Cameron

(Former) contractor @HarmonicMath & amateur mathematician. Dislikes big government, likes capitalism and e/acc. Enjoyer of Prokofiev. 🇺🇸

[Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו @netanyahu]

My salute to the Indian pilot Captain Smit Machchhar for his extraordinary bravery.

Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster.

He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals.

I wish Captain Machchhar a speedy and full recovery.

He is a true hero.

[Michael Tracey @mtracey]

You truly have to be delusional to think the administrators at Cornell University and the "Justice System" in Ithaca, New York, circa 2024-2026, is callously indifferent to the gang-rape of female college students, and zealously committed to "covering" for any such gang-rapes

[Cameron @cappucher]

Imagine if people were worried about X rays due to their potential radioactive side effects and forced engineers to “pace the frontier” until they were completely confident nothing bad would ever happen. There would be countless tumors, strokes, etc that could have been prevented but wouldn’t because of neurotic EAs

[Alex Rampell @arampell]

The correct take on “pacing the frontier” from my son @cappucher and why effective altruists are neither effective nor altruistic. Accelerate!

[Alex Rampell @arampell]

The correct take on “pacing the frontier” from my son @cappucher and why effective altruists are neither effective nor altruistic. Accelerate!

[Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling]

what Elon Musk has done to make my life better:

- electric cars
- satellite internet
- saved free speech

what Jeff Bezos has done to make my life better:

- nationwide next-day delivery
- architecture that powers the internet

what Larry Page and Sergey Brin have done to make my life better:

- made the internet searchable
- online email and documents platform

what Mark Zuckerberg has done to make my life better:

- social media to keep me connected to friends
- online ads platform

what Larry Ellison has done to make my life better:

- database software for my businesses
- data centers for AI and cloud computing

what Jensen Huang has done to make my life better

- hardware that powers the AI revolution

what Bernie Sanders has done to make my life better:

[Mark Zlochin - מארק זלוצ'ין༝ @MarkZlochin]

the Sun revolves around the Earth (Aristotle)
the Sun revolves around the Earth (Hipparchus)
the Sun revolves around the Earth (Ptolemy)
the Sun revolves around the Earth (Thomas Aquinas)
the Sun revolves around the Earth (Tycho Brahe)
the Sun revolves around the Earth (Christoph Clavius)
the Sun revolves around the Earth (Francesco Ingoli)
the Sun revolves around the Earth (the Roman Inquisition)

"Whatever appears as a motion of the Sun is really due rather to the motion of the Earth" - Nicolaus Copernicus

Wow, look at this fringe crank rejecting the established scientific consensus!

[Cameron @cappucher]

@leechcheng Around 75% Asian (almost exclusively Chinese ~45% and Indian ~30%). There are more wasian than white kids (of which most are Eastern European) and all other races are virtually nonexistent

[Cameron @cappucher]

I’m a senior at Harker, and I can personally say that it is an academic powerhouse, albeit an intense pressure cooker as well.

Our average SAT is 1525, 94% of students score 4s and 5s on their AP exams, and we average around 10 USA(J)MO qualifiers a year. Last year — and I expect this year to be even better — 12% of student (25 kids, and 6 alone to Caltech!) went to HYPSM + Caltech.

This does not come without its downsides. Some people I’ve met have been the most vapid cheaters I’ve ever talked to. Some people are the most brilliant, thoughtful individuals I’ve met. But it is an environment unlike any other.

[Sheel Mohnot @pitdesi]

Bay area schools with the most National Merit Semifinalists & the share of senior class that qualified.

South Bay is absolutely dominant, there are many schools where >10% of the class qualified

[Cameron @cappucher]

@ZeroDawnGod Demographics are very different there, and knowing someone at Brearly, most of the admits are legacy/connections. Harker is 75%+ Asian so most of it is just grinding for four years straight

[Cameron @cappucher]

@ripley_weyland I think that for other than a handful of kids, everybody at the school works extremely hard, but some of the lower performing kids seem to develop inferiority complexes of some kind. Not completely sure though

[Cameron @cappucher]

@Jason3_0_0 I think most of it is selection bias and the USAMO winners are produced outside of class. For me though, seeing my friends work so hard definitely pushed me to do better academically. Also, some of our classes are really difficult (we have an information theory class)!

[Cameron @cappucher]

@WalterVarian1 No idea. The only schools that are better than us in STEM afaik are Exeter and TJ. Stuy and Andover are also pretty good. We probably have the strongest CS kids though (not CS program — as I said in another comment, Harker does not turn water into gold)

[Cameron @cappucher]

Actually completely agree with this. While there are some good teachers here, they’re probably of similar caliber to most public school teachers in the bay; certainly not turning water into gold. But the community aspect is also important for pushing yourself if you’re that kind of person

[Cameron @cappucher]

@panickssery I went to Proof School, and the culture there is not at all score optimization; the average student there takes Calculus in 9th grade. They were probably advised to not take the PSAT, as @rivkalipko already mentioned

[Cameron @cappucher]

@swillinger @fatpashtun @pitdesi Ha. Easiest 10 dollars of my life

[Daniel @growing_daniel]

if you showed me this in 2019 it would've been like giving a dorito to a victorian child

[Department of War CTO @DoWCTO]

The United States will NEVER be an effective altruist country. 🇺🇸

[Cameron @cappucher]

@danielz_fyi @MikeBrownsWorld You forgot to attach the gigachad image

[Cameron @cappucher]

A side effect of DEI for competitive undergrad admissions is that it actually usually helps white people. My high school is 75% Asian and practices pro-white affirmative action. As a result, most the Asian kids are significantly more academic and qualified than the majority of white students. The vast majority of Putnam fellows and USAMO winners are Indian or Chinese, and discriminating against them won’t change that.

[Bo French @bofrench]

I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.

[Cameron @cappucher]

@MikeBrownsWorld Yes, believe it or not. Average SAT score is 1520+, and 40% of the school scores in the top 0.5% of the PSAT (almost exclusively the Asian students)

[Cameron @cappucher]

@DrewPavlou It’s like this guy who responded to a 9/11 story saying “never forget what they did to us.” Insane