puranjay

He didn’t just say there will be food insecurity in the developing world; he said there will be food insecurity in the developing world because of competition between nation states far, far away. A much more specific prediction.

And that’s precisely what’s happening right now - countries like India and Indonesia stopping exports to safeguard their own interests.

His core arguments focus on geography and demographics, both of which are “hard” problems. Declining populations simply cannot maintain the “grow at all costs” current economic order. Even an advanced country like Japan with plenty of automation and high productivity rates hasn’t see any growth in two decades since its population itself doesn’t grow anymore.

Even if you don’t go by his more alarmist arguments, you have to agree that in the face of declining populations and ageing demographics, we will have to shift to a new economic model where growth isn’t the only goal. And any large scale shift in economic models comes with some grief, at the very least.

Birth rates are collapsing in rural India as well. Even where women have an extremely low participation rate in the labor force.

I don’t think the issue is simply “cities have less space, working couples have less money”. Its likely more complicated than that, because nothing really explains why people in India’s vast rural areas would have so few kids.

Its alarming how fast all earlier projections are being proven wrong.

Like in India, our latest survey revealed that our fertility rate is now already below replacement level - a landmark we were supposed to hit in 2050. We hit that three decades ahead of schedule.

This looks amazing! Congrats

The games look particularly interesting - I've been in meetings where everyone uses awkward verbal games to break the ice, but this would be so much more fun

Improv of any kind, in general, is fantastic for learning how to fail publicly. I do a bit of improv comedy and its fantastic for getting you out to make a fool of yourself publicly. Some of the best work in improv comes from people failing and flailing and channeling that into something fantastic.

I can already tell I'm going to hate the next 30 years of technology.

I'm sure you wrote this comment with soot on a tree bark, stuffed it into a glass bottle and hoped that someone far away with electricity and computers would post it online.

if the placebo effect works, why not?

Gnome mode is replacing work with play.

Most great things in human creation emerged from play, not work. Work is what's done to refine the output of play.

Their YouTube channel is also fantastic. Them and the First We Feast, Bon Apetit folks are my comfort watches

Works wonderfully well with mangoes as well. Peel and chop into large chunks. Freeze. You can eat them just like that, or pop them into a smoothie.

The crypto market this cycle was peak evidence of the utter insanity that can happen when there is excess liquidity in the markets. It honestly makes a mockery of "money".

well the other shoe started dropping today :)

Absolutely baffling how they managed to lose this money.

Zhu Su, one of the co-founders, would talk about the Bitcoin “supercycle” so much that people started calling it “zhupercycle”

Now it appears that they actually drank their own kool aid and went long when market was crashing.

This is massive honestly. They were likely $18B. And by most accounts, they were almost entirely trading their own capital.

They were well liked and respected in the industry, having built up their fortunes trading over the years.

A little like Ray Dalio being on the run.

1. Print money indiscriminately, long after the economy has recovered.

2. Institute a forced lockdown on the global economy without sufficient evidence or understanding of the looming disaster

3. Print even more indiscriminately and hand out "loans" to practically anyone wtih any kind of business

4. Insist that inflation is transitory

5. Say you're going to raise rates. But don't raise them high or fast enough, allowing inflation to creep up.

6. Panic.

Unreal incompetence. A bunch of suites in a boardroom shouldn't have that much power over the global economy.

To be fair, you could look at any number of tech stocks and find similar drops in value.

Most household objects and appliances are better off being as low tech as possible.

An acquaintance's daughter died in a house fire because the door had a "smart" lock that malfunctioned in the extreme heat. She was the only casualty in the entire apartment complex because hers was the only apartment with the smart door. Everyone else had conventional door knobs and got out in time.

I've since sworn off anything with any smart features whatsoever.

Let the aliens microwave their alien ramen in peace!

ETH has enough liquidity to easily absorb that volume tbh.

OpenSea's fees is 2.5% of each transaction. There's a creator fee on top of that which the creator can decide. It usually ranges between 2.5-7.5%.

On average, you should assume that OpenSea takes around 30-40% from this 200M fees.

Except in this case, its unavoidable - unless your employees and landlords and hosting companies accept crypto. Your revenue will always be in ETH (or other native tokens). Your expenses will always be in USD (or local currency). Which is what makes this model unsustainable.

how does that matter in this situation? You get paid in ETH. ETH was $3k in January. Its $1.2k now. Ergo, your income is now $1.2k, not $3k since your fee is fixed.

Sure, I have that too. But there's also the discovery aspect of a platform like LinkedIn

Sam Bankman-Fried - the founder of Alameda

YC was peak funny money. I work extensively with startups and it was increasingly apparent in the last few years that the main objective of the startup was to raise funding, not to build product or deliver value.

The number of "unicorns" that will be around in a decade is likely in the low double digits at best.

yeah SBF doesn't believe in crypto. He might pay some lip service but he doesn't hold any position extensively.

Alameda is the single scariest entity in crypto. They're absolutely brutal. I exit every trade once it becomes apparent that Alameda is in.

If I was a VC firm, however, I would back anything SBF was doing. He's a genius when it comes to making money.

That's the problem - your expenses (salaries, rent, hosting, etc.) are paid in USD.

Meanwhile, your revenue is in ETH.

Even if you can maintain the same volume, your revenue can drop drastically if ETH price drops.

A 100 ETH sale earns you 2.5 ETH. In January, this was worth $7.5k. Now, its worth $3k. Your revenue dropped by over 50% but your expenses are going to stay the same.

I can't see how the economics of businesses like this can work out.