Jacob Agi retweeted
>be me
>discover effective altruism
>apparently normal charity is inefficient
>why donate to random sad thing when spreadsheet can tell you optimal sad thing
>fair enough
>buy mosquito nets
>save lives
>numbers look good
>feel powerful
>couple years later
>someone asks an innocent question
>why only count people alive today
>huh
>future people matter too
>obviously
>my grandchildren shouldn't matter less just because they haven't spawned yet
>reasonable.jpg
>keep following logic
>what about their grandchildren
>also yes
>what about people in 500 years
>sure
>5000 years
>why not
>500 million years
>starting to get weird but morality is morality
>open calculator
>humanity could survive for an astronomically long time
>could colonize galaxy
>could have trillions upon trillions of descendants
>maybe digital people too
>maybe simulated civilizations
>maybe dyson spheres full of happy uploaded minds
>calculator starts smoking
>realize currently living humans are rounding error
>8 billion people suddenly looking extremely beta
>future contains potentially 10^something people
>can't even fit beneficiaries in google sheets
>new moral priority unlocked
>protect the long-term future
>stop thinking in units of "people helped"
>start thinking in "fraction of cosmic endowment preserved"
>malaria?
>terrible
>but only kills existing humans
>AI extinction could delete the entire light cone
>nuclear war could permanently derail civilization
>bad institutions could lock in terrible values for ten million years
>someone invents wrong constitution in 2140
>quadrillions suffer
>better fund governance workshop now
>friend says maybe we should improve hospitals
>explain opportunity cost
>friend says hospitals are full of actual sick people
>explain scope sensitivity
>friend stops inviting me to dinner
>need to decide what to fund
>easy
>expected value
>suppose project has one in a million chance of preventing extinction
>sounds tiny
>but extinction destroys 10^50 future lives
>multiply
>mother of god
>$10 million project has expected value of several galaxies
>charity evaluation complete
>someone asks where the one-in-a-million number came from
>expert judgement
>which expert
>us
>how calibrated
>extremely thoughtfully
>reduce estimate to one in ten million to be conservative
>still beats curing cancer by 38 orders of magnitude
>epistemic robustness achieved
>someone says maybe project doesn't work
>assign 20% chance
>still astronomical
>maybe project makes problem worse
>assign 5% chance
>still astronomical
>why 5
>because 30 felt pessimistic
>publish 46-page report
>contains seventeen sensitivity analyses
>every sensitivity analysis begins after assuming intervention has positive sign
>critic says you're multiplying enormous hypothetical stakes by extremely uncertain probabilities
>yes
>that's literally why it's important
>critic says the uncertainty might be structural rather than numerical
>make probability smaller
>critic says no, I mean maybe your model is wrong
>make probability smaller again
>critic begins rubbing temples
>discover AI safety
>perfect longtermist cause
>AI might kill everyone
>or create utopia
>or seize galaxy
>or tile universe with paperclips
>or create billions of conscious software minds
>finally a problem with numbers big enough for me
>start AI safety nonprofit
>mission: prevent dangerous AI
>hire smartest people available
>smartest people immediately start building better AI to understand dangerous AI
>interesting
>we must understand capabilities to understand safety
>we must scale models to study alignment
>we must race ahead so less responsible actors don't get there first
>we must deploy systems to learn how deployment can go wrong
>we must build the thing quickly because building the thing quickly is dangerous
>outsider asks why the people most worried about AI apocalypse all work at AI companies
>complicated field
>company releases stronger model
>very concerned
>company begins training even stronger model
>extremely concerned
>company raises $14 billion
>concern reaches unprecedented levels
>need to influence government
>future is at stake
>normal democratic process too slow
>politicians don't understand exponential curves
>public doesn't understand x-risk
>experts must guide them
>who counts as expert
>people who understand x-risk
>who understands x-risk
>our friends
>someone objects that this seems politically convenient
>explain we're representing future generations
>future generations unavailable for comment
>develop concept of value lock-in
>terrifying possibility that one ideology controls civilization forever
>therefore extremely important that civilization adopts correct values before lock-in
>whose values
>let's circle back
>begin with impartial morality
>end with small group of people deciding what quadrillions of hypothetical beings would want
>beautiful arc
>meanwhile actual humans keep doing annoying things
>voting wrong
>having parochial attachments
>loving family more than strangers
>caring about local community
>getting upset when told their suffering is cosmically negligible
>evolutionary biases everywhere
>explain that moral intuition cannot be trusted
>except intuition that future digital people count
>and intuition that extinction is uniquely bad
>and intuition that our probability estimates are sane
>and intuition that our institutional choices improve the future
>those intuitions survived peer review
>someone donates $5k to local homeless shelter
>inefficient
>could have funded 0.0000000000003% of an AI governance researcher
>think of all the simulated people you just killed
>okay maybe don't phrase it that way publicly
>PR team says "future generations deserve a voice"
>much better
>journalist asks what longtermism means
>say "future people matter"
>everyone agrees
>great
>journalist asks what follows from that
>well technically we should redirect enormous resources toward low-probability interventions affecting astronomical futures
>journalist raises eyebrow
>return to "future people matter"
>motte has entered the chat
>critic: of course future people matter
>me: glad we agree
>critic: I don't agree that your institute knows how to help them
>me: why do you hate our grandchildren
>eventually notice uncomfortable implication
>if future value dominates everything
>then helping people today mostly matters through effects on future
>education matters because future institutions
>health matters because future productivity
>democracy matters because future trajectory
>human beings slowly become instrumental variables in their own moral philosophy
>see starving child
>feel compassion
>check spreadsheet
>child's direct welfare contribution negligible
>but perhaps childhood nutrition improves national institutional quality
>compassion restored
>tell myself this is impartial altruism
>one day assistant asks obvious question
>"how do you know your intervention actually improves the far future?"
>silence
>open spreadsheet
>increase column width
>add confidence interval
>assistant asks again
>"no, I mean how do you know the sign is positive?"
>stare into cosmic light cone
>10^50 people staring back
>none of them exist
>none of them can tell me
>none of them can falsify my assumptions
>realize I have invented the perfect constituency
>infinitely important
>completely silent
>and always represented by me
Jacob Agi retweeted
just remember, when this ends poorly and everyone hates you, that you did this to yourself
Jacob Agi retweeted
This is what audiences were missing at the top of the frame if they didn't see The Odyssey in IMAX.
🤖 Made with AI
Jacob Agi retweeted
People will talk like this and then when this team is a 55 win 3 seed Luka is gonna be 8th in mvp voting. It’s insane
Jacob Agi retweeted
Rob Pelinka is the perfect example of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Yesterday, @Lakers fans were saying he was asleep at the wheel, that he wasn’t aggressive enough, and that the front office had no plan. Less than 24 hours later, the #Lakers reportedly land Walker Kessler, Collin Sexton, Quentin Grimes, and Sandro Mamukelashvili in a flurry of moves that completely reshape the roster around Luka Dončić.
Was the price for Walker Kessler steep? Absolutely. But here’s the reality: when you identify a 24-year-old rim protector who runs the floor, rebounds, blocks shots, and fits perfectly next to Luka, you don’t get him at a discount. Utah had all the leverage, and Pelinka knew that if Kessler was his guy, it was going to cost premium assets. That’s the price of solving your biggest roster need.
The bigger picture matters. This wasn’t about winning the transaction. It was about building a roster that actually fits. Kessler gives Luka the vertical lob threat and defensive anchor he’s at his best with. Sexton brings downhill scoring and toughness. Grimes adds two-way versatility on the wing. Mamukelashvili gives the Lakers another skilled frontcourt player with size and shooting.
Fans wanted urgency. Pelinka showed urgency.
You can debate the cost, but you can’t debate the intent. The Lakers identified their weaknesses and attacked them immediately. That’s what a President of Basketball Operations is supposed to do. Now it’s on the players and coaching staff to make it work.
#LakeShow
Jacob Agi retweeted
1/ Today, @multicoin publishes our HYPE analysis and valuation
HYPE is now one of our largest liquid fund positions and we've been accumulating aggressively since February
Full report and disclosures in link. Link here -
multicoin.capital/2026/06/25…
Jacob Agi retweeted
JaVale, on telling Caruso to wear the headband: "I just had a vision. And when I saw that vision of what he could be, visually, I made it happen. I told him to get the haircut, also. Haircut. Headband. What happened? He went out there and flew. Like the eagle that he is." AK
Jacob Agi retweeted
Rockets C Alperen Sengun (back) is out vs. Lakers tonight, per Ime Udoka.
Clint Capela will get the start and match up with Deandre Ayton.
Jacob Agi retweeted
so here is what it think is happening with this lebron james vs jeanie buss story:
1) espn was expecting/hoping for some sort of noise about what lebron was going to do
2) lebron and his camp havent indicated anything (even rich has said on his own pod they havent discussed it)
3) baxter holmes has had the article buss family dysfunction story sitting around but his editor realized no one really cares about that
4) with no noise espn has to manufacture the story so baxter adds the lebron stuff
5) rich says he doesnt believe it, lebron says he doesnt care, jeanie says its unfair to bring lebron into family drama
6) espn now has completely abandoned the family drama story and now solely focused on what their original goal was
"what is lebron doing after this season?"
Jacob Agi retweeted
Found Dog: BHPD found a Caucasian Shepherd/Russian Bear Dog. If yours, call West LA Animal Shelter at (888) 452-7381. nixle.us/GY2LD
Jacob Agi retweeted
Grabs the board.
Rises up for the slam.
WHAT AN ATHLETIC PLAY BY AMEN THOMPSON 😱
Watch on NBA League Pass: nba.com/how-to-watch-game-re…
Jacob Agi retweeted
People who did not watch this game are going to complain about the free-throw disparity and it's going to be hilarious as if 30 of the Kings' fouls weren't dumb hacks 97 feet from the hoop
