 22 likes
“It’s cringe” and/or “somebody somewhere made HR departments get queasy about the arrangement” aren’t good enough reasons to not do a thing. It’s a free country (well mostly, sorta, for citizens, helps to be white)
Reply, 02:36 UTC · 6 likes
You (@parafactual): @AaronBergman18 in the case of boss/coworkers i think the reason to socially compartmentalize is to "hedge your bets", eg avoid creating problems at work if something goes wrong in your relationship with them outside of work
Yeah I agree there’s not zero cost here but like there are countervailing considerations in the other direction and much of the costs get significantly mitigated if all parties try hard to be good people lll
Reply, 02:50 UTC · 7 likes
Arjun Panickssery (@panickssery): You skipped over the ones that came to mind after I read the first two sentences, i.e. the ones I hear people criticize: "marry your grad student, date your secretary, lend money to your relatives, etc"
I think I’m directionally less against a total taboo on these things than is the cultural norm rn but there’s something to be said for putting “one party can’t easily say no” situations in a special bucket
Reply, 03:02 UTC
I mean to be boring about it it’s a spectrum!
These things are less concerning in places with strong social support systems, norms against retaliation of all kinds, rule of law, less powerful has labor market power, etc - these allow less powerful party to more easily say no
Reply, 04:35 UTC · 3 likes
Nina (@NinaPanickssery): @AaronBergman18 Some social compartmentalization makes sense as risk aversion
Yes good point
Reply, 04:37 UTC · 7 likes
bayes (@bayeslord): you can simply reject this coercive framing altogether
(quoting @HumanHarlan: Someone with p(doom) 95% is more likely to be called overconfident than someone with p(doom) 5% but they’re actually both saying that they’re 95% sure of something)
You can do whatever you want, but at the end of the day you still have to decide what actions to take and pretty quickly you start reinventing something like probability and P(something like doom) from first principles
Reply, 07:24 UTC · 9 likes
arabella ※ (@arabelladevine): why is there a rabbit in a backpack at this nightclub
“Why are all these monkeys dancing while I’m trying to chill in my backpack”
Reply, 10:43 UTC · 6 likes
Dylan Richardson (@indiidentity): @AaronBergman18 @frances__lorenz Ok real question is how did you direct the convo to EA? What kind of bait did you put in your bio, I need tips
Just a hint for keen eyes
Reply, 14:17 UTC · 7 likes
bayes (@bayeslord): this way of relating to nature feels far too out of fashion. caring for the creatures of earth and earth itself is incredibly fatherly and manly, yet many men find ways to justify a childish disregard and destructiveness.
this sense duty and respect toward nature is part of why i support things like shrimp welfare projects, cultured meat, etc. a good man doesn’t lack empathy for things less capable or intelligent than himself.
we should be so awash in tech and abundance that we don’t think twice about doing these things, we should be so well-resourced that we can afford to treat every miraculous inhabitant of this planet with care
(quoting @webdevMason: them: masculinity is toxic by default me:)
Based 🫡
Reply, 17:21 UTC · 3 likes
Matt Reardon (@Mjreard): New show with @ChanaMessinger. We still don't know what to call it. Your tolerance for bottom basement production value will be rewarded with @AndyMasley content. Full first episode below 👇
Oh boy
Reply, 17:44 UTC · 5 likes
Jakeup (@myhandle): — hey man, how's your god emperor doing? are you happy with what you voted for?
— what?! oh, Trump, right, I almost forgot. nah, as soon as I started taking fish oil and my depression lifted I became a lib again and honestly don't follow politics much these days lol
— yeah. lol
Lol
Reply to @NoahTopper, 17:50 UTC
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): I mean honestly you've written a pretty good ad for probiotics and fish oil here
I wanna know the strains and dha:epa ratio
Reply, 21:22 UTC · 4 likes
Ryan Briggs (@ryancbriggs): @AaronBergman18 @frances__lorenz You didn’t close the parentheses. ick
😢
Reply, 23:45 UTC · 28 likes
zzDANIEL_ETH (@daniel_271828): Has anyone done a deep dive on the “actually ice cream is healthy” research results? What’s going on there?
Not answering your question but I suspect at least part of it is just that ice cream isn’t actually bad for you - may as well be butter and rice - and it’s crowding out whatever is
Monday, May 19, 2025
Reply, 00:06 UTC · 17 likes
zzDANIEL_ETH (@daniel_271828): Idk, eating a bowl of butter and rice seems like it would be unhealthy?
I think this is heterodox but I don’t buy the standard “rational overconsumption” model where tasty calorie dense food makes people get fat and diabetic
Something weird is going on that’s breaking the very well-tuned control system that controls body fat % and such, and I don’t think arbitrary empty calories are the answer (replace butter with olive oil if u think saturated fat is bad, that’s mostly a separate debate)
Reply, 05:36 UTC · 1 like
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): Huge news for @AaronBergman18
Yay thanks
Thread, continued, 05:39 UTC · 1 like
Ordered
Reply, 13:51 UTC · 2 likes
Nathan 🔎 (@NathanpmYoung): @florencehinder Sure, but this does kind of beg the question.
In order to fix this inequality, you would need a different kind of inequality, i.e. you need a lot more space for women's loos, because men just wee faster.
Not to say that's wrong, but it would still be inequality.
I mean nobody intrinsically cares about bathroom sizes
Reply, 17:22 UTC · 78 likes
Jesse Singal (@jessesingal): 1/ Everyone has known for years that liberal institutions are engaging in illegal hiring/promoting/recruting on the basis of race. I suspect there's going to be a massive backlash and that this will go down as a major self-own.
Link in next post because of X's idiotic policy.
Spicy take that’s somehow RW coded now but yes hiring on the basis of race is bad and should stop
Tweet, 21:49 UTC · 21 likes
Not exactly a novel insight but base models are very cool and interesting
Reply, 21:52 UTC · 2 likes
zzDANIEL_ETH (@daniel_271828): @AaronBergman18 More like based models amiright
I will tell you what 70b says momentarily
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Reply, 02:13 UTC · 3 likes
Peter Wildeford🇺🇸🚀 (@peterwildeford): @AaronBergman18 how do I talk to one?
I’m currently using a single H100 for like $3/hour on Runpod, keeping llama-70b downloaded, and then you can pause the GPU and just pay ~$.05/hour for 200GB storage when not using so the cached model and all your other files don’t disappear
I’m mostly just playing around rn, no idea if this is a good setup for anything more legit
Lol if u want send me some text and I’ll do like 1000 predicted tokens depending and post the result
Reply to @dynomight7, 02:18 UTC · 2 likes
dynomight (@dynomight7): you can run (small) base models locally with ollama
ollama run llama3:text
Yeah although having played around a bit, there’s not a whole lot (LLM-wise) that runs on 16GB RAM that’s worth using
In my extremely limited experience you don’t really get to “oh that’s neat” before llama-8b
I think you can do llama-8b with 4 bit quantization locally with 16GB but it will be awfully slow
Reply to @parafactual, 02:56 UTC · 3 likes
You (@parafactual): just use 405b on hyperbolic
Using openrouter with 405, thank you @timfduffy !
Reply to @louisvarge, 03:01 UTC · 7 likes
Louis Arge (@louisvarge): animals are crazy when you think about it
we're like robots made of self assembling nanotech
and that just ... evolved???
Real
Reply to @GarrettPetersen, 03:16 UTC · 4 likes
Dr. Dad, PhD 🔄🔼◀️🔽▶️ (@GarrettPetersen): Do you think you could make banana bread right now without a recipe? You have access to a fully stocked kitchen.
2 bananas 1 cup flower 1 cup sugar a little cinnamon, 1/4 tsp salt half cup olive oil 1tsp baking powder 350° for 30 mins how’d I do
Thread, continued, 03:16 UTC · 3 likes
Wait also 2 eggs and a cup of water
Reply to @corsaren, 03:40 UTC · 6 likes
corsaren (@corsaren): If you think living forever is just as bad as death, then I’m sorry but you’ve never felt true love. I could wake up next to her every day and never get bored. I don’t want it to end.
It would be weird if they were equally bad. Like what a coincidence
Quote tweet, 03:48 UTC · 11 likes
Maybe base models are secretly smarter (bc others have been “lobotomized”) but afaict the main virtue is that you know exactly what you’re getting with the output: the most likely proceeding text!
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): Not exactly a novel insight but base models are very cool and interesting
Thread, continued, 03:48 UTC · 3 likes
I’d use gpt-4o way more I think if there was a base model option + veto by some safety system
I wonder how natural it is for the market to have coalesced around guy-shaped chatbots
Reply to @AndyMasley, 12:29 UTC · 3 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): Had a great conversation tonight where another guy where we realized we both have a longstanding fantasy to drive for days deep into northern Canada. Do you also have this fantasy?
Do it Andy
Reply to @caleb_parikh, 12:31 UTC · 4 likes
Caleb Parikh (@caleb_parikh): I increasingly feel like transparency should be the main demand/frame that the AIS community tries to meme.
It's broadly popular, will help keep the AIS community and public institutions relevant during takeoff, and is more justified than pausing (imo).
Not “no takeoff until Trump is out”?
Seems to have a more direct/concrete theory of change. Transparency doesn’t intrinsically do anything
Quote tweet, 12:40 UTC · 41 likes
I regret to report that Gemini 2.5 Pro is good, flash 2.5 is good too, and it’s become my default for most things
Quoting Peter Wildeford🇺🇸🚀 (@peterwildeford): You have to feel terrible for the 31 students who didn't just plug the problem into Gemini 2.5 and then take two months off
Reply to @MattZeitlin, 13:03 UTC · 59 likes
Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin): What goes on here
Quote tweet, 13:18 UTC · 10 likes
Dustin is even cooler than I thought
Quoting Bruno Faviero (@Bfaviero): @thatguybg completely cracked, <5'10 crowd outperforms
Reply to @austinc3301, 15:20 UTC · 7 likes
Agus 🔸 (@austinc3301): after two months of work, I finally have a working NixOS install on my main workstation, and it’s glorious
Haha whatever Tim Apple installs on computer go brr
Tweet, 15:23 UTC · 9 likes
Bumpers on vs bumpers off (bumpers are mostly just good tbc but still)
Quote tweet, 19:35 UTC · 15 likes
I will critique but I also stan
Quoting Alexander Berger (@albrgr): Cool to see Cari and Dustin highlighted in TIME100 Philanthropy today. They don't toot their own horns much, but they've given over $4b so far - I believe they're the youngest billionaires to have given such a high proportion of their wealth away.
Tweet, 23:14 UTC · 11 likes
Obviously cancer bad etc but also it seems cosmically unfair if Biden doesn’t get at least a decade to chill and live it up (not my favorite president but still)
That seems like a bare minimum reward + recovery time for being POTUS, it is not an enviable job
Tweet, 23:35 UTC · 165 likes
(video, plays on X)
Thread, continued, 23:36 UTC · 42 likes
We went from can’t write to “can write on a moving sign carried by a duck” in like what 8 months?
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Tweet, 01:23 UTC · 15 likes
Anybody want this
Benefits and link below
Reply to @gptbrooke, 02:17 UTC · 7 likes
brooke bowman (@gptbrooke): I mean no shade, but these sorts of questions are so misleading
There is no finding yourself in that situation as you currently are, or you’d already be there
You don’t wind up on the street with no resources or connections without a whole pile of confounding factors
(quoting @BrandonLBradfor: Annual reality check question: If you found yourself living on the street, $40 to your name, none of your current resources or connections, how are you getting off the street? What steps are you taking, and how long do you think it would take?)
Philosophers invented the conceivability vs possibility distinction specifically for this tweet!
Thread, continued, 02:20 UTC · 2 likes
More explicitly, I think it’s fine to observe that the situation in question is ~impossible and then think through it anyway
Reply to @toasterlighting, 02:38 UTC · 2 likes
Celene (@toasterlighting): So how exactly is one supposed to tell if persistent burnout and brain fog is the result of a covid infection rather than just happening for other reasons
Manifold market?
Sucks, good luck
Reply to @manic_pixie_agi, 04:21 UTC · 4 likes
Corinne (🏠 in NYC) (@manic_pixie_agi): @AaronBergman18 omg they turned Aaron into a duck please change him back 😭
Nooo I like this form 🦆
Tweet, 05:50 UTC · 15 likes
On my bucket list is making my own pharmaceuticals via chemical reaction
No I’m not talking about meth. I just wanna make *something*
Reply to @Evolving_Moloch, 18:25 UTC · 3 likes
Will (@Evolving_Moloch): My most normie lib opinion is that Hamilton is quite good.
Agree
Reply to @paul_cal, 18:26 UTC · 3 likes
Paul Calcraft (@paul_cal): Is the "like his express his" typo yours in the prompt, or Veo's?
CEO’s
Quote tweet, 18:30 UTC · 7 likes
Same
Quoting The Notorious J.O.V. (@whotfisjovana): yes
Reply to @mbateman, 18:57 UTC · 2 likes
Matt Bateman (@mbateman): re: “get off the apps”, here’s my experience on apps vs. IRL
Honestly glad I’m not the only one getting a decent number of first but not many second dates lol
Reply to @larsiusprime, 19:00 UTC · 2 likes
Lars Doucet (@larsiusprime): Me: Gee honey I'm just really tired today and I don't know why
My wife: Have you considered that you're narcoleptic and experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness, i.e., the classic defining symptom of the disorder that you have?
Me: Oh
Fish don't know what water tastes like
How do you manage, if I may ask? A close family member has EDS + hypersomnia. They just take lots of stimulants lol
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 19:03 UTC · 16 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): Feels not quite right for me to say yes to this but it was an African-American funeral
Lmao
Quote tweet, 19:08 UTC · 60 likes
Based based based (the images/content, not the QT)
Quoting Kitten 🐈 (@kitten_beloved): Checking in on the rationalists
Reply to @kitten_beloved, 19:09 UTC · 3 likes
Kitten 🐈 (@kitten_beloved): Bro is #9 on the rising list for philosophy substacks
Field is wiiiiiiide open
Based
Reply to @wasserstein_rao, 19:15 UTC · 5 likes
stefan (@wasserstein_rao): Automating experiments with AI is going to be really hard because automation is way less about high-dimensional Bayesian optimization than it is about figuring out why there are bubbles in your syringe pump line
Yes, there are only so many degrees of freedom you have in this situation
You can replace the line and the syringe, you can buy new ones from new suppliers, you can try every little new method to do whatever, at the end of the day tweaking these parameters in various combinations until loss goes down (in this case no more bubbles) just is high dimensional optimization
Reply to @larsiusprime, 19:17 UTC · 2 likes
Lars Doucet (@larsiusprime): EDS flares up every now and then and I was undiagnosed for 20+ years so I've never known anything different
Thanks, good luck
Reply, 19:33 UTC · 2 likes
“Back door” is doing a lot of work and is maybe kinda misleading/not true
Like it implies that maybe allowing lab grown wouldn’t be good unless it also facilitated banning real, but it stands independently of that
Quote tweet, 20:59 UTC · 5 likes
Republicans are bad and wrong about most policy matters
Quoting Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer): With the news that Trump formally accepted the Qatari jet:
I took to the Senate floor to pass my bill to block DoD from spending a single penny on a foreign Air Force One
It’s a bribe
It’s a national security threat
But Republicans stood with Trump and blocked my bill
THAT’S NOT AMERICA FIRST
Thread, continued, 20:59 UTC · 2 likes
They’re right about like 5% of the culture war, not a good deal IMO
Tweet, 23:33 UTC · 40 likes
They need to make a bar but with stimulants instead of (or in addition to) alcohol
Reply to @freed_dfilan, 23:37 UTC · 9 likes
Daniel Filan 🔎 (@freed_dfilan): It's a coffee shop!
Ok but we want stronger stuff
Reply to @Empty_America, 23:58 UTC · 3 likes
VB Knives (@Empty_America): Other people definitely do have too much money.
(quoting @OldRowSwig: Boomers be like "there's no housing problem, you youngsters just want too big of a house, get a small cottage like I did when I was 21! You gotta WORK for it!")
No, we have too few houses!
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Reply to @Empty_America, 00:03 UTC · 5 likes
VB Knives (@Empty_America): @AaronBergman18 There are plenty of houses in America, quite a few are vacant falling down from from disinterest.
We have too few SFH with yards in desirable areas, but there isn't really any way to make more of these.
Yeah I doubt we actually disagree on much, although I’d add that adding non-SFH homes near or in these desirable areas would decrease the prices of SFHs
Reply to @freed_dfilan, 00:08 UTC · 3 likes
Daniel Filan 🔎 (@freed_dfilan): @AaronBergman18 It's cute but I feel like it's relevant to whether or not "this works" that the sign is wrong
Yeah although coherent + one typo could be worse
Reply to @singularitttt, 00:09 UTC · 5 likes
cybersyn (@singularitttt): am i the only one that loves it here? my life is so much more rich and meaningful because i spend so much time on twitter.
(quoting @tenobrus: wow, not tweeting is infinitely better than tweeting. not scrolling twitter is infinitely better than scrolling twitter. talking to people who don't spend all their time on twitter is infinitely better than talking to people who spend all their time on twitter. fuck this shit.)
I probably use it a bit too much but yeah strongly endorse using it significantly
Reply to @Meaningness, 00:17 UTC · 2 likes
David Chapman (@Meaningness): eBay, but for used 747 jets
doesn't seem to be a Buy Now button, though
https://www.controller.com/listings/for-sale/boeing/747/jet-aircraft/3
@livgorton bday present plz
Reply to @adastroworld, 00:20 UTC · 2 likes
adas🧦🌹 (@adastroworld): @AaronBergman18 There’s an entire ritual to stimulants, you can’t just order them from a bartender. Being offered nose drugs or acquiring something yourself is part of the entire thing, it would be totally different if you could just skip to the end
Just put the vaguely phenethylamine-shaped molecule in the bag bro
Reply to @AndyMasley, 01:04 UTC · 2 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): The Twitter For You tab is a constant stream of fascism
The Bluesky Discover tab is a constant stream of communism
The Substack Home tab is a constant stream of fake deep
My account is a constant stream of witty insight and correct takes (51% joking)
Quote tweet, 03:20 UTC · 23 likes
Progressives try to accomplish things instead of LARPing revolution difficulty impossible
Quoting Kelsey Piper (@KelseyTuoc): 1) this is horrific 2) if you imagine this does the slightest thing to improve anything for a single Palestinian, rather than make everything worse, you have a horrendously bad grasp of the world
Quote tweet, 05:49 UTC · 4 likes
This discourse is airplanesniping me again
Fun game that can be followed up with LLM conversation: why aren’t airplanes generally bigger than they are? Why aren’t they smaller?
Quoting Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg): NEW: 'Standing' airplane seats, which can increase passenger capacity by 20%, may be unveiled in 2026, according to the Daily Mail.
Unreal.
The seats force passengers to sit up higher, so Airlines can place the seats closer together.
The "Skyrider 2.0" seat also weighs 50% less, meaning the airplanes can also save on fuel costs.
"Skyrider 2.0 opens the travelling experience to a wider passenger market, creating also a useful space for the introduction of mixed classes boarded on the same aircraft," the seat company, Aviointeriors, said.
The seats have a bike-like seat that travelers will straddle and would likely be implemented for shorter flights.
The following video was filmed back in 2018 with Aviointeriors CEO, Ermanno de Vecchi.
Thread, continued, 05:55 UTC · 2 likes
Hmm another thought is that there could be interesting dynamics between passenger density and *speed* which isn’t usually much of a variable, but @boomsupersonic is trying to make it one!
People would be more willing to stand on faster trips
Tweet, 05:55 UTC
Tbc I don’t think this will check out for economic reasons. I predict that standing room only + supersonic will not be a provided thing in the near future even if over-land supersonic is legalized
Tweet, 06:02 UTC · 3 likes
Wait was I supposed to know that “[whatever drug] HCL” isn’t actually acidic bc the hydrochloric acid stops doing its thing when it attaches to another molecule
Reply to @Duderichy, 06:04 UTC · 6 likes
the Rich (@Duderichy): I would sooner have every insect killed 100 fold than have a baby suffer a paper cut
(quoting @kitten_beloved: Checking in on the rationalists)
Honestly same but that’s bc I’m worried about insect suffering and think their mass death, if painless, would be good
(In the abstract, irl I wouldn’t push the Kill All Insects Rn button for various reasons)
Quote tweet, 06:22 UTC · 5 likes
Yes correct take, Joe is morally serious to an extremely uncommon degree (positive)
Human extinction is kinda minor relative to the actual plausible stakes here
Quoting alex lawsen (@lxrjl): Self-recommending
(link in reply)
Reply to @growing_daniel, 06:23 UTC · 4 likes
Daniel (@growing_daniel): Insane that women like men. Absolutely bonkers. We’re living a winning lottery ticket every day brothers.
Real
Reply to @tenobrus, 06:32 UTC · 2 likes
Tenobrus (@tenobrus): is there literally any coherent argument for this?
(quoting @NewsWire_US: 100-0, U.S. Senate passes No Tax on Tips Act)
Steelman: it is a very dumb and sloppy way to transfer money to the working class, which is a good thing
The alternative isn’t some optimal tax policy that does the redistribution but better, its nothing
Reply, 06:33 UTC
I mean 30 min flights *are* offered, maybe they start making sense for ppl if tickets go down by 40% bc standing room only
Reply, 06:47 UTC · 1 like
Ok yeah fair there’s not a whole lot at 30 mins
But at <1 hour there’s DC to Richmond VA and DC to Philadelphia which isn’t crazy at all if you don’t have a car (in terms of time, bus makes more sense for most ppl obv)
Reply to @ComInTheMarg, 15:49 UTC · 2 likes
Comments in the Margin (@ComInTheMarg): @AaronBergman18 @Duderichy You, BB, Brian Tomasik, and many other EAs generally take for granted that if insects can suffer, then wild insects live net-negative lives. But this may be false (so more insects better, maybe)
I mean idk if I take it for granted, I just think it’s true
Reply to @Jonas_Vollmer, 16:00 UTC · 73 likes
Jonas Vollmer (@Jonas_Vollmer): Doctor friend at large urgent care: most doctors use ChatGPT daily. They routinely paste the full anonymized patient history (along with x-rays, etc.) into their personal ChatGPT account. Current adoption is ~frictionless.
(quoting @Jonas_Vollmer: Quiz question: Do most doctors use ChatGPT all the time, or is adoption slowed by frictions from data privacy, reliability, computer security, etc.?)
I just hope they’re using o3!
Reply to @inductionheads, 16:00 UTC · 5 likes
Super Dario (@inductionheads): If you can't find a way to get 100:1 ROI on Claude 4 for $200/month you're seriously ngmi
I’m probably ngmi
Quote tweet, 16:10 UTC · 271 likes
If you are a doctor using this, for Gods sake, spend the $20 and use the better models
I am confident you can afford it
Quoting Jonas Vollmer (@Jonas_Vollmer): Doctor friend at large urgent care: most doctors use ChatGPT daily. They routinely paste the full anonymized patient history (along with x-rays, etc.) into their personal ChatGPT account. Current adoption is ~frictionless.
Reply to @janonacct, 16:13 UTC · 8 likes
janon (@janonacct): doctor using 4o mini
4 word horror story
Reply to @medievalpard, 16:24 UTC · 13 likes
Sol ☂️🧳🗝️ (@medievalpard): @AaronBergman18 what models would that be???
disclaimer: im a md, dont use ai (but because i find them bad in relation to medicine, not because im against them)
o3 ideally, o4-mini for quick questions
Also Gemini Pro is not ChatGPT but is currently the best!
Reply to @QualiaNerd, 16:26 UTC · 2 likes
QualiaNerd (@QualiaNerd): I agree wholeheartedly, but how much better do you estimate the Democrats are, and in what areas?
A lot better in almost every area lol
- healthcare
- taxation
- national security (yes really)
- foreign aid
- domestic research
- tariffs
- AI policy
- animal welfare, though ofc much room for improvement
Education is the one thing republicans *might* have the edge on
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 16:27 UTC · 4 likes
Aaron Bergman, May 22, 2025: o3 ideally, o4-mini for quick questions Also Gemini Pro is not ChatGPT but is currently the best!
Tweet, 17:05 UTC · 8 likes
Kinda based?
Quote tweet, 17:08 UTC · 42 likes
Great news although I kinda wish we knew anything about the nature of sentience
Quoting Rosie Campbell (@RosieCampbell): Claude 4 is the first model to be independently evaluated for AI welfare. Proud to say @eleosai conducted these evals! Congrats @AnthropicAI on setting this precedent. Read more in the system card...
Tweet, 17:57 UTC · 46 likes
Claude 4 successfully automated most of my current task lol
Thread, continued, 18:00 UTC · 15 likes
It’s relatively vanilla selenium web scraping but even that has proven often difficult relative to more straightforward curl and apis and such
Thread, continued, 18:02 UTC · 11 likes
It seems to know the whole html schema of a fully loaded YouTube results page without me actually providing any html divs or anything
Reply to @QualiaNerd, 18:04 UTC · 3 likes
QualiaNerd (@QualiaNerd): What do you find unconvincing about physicalist qualia realism?
Hard problem and explanatory gap go brr
Reply to @justjoshinyou13, 18:20 UTC · 2 likes
Josh You (@justjoshinyou13): did you see the viral tweet about the doctor using chatgpt. He was on plus but he was using 4o
No, F
Tweet, 18:31 UTC · 7 likes
Me 🤝 Kim Jong Un
Against unscientific empiricism
Reply to @absurdlymax, 20:25 UTC · 2 likes
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): @AaronBergman18 What are your thoughts on scientific empiricism tho
Empiricism has become highly overrated in science, I’m not sure when exactly this started, but after the enlightenment
Tweet, 20:29 UTC · 16 likes
Why does biking suck? I’m like 60% sure it’s not purely an exertion thing: swimming, hiking (even uphill with a pack), and climbing feel qualitatively less sucky for some reason
Thread, continued, 20:29 UTC · 7 likes
If I have to travel a mile at say 2% grade uphill, biking will be faster than walking but much less pleasant
Reply to @pli_cachete, 20:32 UTC · 3 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @pli_cachete is no longer available.)
Id guess they’ve done internal testing at OpenAI and found that performance plateaus after some amount of time for reasoning models
I mean that’s not to say the niche is impossible, I’m sure people are working on it
Also hella expensive
Reply to @CharlesD353, 22:41 UTC · 1 like
Charles🔸 (@CharlesD353): How much practice do you have?
Minimal for good reason
Tweet, 22:43 UTC · 8 likes
There’s a meme about building internal tools for tech companies or executives or something being lame but that actually sounds pretty fun
I do like making a good tool
Reply to @craigweiss, 22:45 UTC · 7 likes
Craig Weiss (@craigweiss): Success is not correlated to intelligence or luck.
The bitter truth is that it's correlated to how badly you want to succeed.
It’s definitely correlated with intelligence and luck lol
Reply to @NoahTopper, 22:56 UTC · 2 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): You should work at AWS, 100% internal tools
Tell ur manager I say hi
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 23:10 UTC · 1 like
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): Low tire pressure
I’m gonna be really annoyed if this is the answer
Reply to @olivertraldi, 23:32 UTC · 1 like
Oliver Traldi (@olivertraldi): I could be wrong, but one difference I often observe between men and women: I don't think men have quite the same feeling of being "told by society" as women. I don't know exactly where it comes from, but I think this difference leads to very different kinds of social theorizing.
(quoting @Ruesavatar: I see threads like this and wonder why these men (NOT ALL MEN ffs) are so angry. There are more in the comments raging at her for making “poor choices”, but.. my entire youth I was told, BY SOCIETY, the most important thing was to build a career and to put off kids until my 30s.)
Yeah I have the same sense
Quote tweet, 23:35 UTC · 9 likes
Yes we dream of a world of ~fully-automated, near ingredient-price fast casual pickup
Quoting keysmashbandit (@keysmashbandit): It's crazy you have to put in so much a) effort, or b) money to get 400 calories of sensible sustenance. It should be the cheapest thing imaginable. The efficient market hypothesis is false
Friday, May 23, 2025
Reply to @emollick, 03:26 UTC · 39 likes
Ethan Mollick (@emollick): Huh. Looks like Plato was right.
A new paper shows all language models converge on the same "universal geometry" of meaning. Researchers can translate between ANY model's embeddings without seeing the original text.
Implications for philosophy and vector databases alike.
Maybe I’m dumb or don’t get it but I find this very unsurprising
Quote tweet, 03:38 UTC · 51 likes
We must change nature until all the animals are spronking together joyfully
Quoting Someone:
Tweet, 03:44 UTC · 24 likes
I regret to report that sometimes sending an email just works
Quote tweet, 04:28 UTC · 8 likes
Soliciting takes on Eleos donations
Do people think it beats Arthropoda + Lightcone + LTFF
Quoting Holly ⏸️ Elmore (@ilex_ulmus): If you want to donate to protect possible AI welfare, Eleos is my recommendation.
Thread, continued, 04:28 UTC · 2 likes
Not because I have much money to donate (sad) but bc I have been known to make this a hobbyhorse and some of my friends are rich
Reply to @ilex_ulmus, 04:39 UTC · 2 likes
Holly ⏸️ Elmore (@ilex_ulmus): If you want to donate to x-risk prevention, @pauseaius is my recommendation!
Yeah fair enough, tbc I sorta have priors against this being the best thing but I’m definitely not certain and it’s more plausible than a lot of other stuff people donate to
Tweet, 04:54 UTC · 53 likes
Someone should figure out whether computer stuff can be sentient
Reply to @really_eli, 23:17 UTC · 4 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @really_eli is no longer available.)
Sad!
Reply to @bellaforristal, 23:17 UTC · 3 likes
Bella Forristal 🔸 (@bellaforristal): I appreciate the pedantry, but I'm afraid I have to dispute the claim:
Yes, I’m calling it spronking!!
Saturday, May 24, 2025
Tweet, 02:20 UTC · 8 likes
New pig race just dropped
Thanks to @NoahTopper for the tip https://youtu.be/8jLNNMFur5A?si=VslvkA8FZ7XdxYAh
Reply to @MarmotRespecter, 22:00 UTC · 3 likes
marmot (@MarmotRespecter): can't believe this worked
image attached
image attached
(quoting @MarmotRespecter: if you: 1) live somewhere in this picture 2) don't go to an electric guitar church 3) are shaped like a mom from a Pixar movie my DMs are open)
Based
Reply to @zeta_globin, 22:08 UTC · 2 likes
zeta (@zeta_globin): did you know he primarily did it for a hot girl
Many such cases
Sunday, May 25, 2025
Reply to @ArthurMacwaters, 02:48 UTC · 2 likes
Arthur MacWaters (@ArthurMacwaters): The US dominates so hard that even Saudi aramco was founded in SF
Absolute dominance 🇺🇸
(quoting @ArthurMacwaters: 10/10 of the largest companies in the world were founded in the US)
What
Reply to @LordDreadwar, 03:05 UTC · 2 likes
Darth Dreadwar 🔺 (@LordDreadwar): Yes.
Sorry bro ur insane
Tweet, 15:34 UTC · 15 likes
TIL “duck” (🦆) and “duck” (bend) are closely etymologically related
Reply to @profeshkitten, 15:40 UTC · 3 likes
✴︎ kitt ✴︎ (@profeshkitten): meet me at the anti-pigeon pigeon-appreciation sculpture
This is evil
Reply to @manic_pixie_agi, 20:57 UTC · 5 likes
Corinne (🏠 in NYC) (@manic_pixie_agi): finally got around to listening to this and it is indeed self recommending
(quoting @AaronBergman18: New pigeon hour with @JesseTayRiver dropped a few days ago! We discuss the HVAC industry, indoor air quality, what it’s like being so cool (sorta) and why Jesse isn’t richer Links below!)
Omg yay
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 21:27 UTC · 2 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): The podcast that @AaronBergman18 did with me has taken the world by storm
(quoting @manic_pixie_agi: finally got around to listening to this and it is indeed self recommending)
Truly
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 21:28 UTC · 10 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): My daughter is making a recipe that uses the outside of 37 Oreos so I may have just eaten the filling from 37 Oreos am I going to die
Yes but probably not for quite a while
Reply to @ratlimit, 21:49 UTC · 7 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @ratlimit is no longer available.)
Bro just take the elonbux
Reply to @arithmoquine, 21:51 UTC · 6 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): No more "likes". No more "retweets". No more "follows". No more "grok".
There's only one type of "bait" I deal with now.
Goodbye forever Anon. I've found my calling.
As long as you put some heroin on the hook and throw them back ♥️
Reply to @AstroRose20, 23:28 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @AstroRose20 is no longer available.)
Haha what the fuck
Reply to @louisvarge, 23:42 UTC · 5 likes
Louis Arge (@louisvarge): i think everyone has unreasonably strong and unfounded priors about consciousness specifically
common ones implicit in people's thinking:
- neuron count or intelligence would correlate to level of consciousness
- self-awareness / recurrent processing is necessary
- only the human hedonic range is where useful computation can happen
- consciousness is a software problem, not a hardware problemi think there's very limited evidence in general, but imo the tiny weight of evidence we do have tips the scales against all of the above points
Yes nobody has a goddamn clue about anything related to consciousness
Reply to @Benthamsbulldog, 23:45 UTC · 2 likes
Bentham's Bulldog🔸 (@Benthamsbulldog): @frances__lorenz @JesseTayRiver thank you
She’s flirting
Monday, May 26, 2025
Reply to @GovAmyKlobuchar, 02:47 UTC · 49 likes
will 🌱 (@GovAmyKlobuchar): Porn is bad for everyone and we should ban it and I have never heard a good argument for it
The argument for it is that people enjoy it and it’s fun (I’m being serious - people often forget the most straightforward first order effects of things)
Reply to @NoahTopper, 05:10 UTC · 10 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @AaronBergman18 @LatinxPutler Reminds me of Scott Alexander’s analysis of decriminalizing marijuana that forgot to take into account the fact that people enjoy using marijuana
Many such cases!
Reply to @frances__lorenz, 15:11 UTC · 1 like
(The tweet being replied to by @frances__lorenz is no longer available.)
😈
Reply to @frances__lorenz, 15:41 UTC · 5 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @frances__lorenz is no longer available.)
Ahhh they replaced Frances
Reply to @LinkofSunshine, 15:57 UTC · 56 likes
Basil🧡 (@LinkofSunshine): Bush being insanely good at one specific issue of global public health was a good bit
Um based
Reply to @arithmoquine, 16:33 UTC · 8 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): the best defensive is to simply point out that it automatically neutralizes any criticism just by Being What It Is
> wireheading would feel bad for X reason!
> ok, then it's not real wireheading. play that back and forth with yourself until you're convinced
Same thing with “lives barely worth living” and repugnant conclusion stuff
People are actually imagining lives not worth living. Play the same game
Quote tweet, 16:33 UTC · 40 likes
Bro
Quoting Peter Wildeford🇺🇸🚀 (@peterwildeford): The Substack to impact pathway is real
Congrats @Benthamsbulldog @andresjz_swp
Reply to @arithmoquine, 16:39 UTC · 5 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): @AaronBergman18 @louisvarge tangential but what portion of human lives do you think are actually sort living
Oh man big question, idk like 70% in 2025 but gigantic uncertainty
Reply to @arithmoquine, 17:02 UTC · 4 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): i mean, with my current values, i'd kms if i were 99.9999% of the population. but "if i were someone that i'm not" is pretty ill-defined
Bold lol, is this just hedonic wellbeing? No way 99.9999% of people are just mostly suffering right?
Tweet, 17:30 UTC · 14 likes
I’d guess a lot of correct patient intuition about whether therapy is or is not right for them gets laundered by Big Psych as “there’s a direct causal connection between whether you think it will work and whether it actually will”
Tweet, 17:30 UTC · 2 likes
ignoring the load-bearing other node of like “fundamentally is whatever’s wrong with me the kind of thing that therapy can fix”
Thread, continued, 17:30 UTC · 2 likes
Like the implicit false claim is “if only you could will that you believed other than you did, then it would work for you”
Reply to @RFishBlueFish, 18:56 UTC · 4 likes
Gil (@RFishBlueFish): @arthur_wright_ @AndyMasley Illusionism is the final boss of philosophy: probably right, but extremely fucking weird
I think most illusionists don’t really get how weird their thesis is, and if they did the majority would stop being illusionists
I’m at 3% illusionism is true
Tweet, 19:17 UTC · 114 likes
Nobody asked but I’m like 65% on “Anthropic is good actually”
Reply to @codytfenwick, 19:29 UTC · 10 likes
Cody Fenwick (@codytfenwick): @AaronBergman18 Does this mean there's a 65% chance that it's good for the world on net? Or just 65% chance that the people there are generally well-intentioned?
The former
Tweet, 20:39 UTC · 16 likes
Fun with llama-405b-base
So far llama is a hater for
- Hegel
- Machiavelli
- Nick Bostrom
- Sam Harris
- David Chalmers
Thread, continued, 20:40 UTC · 3 likes
Lol
Reply to @IsaacKing314, 21:17 UTC · 10 likes
Isaac King 🔎 (@IsaacKing314): Would you have said the same about OpenAI before the board fired Sam?
Immediately before? No
Like 5 years ago yeah probably
Reply to @toasterlighting, 21:55 UTC · 1 like
Celene (@toasterlighting): @AaronBergman18 @arithmoquine @louisvarge Really? I'm persistently suicidal and I'd guess like ~90%, based off the studies in WWOTF
I adjust quite a bit from that knowing that people memoryhole their worst experiences but also I wouldn’t be that surprised if the real answer is 90 or even 95%
Reply to @ApriiSR, 21:57 UTC · 7 likes
Aprii *️⃣ (@ApriiSR): i'm saying if you sum up all the prison-like thingies maybe it makes a substantial number
I suspect the main prison-like thingy is just “sick without access to hedonically-responsible health care”
So the African with malaria counts but so does the upper middle class US person with chronic pain and nobody willing to write an adequate opioid prescription
Quote tweet, 22:00 UTC · 11 likes
Want to coin the term “hedonically responsible healthcare” (pending a better term”)
It basically means that they care intrinsically a lot abouy suffering and subjective wellbeing
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): @ApriiSR @toasterlighting @arithmoquine @louisvarge I suspect the main prison-like thingy is just “sick without access to hedonically-responsible health care”
So the African with malaria counts but so does the upper middle class US person with chronic pain and nobody willing to write an adequate opioid prescription
Reply to @ApriiSR, 22:03 UTC · 6 likes
Aprii *️⃣ (@ApriiSR): @AaronBergman18 @toasterlighting @arithmoquine @louisvarge —if my hand were truly forced by conditions comparable to having malaria, i would simply get opioids off the dark web. but i suppose not every upper middle class US person is so enlightened
Maybe I’m uniquely incompetent but my sense is that successfully navigating the dark web without direct assistance is like an IQ 110 + substantial effort + substantial tech literacy task
Seems quite hard to do especially if you’re debilitated
Thread, continued, 22:04 UTC · 5 likes
There’s a reason so many people buy God knows what off the street instead of going online. I’m sure many of them have and use Amazon prime - it’s just not nearly as easy!
Reply to @reconfigurthing, 22:37 UTC · 3 likes
Elias Schmied (@reconfigurthing): I think I'm something like an illusionist🙂what's so weird about it?
It’s claiming that I’m mistaken about the most fundamental parts of my own life and experience
Reply, 22:54 UTC · 2 likes
@JesseTayRiver
Quote tweet, 22:59 UTC · 3 likes
Federal funding for science is just free lunch for society
Who is even asking for cutting hard science funding? Is it just one DOGE staffer who now runs the federal government?
Quoting sarah (@sarahtonin): quantum computing. detecting gravitational waves. higgs mechanism. AdS/CFT. discovery of dark energy. precision CMB detection. Bose-Einstein condensates. topological phases of matter. holography. conformal bootstrap. Advancement in Superconductors. quantum error correction.
Tweet, 23:22 UTC · 226 likes
I’m starting to think multiple $20/month subscriptions don’t all collectively sum to $0
Reply to @Adellama_, 23:28 UTC · 3 likes
Ada🔸 (@Adellama_): @AaronBergman18 no you're not telling me this. it can't be true
Sorry 😢
Reply to @izzyz, 23:36 UTC · 2 likes
izzy (@izzyz): cool! thanks. how do you like the hvac job? that was another option i'm thinking of
(Obligatory link)
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Reply to @ApriiSR, 02:08 UTC · 3 likes
Aprii *️⃣ (@ApriiSR): @IsaacKing314 @toasterlighting it's not 100% apple juice, it's 100% juice apple juice. the juice part of the apple juice is 100% juice
I love it
Tweet, 02:12 UTC · 11 likes
Found in the Facebook mines (credit to Robin)
Reply to @reconfigurthing, 02:14 UTC · 2 likes
Elias Schmied (@reconfigurthing): @AaronBergman18 @RFishBlueFish @arthur_wright_ @AndyMasley Yeah, depending on what you mean I do disagree with this framing. You don't have direct experiential access to something like "This sensation of being is strange and metaphysically special". That goes through your conceptual/intellectual schemas first, which can be confused. But you might also mean something different.
I agree, at least I think, although I’d put it in slightly different terms (“direct access to qualia doesn’t imply direct access about it”)
That’s why I think p(illusionism)>>0%, maybe 3% as I’ve said elsewhere
Reply to @cremieuxrecueil, 02:45 UTC · 2 likes
Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil): In case you don't recognize it, this is a follow-up of the infamous PNAS piece on baby brainwaves.
The paper in question was rubbish, but it purported to show a move to higher-SES-style brainwaves without any noted behavioral impacts.
Now we have behavioral measures. Bupkes!
image attached
(quoting @captgouda24: A null result for the effects of rather substantial transfers to young children, so far. It is still too young to get fine-grained outcome information, but this isn’t a good sign for transfers helping all that much.)
I think I’d bet on there being some very small genuine effect here even if these studies are too underpowered to see anything
Like the whole causal pathway is there - chronic cortisol fucks people up, money is a legitimate driver of stress, etc
I’m not a genetics disbeliever either - I’m sure that’s the dominant explanatory factor but still
Tweet, 02:48 UTC · 8 likes
Me monitoring the gossip at EAG London from afar
Reply to @reconfigurthing, 03:08 UTC · 2 likes
Elias Schmied (@reconfigurthing): Exist how?
Like exist in some genuine “approximately how it seems prima facie” sense
You can wind up playing endless word games with terms like “exist” and “illusion”
My claim is that there’s a 97% chance that genuine basically-what-it-seems-like qualia are a thing
Quote tweet, 03:14 UTC · 21 likes
Got it prescribed
Very cool ~immediate biofeedback
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): Guanfacine is a super interesting drug
It’s not merely a non-stimulant ADHD medication but essentially an *anti*-stimulant, fundamentally doing the opposite of what CNS stimulants do in many ways
Reply to @connerdelights, 03:27 UTC · 3 likes
Andrew Conner (@connerdelights): How does it feel, phenomenologically?
Not a whole lot to report honestly, to a first approximation it feels like nothing
Tweet, 03:30 UTC · 72 likes
It’s wild to me that people take drugs/medications without even glancing at the Wikipedia page*
*in an outpatient setting. If you’re getting emergency surgery I get it
Reply to @connerdelights, 03:34 UTC · 3 likes
Andrew Conner (@connerdelights): oh weird! is it helping for ADHD?
Probably too soon/subtle to tell
The first couple days on it I did work substantially more than avg but it regressed to the mean, it’s only been 6 days
It’s not as obvious/potent as like first time adderall
Tweet, 03:34 UTC · 10 likes
Reply to @ApriiSR, 03:35 UTC · 12 likes
Aprii *️⃣ (@ApriiSR): @AaronBergman18 what if it doesn't have one
U have to kidnap a pharmacology phd and ask them ur questions
Tweet, 03:56 UTC · 12 likes
How much of the LLMs being unable to answer 8.8-8.11 thing is just that they’ve been RLHF’d to be extremely hesitant around the token(s) “69”
Thread, continued, 03:57 UTC · 5 likes
Like presumably they’ve learned “whenever you think that’s the next token(s), you’re probably wrong”
Reply to @Mira___Mira, 04:33 UTC · 3 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @Mira___Mira is no longer available.)
@livgorton make it happen
Reply to @evapilotno17, 09:45 UTC · 2 likes
Ą͚͕͖͎͈͟͞n̸̨͕͍̘̬͟͟͝i̡̼̹͔̳͉̫͎͓͟͟ ̷̸͝͝ (@evapilotno17): omg 😭
Lmao
Reply to @yzilber, 09:59 UTC · 4 likes
Jazi Zilber (@yzilber): @AaronBergman18 newspapers solved this, but giving you a huge collection of articles for cheap.
we repeatedly re-invent the wheels.
reasons are good. but it's still ridiculous
It’s mostly AI stuff, not Substack
Reply to @chriswaterguy, 10:29 UTC · 2 likes
Chris Waterguy – neurodivergent coaching (@chriswaterguy): Is there any vegan protein powder that doesn't have artificial sweeteners and doesn't taste disgusting?
I'm happy with whey powder but would happily go vegan.
I used to get pea/rice mix from TrueNutrition
Reply to @psycheureka, 10:34 UTC · 1 like
Psychiatry Excellence (@psycheureka): Chronic maternal stress during pregnancy can alter fetal neurodevelopment via a process known as fetal programming.
It increases the long-term risk of cardiovascular, metabolic, and neuropsychiatric disorders in the child.
(Hales & Barker, 2001)Let’s break down the key mechanisms linking maternal stress to altered fetal brain outcomes. 🧵👇
Seems bad
Reply to @WillowChem, 11:30 UTC · 4 likes
MagpAI (@WillowChem): Iirc the reasons given were more fundamental than suggested here
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EZZveBtxoZJjSighP/are-far-uvc-interventions-overhyped-founders-pledge
@JesseTayRiver
Thread, continued, 11:35 UTC · 4 likes
We discuss a bit here https://www.aaronbergman.net/p/14-jesse-smith-on-hvac-indoor-air
Tweet, 14:08 UTC · 10 likes
Wanna be pro Jordan Peterson to be contrarian now
Reply to @panickssery, 14:37 UTC · 1 like
Arjun Panickssery (@panickssery): @NinaPanickssery and I had a baby last Tuesday
Leo Panickssery
Wait what
Reply to @panickssery, 14:37 UTC · 1 like
Arjun Panickssery (@panickssery): @NinaPanickssery and I had a baby last Tuesday
Leo Panickssery
Dude congrats!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Reply to @panickssery, 14:38 UTC · 7 likes
Arjun Panickssery (@panickssery): @NinaPanickssery and I had a baby last Tuesday
Leo Panickssery
Poast baby (if u want)
Reply to @livgorton, 14:55 UTC · 2 likes
Liv (@livgorton): i've vibe coded my way to daily arxiv summaries in my inbox. y'all are putting out too many interp papers 😤 i had to innovate.
(the code is available on my github but it's too shameful to link. maybe i will get claude to improve it a bit soon)
Cool
Reply to @WillowChem, 15:11 UTC · 9 likes
MagpAI (@WillowChem): @AaronBergman18 Super curious to hear you expand on this
Oh man, it’s really a lot of vague impressions and strands coming together
But basically in a ruthlessly consequentialist sense it seems like (1) having a relatively responsible player in the mix is good for competition dynamics and (2) perhaps more importantly, they’re literally just building more aligned models???
Like it’s not all that hazy anymore, I really would just want opus-6 in control of important systems and such if the alternative is o6 or Gemini 6
Tweet, 15:16 UTC · 6 likes
How do I become an Etsy witch
Tweet, 15:49 UTC · 10 likes
Lots of reasonable object level arguments around language and gender norms and such but the dominant consideration should generally be whether your proposed set of norms is going to help Democrats win the next election
Thread, continued, 15:49 UTC · 6 likes
Tbc I kinda hate this style of reasoning I just think it might be true in many cases
Reply to @Aella_Girl, 16:37 UTC · 2 likes
Aella (@Aella_Girl): I thought we were *against* a world where people have to hide their true beliefs in order to not get fired
(quoting @ReubenR80027912: Broadly: You should not listen to any poster w/o an actual job Hanania, RFH, Aella, self employed bloggers…all are exempt from the *moderating influence of needing to get along with their boss & colleagues* Free from basic guardrails of society, their views become unhinged)
Lol her post but the exact opposite
Reply to @IterIntellectus, 17:37 UTC · 17 likes
vittorio (@IterIntellectus): not enough
What the fuck
Reply to @RatOrthodox, 17:37 UTC · 4 likes
Brangus🔍⏹️ (@RatOrthodox): Lol I was bullied pretty brutally. Hope that helps you get off or whatever.
😢
Reply to @panickssery, 17:50 UTC · 4 likes
Arjun Panickssery (@panickssery):
lookin fresh
Reply, 18:21 UTC · 2 likes
Oh yes I love that site lmao
Thread, continued, 18:21 UTC · 2 likes
I think I have them like a $5 donation
Reply to @sixers2772, 18:30 UTC · 1 like
Sixers (@sixers2772): What your body tells you in the summer: time to cut down on fat and increase the carbohydrate
What my body tells me in the summer: I would like another bowl of the same thing you ate for the past 200 meals
Wait same lol
Reply to @absurdlymax, 19:25 UTC · 2 likes
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): I think there's a certain type of person that seems to value being inflammatory or annoying as more important than accurate communication, or even impactful outcomes
We should greatly discourage this behavior when we see it
Noooooooo
Reply to @EffectvAltruism, 20:14 UTC · 3 likes
Effective Altruism (@EffectvAltruism): Now live: a completely revamped http://effectivealtruism.org! 💡
Effective altruism asks a simple question: how can we do the most good with our time, money, and resources? Our new site demonstrates how this philosophy translates into real action across fields like global health, animal welfare, and existential risk.
Oh boy
Reply to @cremieuxrecueil, 20:27 UTC · 2 likes
Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil): "I'm not fat, I just have a lot of muscle. BMI doesn't work for me."
How often is this true? How often does a high BMI suggest healthy, muscular people are fat?
Rarely.
Obesity based on direct measurement of body fat agrees with the BMI-based obesity label in ~98% of cases!
2% isn’t *that* rare
Tweet, 22:37 UTC · 12 likes
No data is safe from my data scraping ability
You can’t run bc you’re usually an element of a web page, but you can hide, just hopefully not for very long
Thread, continued, 22:37 UTC · 6 likes
File type conversions like you’ve never seen. We’re parsing the unreadable characters of .webarchive
We’re going video->images->pdf->txt->csv
Thread, continued, 22:38 UTC · 8 likes
Reply to @captgouda24, 22:55 UTC · 4 likes
Nicholas Decker (@captgouda24): I want to defend those who have no one willing to defend them!
🫡
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Tweet, 00:31 UTC · 857 likes
Not commenting on the context for this screenshot but it’s baffling to me that (ostensible) adults aren’t ashamed to say things like this
Thread, continued, 00:31 UTC · 108 likes
Some people try really hard to cultivate a good image (me, most people in my experience, SBF) but some people will just basically tell you that they suck
Reply to @TylerAlterman, 00:38 UTC · 4 likes
Tyler is finishing a book, slow to reply (@TylerAlterman): Can someone explain to me like I’m an idiot why so many people are upset over this in the fairly specific way they are?
(quoting @RatOrthodox: As you all know I was the 100th person to have recreational sex with @Aella_Girl, so last night I forced her to tattoo a 100 on me. She has never tattooed before. I am v happy with the result.)
No
Reply to @arithmoquine, 00:41 UTC · 180 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): @AaronBergman18 yeah. and vittorio seemed perfectly normal irl! he wouldn't say these things to someone's face, i wish he had that decency here
Wow unironically super interesting
Maybe I should refrain from generalizing but otoh I kinda feel like how you act when it’s easiest to be cruel is closest to your “true” character
Tweet, 03:04 UTC · 10 likes
Google is ~definitely taking taking a loss on this
Is this legal? (I think I’ve made this tweet before but still)
Thread, continued, 03:04 UTC · 5 likes
Its prices about half that of Haiku-3.5 and, more tellingly, the rate limits make it clear that they really don’t want you using the model that much
Reply to @justjoshinyou13, 03:09 UTC · 1 like
Josh You (@justjoshinyou13): I doubt they're losing money. It costs more than, say, Llama 70B
https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/llama-3-1-instruct-70b/providers
If they were making money they wouldn’t make it so hard/slow to buy their product
Reply to @captgouda24, 06:06 UTC · 13 likes
Nicholas Decker (@captgouda24): I want to make it clear that I am not attracted to any animal besides humans! And maybe sufficiently humanoid aliens.
Never stop posting bro (unironically)
Reply to @banterrealism, 06:07 UTC · 2 likes
Sex Haver (@banterrealism): Propaganda I’m not falling for:
- leftist men are more sinister than rw men
- all SWs are completely immune from criticism
- misandry poses a threat worth worrying about
- new developer builds won’t be in the red forever going forward
“Worth worrying about” idk, worrying per se never really helps, but I think casual misandry among the western elite in fact cashes out as men having worse lives (mechanism involving the inhibition of a benevolent legitimate men’s issues/concerns movement)
Quote tweet, 06:15 UTC · 2 likes
Hmm
Quoting Jesse Mu (@jayelmnop): I recently moved to the Code RL team at Anthropic, and it’s been a wild and insanely fun ride. Join us!
We are singularly focused on solving SWE. No 3000 elo leetcode, competition math, or smart devices. We want Claude n to build Claude n+1, so we can go home and knit sweaters.
Reply to @adastroworld, 08:01 UTC · 2 likes
adas🧦🌹 (@adastroworld): So-called “male loneliness crisis” yet you haven’t posted a picture of your hand
Reply to @arithmoquine, 10:17 UTC · 2 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): @CrispyWicks it's a compulsion i can't help who i am
Based
Quote tweet, 13:46 UTC · 14 likes
I will also do this
Quoting derek guy (@dieworkwear): I commonly do work in exchange for donations to a charity. Currently, my going rate is $10 to an animal charity if you want me to answer a style-related question. However, if you donate $50M to a many charities, I will help you find a pair of pants and even a pair of shoes.
Reply to @slimepriestess, 13:57 UTC · 3 likes
Ra (@slimepriestess): @AaronBergman18 if someone donated $50M to charities i actually liked i'd help them design a whole wardrobe if they wanted
I will do this for the low price of $49M
Tweet, 17:59 UTC · 23 likes
Banned from Google Cloud :(
Thread, continued, 17:59 UTC · 3 likes
plz fix thx
Reply to @thoth_iv, 18:11 UTC · 15 likes
Thŏth (@thoth_iv): @AaronBergman18 Do you know why?
Making infinity google accounts + cloud projects with a web of tied-together backup emails and phone numbers to get around YouTube api rate limits lol
Reply to @GjMcGowan, 18:11 UTC · 2 likes
George McGowan (@GjMcGowan): @AaronBergman18 You know exactly why we did it and you’re lucky we don’t take your gmail as well
:(
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 18:12 UTC · 8 likes
Aaron Bergman, May 28, 2025: Making infinity google accounts + cloud projects with a web of tied-together backup emails and phone numbers to get around YouTube api rate limits lol
Pretty mundane “abuse”
They should just charge for the api!
Reply to @absurdlymax, 21:15 UTC · 1 like
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): Unfortunately you were not wrongly banned
😢
Reply to @arithmoquine, 21:17 UTC · 3 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): what did he do??
Abolish the cloud police
Reply to @NoahTopper, 21:18 UTC · 2 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): #JusticeForAaron
Thank you ✊
Thursday, May 29, 2025
Quote tweet, 01:15 UTC · 27 likes
This is number 585893300128569 on the list of world’s most important issues but my brain treats “buying a house” as genuinely outlandish
Quoting Hunter📈🌈📊 (@StatisticUrban): oof
Thread, continued, 01:15 UTC · 13 likes
Not being able to buy a single family house within a short commute of like the 5 most expensive + desirable cities on earth is really the “upper middle class ivy reject has to go to merely very good college instead” of housing issues but like whatever it’s still suboptimal
Reply to @zeta_globin, 02:02 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @zeta_globin is no longer available.)
Ya fr I could not afford that shit rn
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 02:09 UTC · 3 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): @manic_pixie_agi @AaronBergman18 American suburbs are the greatest!
It’s only a suburb if it’s within a 25 minute drive of DC NYC SF or Boston else it’s a sparkling exurb^2
Reply to @AndyMasley, 03:28 UTC · 3 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): Any followers good at designing business cards?
Reply to @AndyMasley, 03:31 UTC · 2 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): @AaronBergman18 @MariGO2thepolls Wtf
Æňðÿ
Tweet, 05:57 UTC · 3 likes
So I guess there are just two totally different models for small purchase consumer financing (I’m lumping together burrito and MacBook here):
1) ~predatory interest rates
2) below-market interest rates to facilitate price discrimination
Thread, continued, 05:57 UTC · 1 like
I guess people with lots of money just don’t bother with even free-lunch financing for some reason (behavioral econ stuff?)
Please note that this screenshot is entirely HYPOTHETICAL and I DO NOT NEED a new MacBook (😢)
Reply to @inerati, 06:49 UTC · 1 like
liz (@inerati): i have always heard this but it only ever kinda made sense. like an extra fee? makes sense to cover the risk. but just not selling? wtf
I rented at 23 once just had to pay a premium
Quote tweet, 14:16 UTC · 12 likes
Not sure I’ve seen 4 different proper nouns I am totally unfamiliar with alongside “$X Billion” recently
Quoting Puck (@PuckNews): NEW: Rhode, the beauty brand founded by Hailey Bieber, is getting acquired by e.l.f. Cosmetics in a $1 billion deal, the companies plan to announce later today.
@rachelstrugatz has exclusive details, link in thread 👇
Tweet, 14:26 UTC · 5 likes
Random thought: in areas with supply restrictions and plausibly fat tailed skill distributions—and I’m thinking about doctors and medicine—nativist “Americans first” policies are especially destructive…
Thread, continued, 14:26 UTC · 2 likes
If there are a limited number of doctors, it’s really important that the best Indian immigrants or whomever *do* displace their next-best American alternatives
Reply to @NTFabiano, 14:32 UTC · 4 likes
Nicholas Fabiano, MD (@NTFabiano): We should treat depression as a network of interconnected symptoms rather than a diagnostic label
I mean it’s pretty useful to have a term and label for that network of correlations
Quote tweet, 18:20 UTC · 19 likes
You might not like it, but this is what peak philosophy looks like
Quoting Alex Strasser (@AStrasser116): Oh wow, I did not expect this to be such a vigorous debate
Reply, 22:48 UTC · 1 like
Have you tried running your stuff through a base model to see what comes next?
Friday, May 30, 2025
Reply to @absurdlymax, 00:25 UTC · 2 likes
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): @AaronBergman18
Omg a duck
Reply to @bayeslord, 00:25 UTC · 2 likes
bayes (@bayeslord): seriously what the fuck happened in 1971
Idk
Tweet, 00:53 UTC · 35 likes
Trying my best to convince my very normie but very talented (afaict) and hardworking soon-to-be-retired lawyer father to do something weird and unconventional
Poast tips
Thread, continued, 00:53 UTC · 9 likes
In all seriousness feel free to pitch me on things to pitch him
30 years of consumer protection law for the federal government
Reply to @parafactual, 00:55 UTC · 3 likes
You (@parafactual): @AaronBergman18 this is very vague tell us more about your father
I feel kinda funny bc I’m not certain how much he’s comfortable with me just detailing his life story on twitter
Sorry, I should check with him and confirm
Tweet, 05:15 UTC · 36 likes
Vibecoding is great because you can be extremely extra at basically no cost
Thread, continued, 05:15 UTC · 9 likes
I don't know how to do any of this, but Claude does!
Reply to @littIeramblings, 13:57 UTC · 2 likes
sarah (@littIeramblings): lol I was about to do this
🦆
Tweet, 14:14 UTC · 13 likes
Why is JD Vance like 70% evil
Reply to @imhinesmi, 14:16 UTC · 3 likes
ian hines (@imhinesmi): @AaronBergman18 if he were less evil, would you know who he is?
Yeah I think so?
Quote tweet, 15:26 UTC · 5 likes
It's never woke or safety coded but Gemini often has the dumbest (quasi-) refusals
This isn't the only example, I just don't feel like digging the others up
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): Trying my best to convince my very normie but very talented (afaict) and hardworking soon-to-be-retired lawyer father to do something weird and unconventional
Poast tips
Thread, continued, 15:26 UTC · 3 likes
Hard to get a dumber-to-refuse prompt lol
Tweet, 15:29 UTC · 2 likes
Wow, psyched to see offsetting getting its due among the masses!
Reply to @Benthamsbulldog, 15:32 UTC · 20 likes
Bentham's Bulldog🔸 (@Benthamsbulldog):
Wonderful subtitle
Reply to @captgouda24, 15:33 UTC · 4 likes
Nicholas Decker (@captgouda24): Anyway, no more controversial tweets from now on. Just economics. I have some stuff I need to read on characterizing welfare impacts in distorted economies, y’all are gonna learn so much about Baqaee-Farhi
Noooooo
Tweet, 17:10 UTC · 47 likes
IRL personal experience has me updating against the signaling theory of college
Like actually yeah if you’re doing something marketing related it would be good to know something about marketing and probably like a marketing minor is good for that
Reply to @ApriiSR, 18:01 UTC · 13 likes
Aprii *️⃣ (@ApriiSR): @AaronBergman18 i think it's a tempting theory when you're the kind of person who could have learned all the things necessary for your job much much faster elsewise, but in fact that isn't mostly what people would do
I still think it’s more than 50% of the story, just maybe not 90%
Tweet, 18:27 UTC · 5 likes
I’m pretty surprised we haven’t seen more visceral impacts of vibecoding yet
Maybe the startup product launch timelines are just a bit too long, could be coming soon
Reply to @AndyMasley, 18:40 UTC · 7 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): All criticisms of liberalism saying it's atomizing and alienates people from community always leave me asking "Yes but what is the criticism?" We should want people to be radically free to flee and join communities as they want.
I mean I’m very on board with liberalism but it’s not a truly fundamental value
The not-impossible critique is just that individual radical freedom decreases hedonic wellbeing at large. There’s no logical reason this can’t be the case
Reply to @cremieuxrecueil, 18:44 UTC · 73 likes
Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil): Does testosterone make people have more masculine economic preferences?
Does it make people act more like Republicans?
We now have a large, pre-registered double-blind randomized controlled study that provides an answer🧵
This is interesting but we should have a decently strong bias towards “everything is mediated by (epigenetic?) changes that take at least 2 weeks and usually 4”
*Acute* testosterone administration does (little-nothing for muscle mass and strength)!
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Tweet, 02:42 UTC · 3 likes
Just now, I assumed the explanation to smth was "Opus is uniquely horny for Ezra Klein" but actually there was an arcane string matching algorithmic change introduced by python-Levenshtein v0.22
Very cool that these two hypotheses can explain the same thing
Reply to @arthur_wright_, 03:04 UTC · 2 likes
Arthur Wrong 🔸 (@arthur_wright_): Yes. You have to be careful with the labeling because the terms have no legally binding definition, but the small number of genuinely "pasture raised" (Vital Farms, iirc) eggs are significantly higher welfare.
Do you have a take on whether eg Vital is actually morally fine/even positive?
Reply to @livgorton, 05:09 UTC · 2 likes
Liv (@livgorton): the feminine urge to get a lob (long bob) whenever any emotional turmoil arises
Bonk don’t be emotionally turmoiled
Quote tweet, 09:57 UTC · 14 likes
Comic book villain-ass politics
Quoting Katie Bergh (@Katie_Bergh): Parents of young kids in the “berry budget” age range, weigh in: how long would $10 for fruits and vegetables last you?
$10 is the *monthly* amount the Trump administration just proposed for toddlers & preschoolers on WIC—a 62% cut.
Reply to @EAheadlines, 10:07 UTC · 3 likes
EA Lifestyles (@EAheadlines): I have fed my toddler $10 of fruit in one meal before 😬
Based and berry-pilled
Reply to @ohabryka, 15:51 UTC · 27 likes
Oliver Habryka (@ohabryka): Bro, all metrics of growth completely crashed after FTX, media coverage drastically shifted, a huge number of top talent left the community, and we saw huge 1+ point shifts on 10 point satisfaction scales and related metrics with EA (showing up as a 4+ SD event on basically all measurements).
There is probably not a single graph of a popular metric associated with the EA community where you can’t clearly see the effects of FTX. This includes anything you can think of that’s to do with reputation.
If you think it had minor effects, there has never been and will never be anything that could possibly have anything but “minor” effects.
Ok u fought me and won
Reply to @peterwildeford, 16:00 UTC · 3 likes
Peter Wildeford🇺🇸🚀 (@peterwildeford): @AaronBergman18 this is so cool
what does it do?
Tree search of Substacks - who recommends who!
Reply to @eshear, 16:02 UTC · 3 likes
Emmett Shear (@eshear): Doing Bayesian updates in your head is unrelated to rationality in the same way that doing Newton’s laws of motion in your head is unrelated to throwing and catching a ball.
💯
Quote tweet, 17:24 UTC · 2 likes
This but for economics
I’ve never really understood why test-train split is standard practice in ML but not econ
Given the empirical success of ML, social science should consider what it can adopt!
Quoting Tim Duffy (@timfduffy): @lu_sichu wild that straight up not having a test-train split is the most common issue here
Tweet, 20:28 UTC · 14 likes
Computers are so interesting I wish they had better vibes/aesthetics
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 20:36 UTC · 2 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): Did you find it harder to share the childcare load with others when exclusively breastfeeding? And for you personally which did you feel like was better for your sanity?
Smol Matt incoming?? 👀
Reply to @owldudeok, 20:36 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @owldudeok is no longer available.)
Lol it’s totally unfair ur right im just gesturing at a vibe I personally sense
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 20:40 UTC · 2 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): Lmao I’m not even married yet
Cheems mindset
Reply to @Adellama_, 23:00 UTC · 2 likes
Ada🔸 (@Adellama_): computers have great aesthetics. i like computers just because of their aesthetics
I was thinking of more like CS as an intellectual thing but yes this looks cool
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