Reasserting the Rule of Law

Last week the CEO of United Healthcare was assassinated in midtown Manhattan. A surprising number of reactions amounted to some variant of “he had it coming.” Why were people defending what appears to be a vigilante killing? Because the rule of law in the US has been undermined by a pervasive sense that the justice system is rigged to protect the rich and powerful and their interests. There appears to be no accountability for them while ordinary citizens find themselves subjected to abuse by ...

#law#politics#democracy

Continuations Now on Paragraph

A little over eight years ago I wrote that I was thinking about leaving Tumblr. More interestingly though, the headline of that post went on to say that I was "Looking for a Decentralized Blog Network"! I even explained what I meant by that:In functionality my ideal system would be quite similar to Tumblr + Disqus but would use something like Onename as its identity system. Every post (and comment) would be signed with an identity and it would be possible to follow content based on identity i...

#continuations#paragraph#crypto#writing
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We Need Actually Open AI Now More than Ever (Or: Why Leopold Aschenbrenner is Dangerously Wrong)

Based on recent meetings it would appear that the national security establishment may share Leopold Aschenbrenner’s view that the US needs to get to ASI first to help protect the world from Chinese hegemony. I believe firmly in protecting individual freedom and democracy. Building a secretive Manhattan project style ASI is, however, not the way to accomplish this. Instead we now need an Actually Open™ AI more than ever. We need ASIs (plural) to be developed in the open. With said development ...

#ai#asi#open

Moderation in Social Networks

First Pavel Durov, the co-founder and CEO of Telegram, was arrested in France, in part due to a failure to comply with moderation requests by the French government. Now we have Brazil banning X/Twitter from the country entirely, also claiming a failure to moderate. How much moderation should there be on social networks? What are the mechanisms for moderation? Who should be liable for what? The dialog on answering these questions about moderation is broken because the most powerful actors are ...

#freedom of speech#social networks#moderation

Changing My Approach to Meetings to Take Back Control of My Attention

I let meetings take over my life. For reasons that I might get into some other time I said yes to way too many meetings. My schedule became ever more packed, often running back-to-back for entire days. It became harder and harder to find time to read, think, and write. I also had virtually no time to deal with emergencies when those came up. My attention was no longer mine to direct. It had been hijacked by meetings. Having had a break from meetings on a six week voyage across the Atlantic, I...

#work#attention#meetings
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Lessons from a Voyage

I have just returned from an exciting voyage: crossing the Atlantic on a sailboat. You can find updates from along the way on the J44 Frolic website, Twitter/X and Instagram accounts. In this post I am gathering up my lessons learned. Some of these are just about sailing, in particular passage making, and some are broadly applicable life lessons.Offshore sailing is intense. I always had great respect for offshore sailors, and in particular solo sailors, and this voyage has only deepened that....

#personal#sailing#adventure#lessons learned

Trump is Unfit to be President

Donald Trump is unfit to be the president of the United States of America. He is unfit to hold any public office. It boggles the mind that a number of investors and entrepreneurs have come out in support of Trump despite his obviously disqualifying character, which has been revealed time and again through words and actions. Sometimes there are hard choices to make when people are immensely talented but also deeply flawed. This is not one of those situations. Many years ago while on vacation w...

#politics#trump

Everything Wrong with the Democrats

The US political system is in turmoil because the Republicans have been high-jacked by Trump and the Democrats have become hypocritical technocrats. I have written a fair bit about Trump and will write more, but today’s post is reserved for “everything” I find wrong with the Democrats. There is more and also more detail to each of these criticisms, so consider this to be an overview: Democrats have embraced an intrusive ninny state that patronizes citizens. I blame books like Nudge and the th...

#politics
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Going on a Voyage

Growing up in Germany my parents and I would spend two weeks every summer going to the Chiemsee to sail. We stayed at Gästehaus Grünäugel in Gstadt (no that’s not the resort in Switzerland). I learned how to sail from my Dad who was self-taught. Thanks, Dad! It was a ton of fun to be out on the water and I also built a deep association between sailing and vacation. What a great way to take one’s mind off things! I wound up not sailing during college and for quite a few years after that. But t...

#adventure#sailing#frolic

I Miss Writing Here

It’s been a long time since I have written here. And I miss it. There has been a confluence of factors that have made it difficult. First, there has been simply finding the time. I have been crazy busy at work with many portfolio companies going through some kind of crisis as part of the adjustments in the financing environment over the last couple of years. I have also been working through some personal issues that have provided an opportunity for growth but have been time intensive (more on...

#writing#meta