Buse

[Balaji @balajis]

BUILD THE SWITCH

Ok. I see the “just flip the switch” thing a lot now from the right.

But while I’m sympathetic to the desire for law and order, and agree that is a direction worth pursuing, there’s an illusion that should be addressed.

Leftists think you can get money without working for it. Just flip the switch on the money printer. Just flip the switch to tax the rich. But in reality, resources are scarce.

Rightists often similarly think you can get political power without working for it. Just flip the switch to throw the criminals in jail. But in reality, votes (or political supporters in general) are scarce just like resources are.

So the hard part is the invisible part of building that political base. Why were those criminal gangs on the streets of El Salvador? Because they had a drug dealer business model, and because Western leftists were paid by NGOs to support them. They were actually politically powerful.

Thus, what was needed to disrupt them? A better political business model, one that actually generated more political support than the legacy model.

The Internet was critical for this, as it allowed Bukele to build an audience with social media, align with Western centrists, conservatives, and libertarians via Bitcoin, recruit tech companies to El Salvador, and directly rebut anarchy-spreading Western leftist NGOs through a channel they couldn’t censor.

There’s way more to it than that, but the point is: there was no switch that Bukele inherited to flip, anymore than Elon inherited the switch to launch a SpaceX rocket. Bukele essentially had to build a new state from scratch, via the Internet. A new state that was loyal to the people of El Salvador rather than the criminal gangs.

This was nontrivial.
He had to build the switch.

[Balaji @balajis]

This may be what happens.

America pulls out and stops wasting its blood and treasure in the Middle East.

Then dozens of nations form a diplomatic (not military) coalition to reopen the Strait on acceptable terms.

With the war over, it’ll be difficult for Iran to charge exorbitant fees to so many neutral nations of Europe and Asia.

But regardless, the result will be that everyone just pays for their own security.

[Balaji @balajis]

This could be the offramp the world needs. You can think of it as the best outcome for everyone, under the circumstances.

(1) From MAGA’s perspective, if Trump declares victory here and moves on, the US won’t waste yet more blood and treasure in the Middle East. It won’t invade Iran. It also won’t take all the blame for the ongoing global supply chain crisis. It just pulls out and lets everyone work out the regional security equation for themselves.

Trump can say he’s fulfilled both his campaign promises: stop Iran from getting a nuke, but also no endless Middle Eastern wars.

(2) From Israel’s perspective, Iran has now been shown to be quite hostile to its neighbors, and its military has been substantially degraded. Stopping now is good. Otherwise there’s a danger of overreacting to Oct 7 as Americans overreacted to Sept 11. Israel can stand back and call it a win, because after a US pullout, Iran will have much less excuse for holding the Strait hostage.

(3) From the Iranian diaspora’s perspective, it’s unfortunately clear that the current war isn’t going to result in liberalization. Further attacks would push Iran further into fundamentalism, making it even harder to eventually do a liberal reformation.

(4) From the long-suffering Iranian people’s perspective, ending the war now would also save countless lives. Otherwise they’ll get hit by friendly fire and drafted by the regime to fight for fundamentalism.

(5) Finally, from the world’s perspective, once the US declares victory and goes home, substantial diplomatic pressure will be applied to Iran to simply open the Strait of Hormuz and allow ships through. Iran’s leadership has shown, perhaps surprisingly, that they care about global public opinion…and they would be on the hook for the suffering of billions of people if the Strait remains blocked.

TLDR: if Trump declares victory and leaves, Iran no longer has any excuse for blocking the Strait and holding the global economy hostage. Let the matter be worked out diplomatically with pressure from all the 100+ affected countries on Iran.

America shouldn’t have to spend a single cent more, or send a single soldier more, to the Middle East.

[Balaji @balajis]

Network School is growing.
Come visit us at https://t.co/yrwniI2Q61.

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

Someone made a global map of gas price increases since the Iran War began.

Take a look:

[a16z @a16z]

.@balajis says AI verification is much harder in the digital world than it is for the physical world:

"AI for the physical world is very verifiable because the thing is, the digital world is fundamentally decentralized in a way the physical world isn't."

"There's only one physical world. You can say: did the AI move this box from this pallet to that pallet? That is something where you can probably get it to 100% over time."

"By contrast, in the digital world, there are all these people who live in their own constructed environments."

"How do you know when you're done with your to-do list? That's harder. Those things are fuzzier."

[TBPN @tbpn]

Objection founder @aronpingdsouza is building "the AI tribunal for investigating the media" with the backing of Peter Thiel and @balajis.

He explains how it works:

"The fundamental problem with news media today is that false information spreads six times faster than true information. And so the incentives for generating clickbait content are very pronounced, and we've known this for a very long period of time."

"And so by compressing the legal process, which often takes 10 or 20 years, and costs tens of millions of dollars — as we learned in the Hulk Hogan lawsuit — down to a couple of days, we can adjudicate factual disputes much, much quicker and much cheaper. The whole process can cost as little as $2,000 and can be done in as little as 24 hours."

"If the New York Times writes something inaccurate about you guys, you can file an objection. Then human investigators will investigate the story line-by-line, source-by-source. They'll call everyone quoted in the article."

"And then they'll present that information to an AI jury. And the original author, of course, has the opportunity to respond and say, 'My reporting was good. It was high quality.'"

"But we live in the era of data, and I think it would be wonderful if every story published by the NYT included the long-form recordings of each interview."

"I've done thousands of media interviews. Journalists always record them, but they never publish them in full."

"So being misquoted or [relying on] anonymous sources, these are the tools that in particular print journalists use that have [caused] a massive degradation in trust."

[Balaji @balajis]

If you’re in the Singapore/Malaysia area, we have a Replit Agent 4 hackathon tomorrow at Network School.

There will be a tutorial, a little remote guest appearance by my friend @amasad, and a hackathon.

Here’s the event link:
https://t.co/s0JM5sLVSO

[Amjad Masad @amasad]

Excited for this

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

Coinbase is testing AI agents that show up in slack/email at work, just like any human teammate. To start we're shipping two which are modeled after legendary former Coinbase employees, @FEhrsam and @balajis. (Who brutally frame mogged who in this matchup?)

Soon, it will be easy for any employee to spin up a new agent for themselves or their team. I suspect we will have more agents than human employees at some point soon.

[Balaji @balajis]

Seasteading is already here.
It’s just not evenly distributed.

[Balaji @balajis]

On the new Monitoring the Situation stream with @eriktorenberg and @theojaffee.

[MTS @MTSlive]

BALAJI AND LORENZ | NSA TESTS MYTHOS | NICK TIMIRAOS https://t.co/PHsp8sAWaF

[Faryar Shirzad 🛡️ @faryarshirzad]

The final rewards text in the CLARITY Act is now public.

We’ve been clear throughout this process: much of this debate was based on imagined risks, not real evidence, nor was it based on a real understanding of how crypto actually works.

Nevertheless, the crypto industry showed up to engage. Through months of meetings, the @WhiteHouse, @USTreasury, @BankingGOP, @SenThomTillis and @Sen_Alsobrooks finally arrived at a compromise.

In the end, the banks were able to get more restrictions on rewards, but we protected what matters – the ability for Americans to earn rewards, based on real usage of crypto platforms and networks. We also ensured the US can be at the forefront of the financial system – which in this competitive geopolitical era is paramount.

That’s important for innovation, consumers and America's national security.

Now that this issue is behind us, it’s time to focus on the broader bill. While this debate has been underway, lots of progress has been made on other areas like token classification, defi, and tokenization. We’re excited to review the full, final text, and for the bill to move forward.

It’s time to get CLARITY done.

[Balaji @balajis]

Original graphic from @amuse.
Data from @LeaveDelaware.
https://t.co/3l74fIhXX3

[Balaji @balajis]

Personal emigration is going vertical.
So is corporate redomiciliation.

[Balaji @balajis]

The US federal budget is $7 trillion.
There are 535 in the Senate and Congress.
They collectively allocate that money.
Specifically: 7000/535 = 13 billion per official.
Which means AOC is a political billionaire.
She allocates far more than any market billionaire.
Indeed she allocates ten billion liquid, per year.
A market billionaire has one billion, illiquid, per life.
So: AOC spends 10-100X what a market billionaire has.
It's not even close.
She's right about one thing, though.
AOC didn't earn the tens of billions she spends.
The state taxed that money, by force.

[Balaji @balajis]

The right kind of ambition is to compete against yourself. To be the best version of yourself.

[Base @base]

We're building the onchain home for AI & Robotics

Base Batches 003 proved it, with @virtuals_io & @ns

[Emilie Choi 🛡️ @emiliemc]

Incredible to celebrate the 14th anniversary of @coinbase’s founding today. It’s extra special to have Clarity pass through the Senate Banking Committee on a bipartisan vote. So many good memories and so much to look forward to! Coinbase has endurance.