Surya Narayanan

Perennial questions studied with the methods of our times.

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

all views expressed my moms' and do not represent those of my employer

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

lowk feels like all these jobs will be clawdcoded away

[asparagoid @asparagoid]

Just remembered the world sauna championship. Was one of the most interesting things I've read about

It used to be hosted in Finland every year until the incident in 2010. Rules were that it started at 110°C (230F). Then 1 litre of water was poured onto the stove every 2 minutes

The last person to walk out under their own power won

In 2010, both finalists had to be dragged out

The russian finalist died, burned all over, and the reigning Finnish champ went into a coma and woke up 6 weeks later with 70% of his skin burned, kidney failure and his airways completely roasted

One peculiar thing about it was there were no prizes. Only in one particular year did the winner get 1 small prize, some special heat resistant speakers that could be used in a sauna

But despite this, participants went to the edge of death every year and would do insane stuff like grow their hair out long specifically to cover their ears so it didn't get burned by the boiling water vapor

It was interesting to me because it's another piece of evidence that as soon as you create a ruleset... no matter how ridiculous it is, no matter how small the group of participants, no matter the extremely chance of death, and no matter a total lack of prizes. There will always be men willing to compete to the point of actually killing themselves

The male brain enters a kind of hypnotic trance where it will completely convince itself of the worthwhileness of the task, so long as it begins to venture seriously down the path of a competitive interest

It's kind of like a hijacking of the programming evolutionary mind, where no incentive makes sense but it happens anyway. You can find a million examples of this for every male interest on the planet. Just the simple act starting down a path confers it meaning to the person, and the more they are surrounded by other men who care about the same thing, the more they learn and compete, the more entranced by it they are, until their identity is fully subsumed by it and stuff like these sauna deaths happen

Seeing lots of things like this taught me to be very careful when I start down the path of any competitive interest or business, because getting hypnotized by what you are doing is essentially guaranteed. So it's good to assume it'll happen and be totally sure the outcome is worth your potential self-destruction

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

@elonmusk elon you are the only man who can land rockets, get faster internet on planes than on earth, build data centers and normalize fsd evs. you need to do this this needs to happen

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

I dont understand what people mean by ‘nicotine is addictive’ I just take the gums whenever I want

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

https://t.co/Ao62cO34sO literally changed my life like this backpack is eligible?

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

the letters and numbers h, b, m, 4 were in my captcha. The gods have spoken. Calls it is $MU

[Chris Lane Jones @cljwebdev]

☠️☠️☠️

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

I’ve listened to thousands of hours of great music since. What an awesome streaming service.

[Matt B @mwbank]

@signulll Oh come on.

Ozempic.

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

This counts as financial advice right?

[Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders]

I will soon be introducing a bill to give the public a 50% ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America.

This would guarantee that the trillions created by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us — and block oligarch decisions that harm the American people.

[Tooly @ToolySOL]

"Are you gonna take profit this time or just screenshots?"

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

@nikunj i dont get it - i went all in on topgolf and innout but am not rich?

[outside five sigma @jwt0625]

how do i invest in Wang Ji Rice Dumplings

[Varunram Ganesh @varunram]

This website is free

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

guys HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO USE THIS WEBSITE

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

seriously. ffs

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

i just don't understand how this product was bought for billions? half the links are broken and it looks like it was vibe coded by a 5 y/o?

[Surya Narayanan @EcstaticIndian]

@AnthropicAI @AltimeterCap @Greenoaks @sequoia good job. any chance you guys are taking angel cheques?