tradoor + reply guy
Joined March 2020
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- Following4.4K
- Followers490
- Likes2.4K
Walka 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
Walka retweeted
discretionary view, quantitative portfolio for thematic brypto long/short
probs one of the "harder" articles to write about (skill issue for me) but I write to level myself up so gotta give it a try
as usual giving access to some who RT
ref @macrocephalopod @__paleologo
Walka retweeted
The skipper stays.
ALT Graphic featuring Virgil van Dijk. Text reads: "It was always Liverpool."
Walka retweeted
If you’ve found my commentary valuable during this period, shoot me a retweet.
I’m not overly concerned with follower count, but it does help amplify the message and broaden awareness of what we do—namely, a core focus on volatility trading and tail risk hedging.
Something that is pretty useful in this environment.
I’ve been quite vocal about my belief that 2025 will be a pivotal year for equity volatility. This perspective isn’t rooted in traditional macroeconomic themes like inflation or recession; rather, it stems directly from the positioning dynamics we’re observing in equities.
We’re seeing a variety of players—from foreign pensions and domestic RIAs to even hedge funds—dusting off their 2016 playbook in anticipation of Trump taking office. This focus involves increasing exposure to U.S. equities, selling more volatility, and deploying additional risk capital (more net leverage).
When positioning becomes heavily skewed in one direction, it tends to amplify the demand for volatility protection during equity market declines.
While equities may continue to trend upward overall, any pullbacks are likely to bring strong volatility performance 🎭
Walka retweeted
new post dropped
long, long, long thoughts on backtesting in low frequency space.
ref: @macrocephalopod @therobotjames @choffstein @__paleologo @ThePythonQuant @experquisite (yes I did say it's long)
as usual giving access to some who RT
Walka retweeted
Infinity or -4: Gambling With Ridge Regression
before you abandon Ridge for XGB, you might wanna do this
as always giving access to lucky ones who RT
featuring @macrocephalopod's exclusive leaked ̷O̷F̷ DM - ceph's advanced regression quant iv questions
ref @__paleologo
Walka retweeted
new post dropped plzzz check it out ma familia is in poverty:
Farewell Episode: Risk Parity Without Correlations (yes it's possible, no it's not inverse vol)
as usual giving access to some who RT
reference
@o_wutang @GRoditiD @GestaltU @macrocephalopod @itsmartingale @choffstein
quantymacro.com
Walka retweeted
new post dropped:
Cross-Predictability Between Assets (Part I): All Signals Matter
(sample code attached)
⚓ Cross-Predictability in Trend Signals
🤸Dynamic Portfolio Selection in Mean-Variance Optimisation
💹 Regression Equivalence in Modelling Cross-Predictability
featuring stolen content from @macrocephalopod @choffstein @investingidiocy
as always giving free access to some who RT. may RNG gods bless all of you 😀
quantymacro.com
I'm op_deadwalker.cast on far.quest/cast built on @wieldlabs exploring Farcaster, join me to earn FarPoints! far.quest/referral?invite=40…
Walka retweeted
new post dropped:
Should you combine positions or signals? (Part II): Having your cake and eating it too
(sample code provided out of gratitude for the subs 🙏)
🔎hedging factor risk w crystal clear attribution
💹Jensen's inequality in portfolio construction
🔮managing strategies w diff turnovers seamlessly
featuring stolen content from:
@therobotjames @robertmartin88 @experquisite @macrocephalopod @choffstein @__paleologo
giving away free access to few who RT this :)
Walka retweeted
the start of my grifting era.
yes I'm starting a "newsletter".
but who the f am I?
I completed my undergraduate last year, & received multiple offers from PMs in Citadel/MLP/Bluecrest/Rokos/Brevan to join their pod w/o going through the typical grad rotations. and I did that mostly through showcasing personal projects to buyside PMs.
sneak peek of the draft:
sorry guys I had to namedrop to get you to click 🫠.
I want to start w a strong disclaimer. I do not claim that my writing is "actionable", or "insightful", nor I am arrogant enough to claim that my writing has "alpha". I don't even guarantee the correctness of my writing.
the contents are niche by design, hence it is most probs not for most people. I write about topics that *I* find interesting/helped *me* during my search for a trading seat. that's all. if you expect more than that it's on you unfortunately :P
what I aim my writing to be:
- rigorous *and* (hopefully) accessible (mathsy w ELI15 vibe)
- focus *a lot* on building intuition (I'm a huge advocate for understanding *why* you're doing what you're doing)
- focus on practical details that are usually glossed over
- touch on things I wish I had read abt before
what I actively try to avoid writing about:
- generic textbook stuffs/equations i.e what is linear reg/MVO
- shill 952 textbooks/github/papers about "quant trading"
- generic code snippets i.e fitting ML models on price wtv (although sometimes I do provide code to play around with if it adds value)
the newsletter is priced in such a way to make it worth my time. I take a *lot* of care to make sure I'm not writing generic stuffs, and that takes a lot of effort and time. the launching price is heavily discounted ofc (deep OTM options have to be cheaper innit). first post will be up tomorrow.
I might have discounts in the future but it'll still be at least ~10-20% higher than launching price out of respect for those who purchase early. the discount is good for a few days ish/first 50ppl whichever comes first.
And ofc I will be giving away 3m of free subs to 5 random ppl who RT this tweet to make sure my grift reaches as many ppl as possible.
IMPORTANT:
I'm no longer using the forbidden website (s_b st__k). the new link is quantymacro.com
I understand the negative connotations of launching a newsletter, given the amount of LARPing influencianistas here that post worst-than-useless-cool-sounding methods to farm engagement/subs 👀(no it's not you, it's the other ones). hence I am pretty much expecting some skepticism.
the (very few) ppl that I think are genuinely selling good stuffs have generally two things in common in my view:
1) advocate for extreme conscientiousness + thoughtfulness when talking about doing anything instead of blindly shilling some techniques they read over the winter break
2) very transparent w regards to what you can expect out of their course/product/books
And that's what I'm aiming for (a very high bar, I know 😬). hence I am pretty much welcoming any feedback/comment. FWIW I think I've been quite transparent with regards to my background/exp. I started this acc in March and made it clear at that time that I was just a guy who was trying to get his foot in the door.
I do not claim to be a big shot trader/giga quant. I'm just a lucky guy who self-taught himself into a pod. You can check my prev writings to get my style of writing/gauge my level of knowledge. If you don't learn anything from them, you're most probably more advanced than me hence not the right audience :)
if you wonder about my incentives, they are: money, learning, self-challenge, proof of work, relationships, and fun. I'm putting my stuffs out to increase my luck/serendipity surface area. it would be quite cool if somehow in the future this newsletter opens up opportunities that I otherwise would not get.
since I have a day job things can get hectic, so I might not have time to write/post. If I feel like I do not post enough to justify the value I will comp everyone for that month. as a rough estimate i plan to post every ~3-4 weeks at the minimum.
lastly just wanna say barring all this sub stuff, even writing the articles themselves have made me at least twice a better quant than I was previously. and ~50% of the articles were sparked by the stuffs I read here, so just wanna say my appreciation for the community. cheers my gs :)
