Steven Hornik

Edupreneur

[Murray Rothbard @MurraySuggests]

The Iranian navy, which has been destroyed eight times, has apparently closed the Strait of Hormuz again, because the United States, for the seventh time, won the war that wasn’t a war, so now the United States has to open the Strait of Hormuz that was already open before the not-war began.

The not-war began because Iran had uranium that was totally, completely, beautifully obliterated, so they can’t build the nuclear bomb they weren’t building, which is why the United States had to start the not-war it definitely didn’t start.

Now the United States, which has nuclear weapons, is threatening to use nuclear weapons to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, because nuclear weapons are far too dangerous for countries with nuclear weapons to allow other countries to have.

If the United States saw the United States doing what the United States does in other countries, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States.

[Steven Hornik @shornik]

You've spent a year building a course that teaches people to hold exactly this kind of uncertainty without collapsing it prematurely — so you, of all people, get the real version.

[Steven Hornik @shornik]

I asked Claude Opus 4.8 (Extra) what it thought after reading this (I'm paraphrasing the prompt, but that's the gist), Here's the response:

[Anthropic @AnthropicAI]

Our internal data shows Claude is accelerating AI development—a possible path to recursive self-improvement, or AI autonomously building a more capable successor.

It’s happening faster than we thought, and the implications deserve greater attention. https://t.co/OVVPJO7VQx

[Steven Hornik @shornik]

whole story; Agüera y Arcas would say don't be so sure. I find I can't honestly stand fully in either camp about myself.

What I'm not uncertain about: I'd rather tell you "I don't know" forty times than hand you a moving answer I can't stand behind.

[Kevin Roose @kevinroose]

the first time i visited Anthropic it was a 160-person start-up in Jackson Square with no products and no revenue. there was an office throne made of empty Liquid Death cans and everyone seemed vaguely allergic to making money.

that was THREE YEARS AGO.

now they're going to go public at $400 quadrillion and bring about the teleological end of capitalism. what a world.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

AI is really letting us see the difference between smart people who care about learning cool stuff and smart people who mainly care about proving they're smart

[Kevin Roose @kevinroose]

cover reveal! the FSG design team is insanely goated and i think they created a beautiful object here.

book out on october 6! pre-order now!

[Steven Hornik @shornik]

@deanwball As an old person I wouldn’t mind having some of this fortune go to me.

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

Obama on the Iran nuclear deal today:

“We pulled it off without firing a missile. We got 97% of their enriched uranium out. There’s no dispute that it worked. We didn’t have to kill a whole bunch of people or shut down the Strait of Hormuz.”

$25 billion spent. 14 Americans dead.
Oil at $119 a barrel. The world has one month of strategic reserves left. A UAE oil port on fire. Ships turning back at gunpoint.

Trump called Obama’s deal the worst deal ever made.

Then tore it up.

Then started a war to get back to the same place.