Newsletter #55

Hey everyone,

Announcements

I was was wondering if everyone would be interested in a taking a survey every once in a while. Specifically, it would be over a specific event, such whether the Democrats will take the House after the midterms, to gage the collective intelligence of the group over time. Does this sound like something you’d be interested in?

Movies of the Week

Seen:

Bohemian Rhapsody by Bryan Singer: went to see this with my dad yesterday, and we both really liked it. It does a great job at creating a really immersive experience in the world of Queen. Rami Malek’s performance was spectacular!

Anticipating:

Rocketman by Dexter Fletcher: saw this trailer as part of the previews of Bohemian Rhapsody. I am bullish on music-driven movies because they are by nature very cinematic since they leverage the concert-like dynamics of the theatrical experience.

Music Video of the Week

Without Me — Halsey by Colin Tilley: Halsey is on record saying that she is inspired by movies when she makes her music, and it’s evident given the attention to color contrast in this video. Also, the video does a wonderful job to emphasize something we often forget: we don’t experience emotions or memories one at a time! Different emotions trigger difference memories, and we simultaneously experience happiness and despair as we relive the history of powerful relationship.

Paper of the Week

Prediction Markets as an Aggregation Mechanism for Collective Intelligence [paper 11p]: truly mind-blowing shit right here. Turns out, prediction markets need certain core features in order to enable collective intelligence, and the primary one is diversity.

Weekly Shoutout

@MarkG has a Patreon. He is essentially a concierge mathematician XD I highly encourage any of you interested in having a particular mathematical concept explained to reach out to him.

Books

Have not finished anything yet. Going all in on long books for a while lol

Food for Thought

How Vilification of George Soros Moved From the Fringes to the Mainstream [video 3m]: duuuuude, I had always wondered where the conspiracy theory came from. I just don’t get how someone can be paranoid about Soros but not about the Koch brothers….

Why There Will Never be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source [article]: it’s interesting to see the underlying fundamentals behind Red Hat, and what it means for the viability of open-source first models.

What Happens to Startup in the Next Recession [article]: def something to think about.

Crowd Pleasers

SpaceX and Starlink [article]: despite the turnover, I am really looking forward to see how SpaceX’s internet satellite system plays out. This could be a game changer for telecom worldwide!

13 Things Stanislaw Lem Predicted About The Future We Live In [article]: Thiel encourages to go back and read old science fiction to figure out what we ended up not building technologically. Lem clearly had an eye for seeing the future of networked technologies.

What I Learned from Watching 33 Hallmark Christmas Movies [article]: I often describe being at Clemson as being in a Hallmark movie. 72 million people watched Hallmark Christmas movies last year: that’s how massive the market is!

Mind-Benders

Cyan Banister: from homeless to Founders Fund [video 20m]: as many of you know, I’m a big fan of Cyan and her advocacy for neurodiversity. It’s interesting that someone so active in LGBTAIQ+ causes and identifies as queer feels comfortable working at Founders Fund, given Peter Thiel’s support for Trump. Clearly there is more than what appears on the surface.

ML applied to Natural Selection in the Human Genome [article]: this is such a cool problem: how do you identify inflection points in genomic evolution? You use deep learning! How do you train neural networks without ground truth data? Simulations of possible gene sequences! I am really excited about this field.

The Psychology of Mass Movements [article]: crowd behavior as always fascinated me bc it has such unique features that drive individuals to behave in radically different ways. In many ways, all great macro investments are a form of mass movement, that’s why it applies to Bitcoin so well.

Have a great weekend!

Check out the collection of all of the past newsletters