Ben Friedman

Dad, 2x founder, solo traveled 7 continents, lover of sandwiches and spending the night in remote places

[2022 Heisman Winner @vj_v_]

I have yet to see Lebron do this

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@TheInsiderPaper So heartbreaking. I went through this exact border crossing in 2018. Routinely amazed at how much luck is involved in life.

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@ohhushreads @bluewdrift Gonna say this to my kids

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

Those of us bitterly opposed to communism fall into two different groups.

A) Those who argue that it must be abandoned because it has show us that it doesn’t work.

B) Those of us that are so bitterly opposed to collectivism applied to dissenting individuals that we are relieved that it *cannot* work. A happy accident. Those who don’t care if it *could* be made to work: we’d continue to fight it. Working or not working is irrelevant. It’s just bad. Period. The end.

If Communism could actually be shown to deliver stable high levels of growth and innovation, broadly distributed, with low inequality,
I believe I would still fight it to my dying breath.

My opposition to communism has little to nothing to do with the fact that it doesn’t work as an economic system. So, it’s merely a relief that it doesn’t work. A convenience for its opposition.

Communism and collectivism are intrinsically soul killing for people who are hyper-individualistic . So let’s stop hiding behind the fact that they don’t work as economic or governance systems.

Some of us who aren’t the biggest fans of naked capitalism red of tooth and claw, hate communism not because we think capitalism is intrinsically fair. It isn’t. We oppose it because communism hunts the individual.

For us, It’s not communism vs capitalism. That is a businessman’s argument. Instead, it’s communism vs individualism for me. Show me a system that fights harder to let a dissenting individual thrive more than brutal market capitalism (which also barely works), and I am all ears.

Not everything is a market after all.

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

Oooff says so much…

[@levelsio @levelsio]

🇪🇺 This year the European Union will again make more money from fining US tech companies

Than from the total tax income from Europe's own public tech companies!

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@nxthompson Amazing quote

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@VoicesofWW2 🫡🫡🫡

[Jostein Hauge @haugejostein]

Drawing on the two major battles in England in 1066, my uncle has a thesis that England will beat Norway — like they did at the Battle of Stamford Bridge — but later lose to France in the final because they are so beaten up — like they did at the Battle of Hastings.

[Boris Eldagsen @BorisEldagsen]

Chapeau @SHL0MS ! I love your Monet stunt.
Like my refusal of the Sony World Photo Award in 2023, it is an epistemic trap: You changed the label around an image and watched people and institutions reveal how they judge art under AI anxiety.

But you and I pointed the trap in opposite directions: I staged a boundary test, you staged a perception test.

When I entered “PSEUDOMNESIA | The Electrician”, an AI-generated image, into the Sony World Photography Awards, then refused the prize publicly, I wanted to accelerate the debate about what counts as photography.
SHL0MS did the inverse with “Inferior Image“: posting an actual Monet Water Lilies as a supposed AI-generated image, asked people to explain why it was inferior to a “real” Monet, and thousands complied, producing elaborate critiques of a real Monet under a false AI label.

My act said: the system is not ready - we need new categories, new language, and honest rules. I wanted to “speed up this debate.” And in addition to refusing the prize, I suggested to donate it to a Ukrainian photo festival.
SHL0MS’s act said: the viewer is not ready; people do not see first and judge second - they classify first and then invent reasons. Your “Inferior Image“ is a diagnosis of mass aesthetic suggestibility. And by minting the image as an NFT, you made the market controversy part of the work.

I attacked the category confusion between photography and promptography. SHL0MS attacked perceptual corruption: seeing versus believing.

My work depended on my skills in AI image making (yes, in Autumn 2022, this image was the most photorealistic you could get!).
SHL0MS’s work depends on attention design: choosing a Monet that was not instantly recognizable, phrasing the provocation, steering replies, collecting critiques, and structuring the viral discourse. He basically “prompted” humans instead of prompting an image model.

👉BUT:

We both used misattribution as a mirror: the real artwork is not only the picture. It is the reaction system around the picture. In old art-history language, both are post-Duchampian.

We both show that the crisis is not only technological. It is psychological. The image itself is no longer the whole evidence. The caption, platform, institution, category, and social mood now do enormous perceptual work. The eye has become a press secretary for the belief system.

Thank you for adding a smart conceptual work to the history of art.

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

At this point, I’m in favor of a TT ban, but I often think it’s more just a result of being online - on any social platform - at a young age. We all see how anon online interactions are fundamentally different than in-person interactions (especially on divisive issues). But young kids brains don’t seem emotionally ready for these online spaces. You mentioned heroin. Maybe we should think of it more like alcohol, banned before a certain age. I’m increasingly in favor of age restrictions. These platforms are obviously causing harm. We should be past the “wake up call” phase and into the “policy” phase. Although teens still drink alcohol so idk if that’s enough… which brings me back to supporting banning it.

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@thinkwithmark This is really neat. Just my unsolicited two cents on copywriting, say “shipping spring 2026” not “Q3 2026.” You’re talking to consumers now, not investors : )

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

Microplastic intake could be 100x lower than previously thought. We cited this research often when I worked in foodtech.

[Avi Roy @agingroy]

7,000 false positives per square millimeter. The culprit was the lab gloves.

University of Michigan researchers just upended a core assumption in microplastics science. Latex and nitrile gloves, worn by the scientists doing the measuring, shed stearate particles that look chemically identical to polyethylene. Standard infrared and Raman instruments can't tell them apart. The gloves were counting as plastic.

Seven glove types tested. All contaminated. The cheapest fix: switch to cleanroom gloves, which dropped false positives to around 100 per mm² vs. 7,000.

The "credit card per week" headline (5 grams, WWF/Newcastle 2019) has separate problems. A 2022 re-analysis found severe methodological errors in the original estimate. Actual measured intake is likely 100x lower.

None of this means microplastics are harmless. Last month's data on brain accumulation still stands. But the numbers driving the panic may have been measuring the scientists, not the environment.

Science catching its own errors is exactly how it's supposed to work.

[a16z @a16z]

The majority of new jobs created since 1940 didn’t even exist in 1940.

There is no fixed "lump of labor". Again and again, new technologies create new jobs.

a16z's David George dismantles the "AI job apocalypse" myth: https://t.co/0gL5mdffKD

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@ashleevance Super inspiring. Rooting for them!

[Max 📟 @MaxNordau]

7 things every kid needs to hear:
1. I love you
2. I’m proud of you
3. I’m sorry
4. I forgive you
5. I’m listening
6. Communism has failed every time it was tried
7. You’ve got what it takes

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@eriktorenberg @pmarca idk so many great films flopped at box office before becoming hits on VHS/DVD (see: many Mel Brooks movies). Not sure if “Timeless” must require instant recognition.

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@signulll Prediction market cos. Perverse incentives are too high

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@altcap We all have so much gratitude for your work on this. An incredible initiative and legacy!

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@hthieblot Casestudies

[Ben Friedman @heybenfriedman]

@JTLonsdale To be fair, these are unequivocally the best bagels I’ve ever had. And I really love bagels. Sadly, foodservice brands always lose quality at scale so this is bittersweet news if you love bagels.