Ariel Caplan

Hi, friends! 👋 I recently donated each day’s salary to a different Israeli charity, for one month. I slowly built a list of 31 charities to which I’d personally be willing to donate a full day’s salary, and posted a short profile of each. As a public service, I’m resurfacing the list here in 1 post, grouped by category. I hope you find it useful. (Note that some charities appear multiple times, as they fall into multiple categories.) Mega Funds JGive x.com/amcaplan/statu… Channel 12 x.com/amcaplan/statu… Medical United Hatzalah x.com/amcaplan/statu… MDA (Israel’s Red Cross) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Ezer Mizion x.com/amcaplan/statu… Ezra Lamarpe x.com/amcaplan/statu… Hibuk Rishon x.com/amcaplan/statu… ZAKA x.com/amcaplan/statu… Yad Sarah x.com/amcaplan/statu… Haverim LeRefuah (medicine rescue) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Mental Health ERAN (mental health helpline) x.com/amcaplan/statu… NATAL (trauma center) x.com/amcaplan/statu… OneFamily (terror victims) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Koby Mandell Foundation (terror victims) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Rescue/Recycling (high-efficiency charities) Leket Yisrael (food) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Shinua Hevrati (furniture, appliances) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Haverim LeRefuah (medicine) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Babies Tinokot Shel HaChayim x.com/amcaplan/statu… Hibuk Rishon x.com/amcaplan/statu… Disability / Special Needs Shalva x.com/amcaplan/statu… Beit Issie Shapiro x.com/amcaplan/statu… Terror victims OneFamily x.com/amcaplan/statu… Koby Mandell Foundation x.com/amcaplan/statu… Food Rav Rimon fund x.com/amcaplan/statu… Leket Yisrael (food rescue) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Tinokot Shel HaChayim (babies) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Lichyot Bekavod (elderly) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Latet x.com/amcaplan/statu… Merkaz HaChessed Sderot x.com/amcaplan/statu… Soldiers Lev LaChayal x.com/amcaplan/statu… Yashar LaChayal x.com/amcaplan/statu… Rav Rimon fund x.com/amcaplan/statu… Tzitzit 4 IDF x.com/amcaplan/statu… Religiously-oriented causes Tzitzit 4 IDF x.com/amcaplan/statu… Shaalvim & Sderot (hesder yeshivas) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Uncategorized Paamonim (financial education and support) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Lev Echad (volunteer network) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Shurat HaDin (fighting terror in court) x.com/amcaplan/statu… Yedidim Roadside Assistance x.com/amcaplan/statu… Original 🧵 here: x.com/amcaplan/statu…

@Grummz Around for months?! It was released on Nov 24! 2 weeks ago it had been out for 3 weeks. Sounds like a reasonable evaluation period.

Claude opus 4 .5 has been around for months, it hasn’t changed. But in the past 2 weeks, rafts of coders, some very experienced, are suddenly claiming that coding is solved. Is this a form of AI psychosis? Where the belief that Opus 4.5 is a miracle coder is being reinforced, not just by the AI, but by numerous social media confirmations by other coders who may also be falling into AI psychosis? To me, that this recent tend is erupting so suddenly, when we’ve had Opus 4.5 for months, is interesting and potentially a red flag. As for my own experiments with 4.5 and other models, AI in coding can be very amazing and useful, but I still have to be the architect, and it still blows up and fails a lot. Psychosis can be induced by multiple people each confirming each others beliefs. This is how tribal bubbles work, and how hype gets generated by marketing and social trends. It’s worth noting that and thinking through it.

In 2021, we asked: Do we need people in offices? In 2026, 5 years later, we will start asking: Do we need people?

@shevereshtus I will also add my voice to those who have said that "babysitting" is the incorrect term for watching your own children. You are 100% responsible for your kids. Your wife is 100% responsible for your kids. How you divvy up the work in practice is between the two of you.

@shevereshtus I really appreciate this post, and often I struggle with the same. I know intellectually my kids need me and thrive on my presence, but honestly playing war, or feeding someone who doesn't want to eat what I'm serving, feels like a waste of everything I've built myself to be.

It’s ok to have selfish feelings, either in parenting or marriage. Don’t get me wrong; I love my wife and children. That doesn’t mean that when I’m babysitting my toddler and newborn, I don’t ever think “I wish I was learning right now.” Or when we’re out shopping at Trader Joe’s or whatnot. Or even on a family outing. If I’m winding down and talking with my wife at the end of the day when the kids are asleep, I might feel like after 20-25 minutes to catch up and bond is enough connection time and I got what I needed to keep building our relationship. She, on the other hand, might need another 40+ minutes so I’ll stick around even though there are other things I could be doing. It’s ok to feel these things. What is not ok is failing to see the value in doing what you’re doing. What’s even less ok is failing to be present when doing them. What’s by far worse is getting annoyed by them. And what’s insane is getting angry. Marriage and parenthood means sacrifices. It means compromises. It means you stop living for yourself and are now living with someone (your spouse) and for someone (your children). You have to give them that space in your life for you two to get close, and for them to grow. Being a husband or a parent doesn’t mean you suddenly become a selfless ascete. It doesn’t mean you suddenly don’t have your own desires or needs. Being a father and a husband means understanding the commitment you’ve made, always appreciate it intellectually even if you’re not appreciating it emotionally at the moment, and not throw an inner temper tantrum because you don’t have the same freedoms you had when you were single. You gave those up for something far better and more fulfilling, even if not always immediately as gratifying.

The @tryramp year in review was surprisingly adorable. But it was pretty foolish to calculate it before the end of the year. They should know how many expenses are submitted at the very end of the year to meet deadlines!

This feels right. You can see the bets being placed by the companies being acquired. Cursor is betting on a future where we code like we did 5 years ago, but faster. Anthropic is betting on a future where we evolve beyond that. Where we build systems, not file collections.

@shevereshtus Knowledge of the basics of generations/history of tannaim and amoraim is similarly transformative for studying gemara, and gives an appreciation for the greatness of these individuals you'd miss otherwise. How many yeshiva students know any of it?

There is something deeply wrong in the Torah educational system and I don’t know how we can fix it. In 8th grade Halacha class, we started to do hilchot Chanukah. A kid complained that the KSA begins with a retelling of the Chanukah story and was like “Why do we need to read that again we know the story? Why is it even in there?” So, I somewhat derisively asked him “Where else were people supposed to read about it? In Megillat Chanukah? Masechet Sufganyot?” as I thought he was being facetious. And it lead to the class genuinely asking “yeah why is there no part of Tanach that discusses Chanukah? Why aren’t there mishnayot about Chanukah?” I ended up asking them why they thought that the Book of Maccabees etc weren’t in Tanach versus the rest, when Chanukah happened, etc and came to the realization that: None of them knew exactly how or why Tanach had been compiled. What was the difference between the sefarim in Tanach and books that had been rejected. They also didn’t really know how the Mishnah was compiled, what the Mishna was meant to be, why it wouldn’t make sense for Chanukah to be included as a result, etc. Ended up having a 45 minutes detailed discussion about all of this, what was nevuah, how many prophets there were, etc. The problem is… it’s not the class. Even if I went to Ohalei Torah or Lakewood and asked your average 8th grader, they’d probably be clueless too. Somehow they are taught those things at a very basic level when they are young, it’s basically never revisited, and they might be able to break a tosafot apart but they can’t even tell you why the Gemara came to be except in the vaguest details, who compiled it, and much less about Tosfot except that somehow they’re all Rashi’s singular grandson. Yeah, overall I don’t know how we can fix that. Rant over.

@levelsio This is... exactly what happened when GPS became a thing. When it funneled you to a better route, it did the same thing for thousands of others, and ultimately it turned random side streets into traffic nightmares. Those who guide the herd hold great power.

I noticed something new this time traveling that I haven't seen before Asking ChatGPT where to go, it would recommend us to go to specific places, so we went, and we were then surrounded by other foreigners who also were there, and then I saw some of them open their phone and yes there was them also asking where to go to....ChatGPT So you now have ChatGPT being the travel guide for a substantial amount of people, and because it has a tendency to normal/average answers, you kinda end up at normie tourist traps Then even if you ask for more authentic places, those thousands of other people also asked that, so it just funnels hundreds to thousands of people per day to the same exact places You could call it ChatGPT Tourism?

Cloudflare is down, and all the AI services with it. Some might decry this as a warning that we can't rely on AI for everything. I celebrate that we have found the SPoF for AI. The plug to pull when it goes rogue and we need to shut it down globally. The plug is Cloudflare.

@shevereshtus If anything, the major outcome of the study is to show how similar YCT/Maharat are to avowedly non-Orthodox institutions. A more interesting study would compare JTS, YCT, RIETS, Chabad, and Lakewood. The variety of answers on some of the questions would be incredibly interesting.

@shevereshtus The "Modern Orthodox" contingent interviewed consisted exclusively of YCT and Yeshivat Maharat, plus those who studied in non-Orthodox institutions and decided to call themselves Orthodox rabbis later. I know you know this @shevereshtus, just posting for others to be aware.

The reason why that study says “(Haredi Judaism was outside the study’s scope)” is because it would skew the numbers the other way around so strongly it would entirely destroy the message they are trying to propagate with that study. There are far less than 200 Recon, Reform, and Conservative clergy members ordained every year. On the other hand, Yeshiva University alone produces slightly more on an annual basis. Chabad alone gives Rabbinical ordination in America to 3 or 4 times the number of YU graduates. The Orthodox world (from YU to Haredi) probably produces 10 times the number of Rabbinical ordinations yearly in comparison. It’s true that far from all of them end up being pulpit Rabbi, but the idea that “a majority of American rabbinical women, etc” is something you can only say with a straight face if you pretend that Orthodoxy does not exist. Which is exactly what this study is trying to do.

@piersmorgan This is like spending 10 minutes in the former CHAZ in Seattle and concluding America is overwhelmingly socialist

Very revealing.. Netanyahu is now so unpopular in Israel.

עכשיו מתברר אפילו יותר שהמחאות לשחרור החטופים זה בדיוק מה שהחמאס רצו. המחאות *העלו* את המחיר, *מנעו* עיסקה, ו*האריכו* את השבי והמלחמה, חד משמעית. ynet.co.il/news/article/s…

Claude Code NCSY 🤝

It finally happened. Completed the Arabic course, lately doing Russian. Good on Duolingo for making it addicting to form a habit.

@_catwu What does it mean to clear tool calls - are they completely eliminated, or summarized? Often a tool call (e.g. Bash(run-my-tests)) will have a wall of output that could be summarized effectively as "187 succeeded, 3 failed, here are the failures..."

Microcompact automatically clears old tool calls to free context when your session gets long. This means you can work longer before needing a full context compaction, maintaining your most critical project context.

New Claude Code features are here: Microcompact: Clear old tool calls to extend session length Subagents: @-mention support + model selection for agents PDF support: Read PDFs directly from your file system

The future of SEO is happening right now. It’s called LLM SEO (or LEO). And it’s quietly driving 100,000s of users. Here’s your chance to get ahead:

Tonight, I am conflicted. Overnight, Israel launched Operation Gideon's Chariots. It marks the latest, bloody phase of the war Hamas launched on October 7, 2023 with a barbaric massacre of Israeli civilians, an attack that triggered a regional war against the Jewish state on seven fronts. The Israeli operation is intended to end the war with the defeat of the terrorist army that started the war. It has two goals: to pressure Hamas to free the hostages, and then to crush this enemy regime and its military. I want this war to end, and so I want this operation to succeed. But tonight, I am conflicted. And before I explain why I'm conflicted, I'll explain why I'm sharing. When Hamas declared war, I was not a spokesman for the Israeli Government. On the contrary. I was one of the many Israelis protesting against the Netanyahu government (the photo evidence would be my undoing). But then everything changed, we united as a country, and I put politics aside. The country needed cannon fodder in hostile interviews and I jumped on the grenade. Eventually Mrs. Netanyahu clocked that I was in the anti-government protests before the war and I was forced out. But that's another story. I mention this to explain that not only do I not represent the government, I also owe nothing to this government (I have never even met Netanyahu, if you can believe it). I see my role now — as a private citizen — as not to defend the government's decisions, but to explain the impossible and agonizing dilemmas facing Israel. I don't care if you agree with this or that decision. I care that you understand the impossible situation we're in. Right now, there are up to 23 living hostages rotting in the dungeons of Gaza, where they are being starved, tortured, and even sexually abused. There are also 35 bodies of hostages Hamas has already murdered, using as chips to torture their families. We need to get them all out. They could have been any one of us. It could have been me, or my friends. Families ripped out of their beds. Youngsters kidnapped from a music festival. Young conscript soldiers, seized from defensive posts. Hamas is demanding a ransom for their release. It is demanding the release of thousands of convicted terrorists and an end of the war, with international guarantees that it can remain in power. There is a horrific debate in Israel about whether we can afford this ransom. The Netanyahu government has decided we cannot. Many Israelis think we should pay it anyway, to save them. It is insane that we're having a debate about the price of our fellow citizens' lives, but Hamas is demanding a price, so we're forced to decide what it is. Most of the hostages' families want the government to pay the ransom. It is a core, unshakable part of the Israeli ethos that we do not leave anyone behind. You don't abandon a wounded soldier in the field. And definitely not a civilian snatched from his bed. As they're saying in the rally tonight in Tel Aviv, "nothing else matters right now". Save them now, worry about the costs later. If someone in my family were abducted, I would demand the same. Nothing else matters. And if I were in power, I would probably pay the ransom (I would also order a state commission of inquiry, but that is another matter). We have been checkmated. We will never forgive ourselves if we fail to bring our fellow citizens. It will break our social contract. Hamas knows that, of course, and that's why it exploits our greatest strength, our sense of solidarity, as our Achilles' heel. This ransom comes at a cost, and this point is worth hammering. The terrorists we release from jail WILL take hostages in future, because we are showing it works. There is a reason most countries don't pay ransoms to terrorist hostage-takers. We got soldier Gilad Shalit back for 1,000 terrorists in 2011; one of them was Yahya Sinwar. Hamas is demanding the hostage-takers of tomorrow for the hostages of today. And ending the war with Hamas in power means Hamas will remain in power and will rearm. Anyone telling you that ending the war with Hamas in power means it won't remain in power is not being entirely honest with you. Hamas is not going to disarm itself or resign voluntarily. Saudi Arabia isn't going to coax it to quit. And nobody is going to condition reconstruction aid on Hamas laying down its arms. In any case, Phase III of the original ransom deal would allow Hamas to hold onto the bodies of dead hostages anyway during reconstruction, guaranteeing that rebuilding will take place on its terms. Leaving Hamas standing means it will rebuild its tunnels and its missile silos. And it will attack when it's ready. Because Hamas is a jihadi army whose stated purpose for existence is to wage war until Israel is destroyed. There's no such thing as a "permanent ceasefire". If this is not the last Gaza war, there will be a next Gaza war, and it will be worse. Why? Because Hamas will conclude the world will keep saving it from the wars it starts. Because its human shield strategy will be vindicated. Because it will take hostages again, knowing this is our Achilles' heel. And we want this to be the last Gaza war, because we're sick of war and want no more fighting. It's just not true, as some have written, that "total victory" is some far-right fantasy. The policy of containment that Netanyahu led before the war failed. We're not going back to it. We cannot live with this terror state on our borders, or the next war is a matter of time. Enough war. The Netanyahu government has decided that we cannot pay this ransom, and so Operation Gideon's Chariot is intended to get us better terms. Military pressure is the only leverage we have over Hamas, besides controlling the entry of supplies into Gaza, which is its main pipeline. Other countries have leverage over Hamas — via its patrons, Qatar, Turkey, and Iran — but they're not using it. Because they're craven and venal, and money speaks loudest. We'll deal with that later. The operation is also intended to end the game of "cat and mouse" that has seen Israeli soldiers recapturing areas we have already withdrawn from: push Hamas out once, and then keep it out until it is crushed like ISIS was crushed. So why am I conflicted? Because I think everyone's right. I think the minority of hostage families supporting military pressure are right that this is the only leverage we have to get our hostages back (other than paying the ransom that leaves it in power). And I think the majority of hostage families who say that a military campaign endangers the hostages are also right. Hamas could conclude the hostages are worthless and execute them, like it has executed so many before. It's possible that the only leverage we have to get the hostages out is also extremely risky for them. I think the people who say that bringing the hostages back is the #1 priority are right, and I think those who say that leaving Hamas in power as the price for getting them back guarantees future war are also right. We have no good choices. We can't afford to pay this ransom, and we also can't afford not to. As an Israeli, I fear a future in which those hostages are abandoned to die in Gaza. I also fear a future in which Hamas regroups to plot the next October 7 Massacre. I want to be proven wrong. If I have analyzed the dilemmas wrong, please tell me. If there's another way out, tell me. The cognitive dissonance is killing me. Tell me I'm wrong. I want to be wrong. Early in the war, when I was still in character as a government spokesman, I was asked about my personal opinion. I said with a wry smile that I'm glad I don't have to make these decisions, only explain them. Now that the war has become increasingly contentious at home, I'm glad that I don't even have to explain them. I only have to explain the impossible trade-offs behind them. One day, we will heal. One day, we will rebuild. One day, we will dance again. Walk down the Tel Aviv Promenade on a Saturday night, and you'll see that despite the constant threat of ballistic missile attacks, we're still loving life and have found a weird way to sustain a facade of normalcy in this upside down world. War is hell. We didn't want this war. We didn't start this war. We didn't even expect this war. But by God, we have to win this war. Or there will be a next, worse war, which we don't want. And that means all the goals of the war. Defeating Hamas and bringing back the hostages. I pray that our soldiers and hostages return safely, and that innocent people caught in the crossfire escape it.

@academic_la @leekern13

@leekern13 עברית אתה לא יודע. מביך. אל תהרוס את השפה שלנו.

אני אנסה לומר דברים חשובים בעברית. ראוי שדברים החשובים ליהודים יאמרו בשפת היהודים. כשהגעתי לישראל אחרי ה- 7 באוקטובר, היתה תחושה של ביחד. אנשים הכינו אוכל לחיילים. הם יצאו מגדרם בשביל אנשים אחרים. הייתה אווירה שאנחנו משפחה שמתכנסת יחד כדי לעזור אחד לשני. אבל פגשתי כמה אנשים מגניבים בתל אביב שלא היו שמחים. הם אמרו לי שזו אשליה. במציאות אמרו, יש פילוג בעם, ואין אהבה בין אנשים. הייתי מנומס ולא הלכתי אחריהם בדרך הזו. הגעתי לישראל לתרום את חלקי הקטן ועבדתי עם אנשים אחרים שעשו את אותו הדבר. היה יותר מדי מה לעשות. זה היה זמן משוגע. אולי אתם זוכרים איך זה היה באותם שבועות ראשונים? כאשר איבדנו אנשים, התקרבנו למי שלידנו כדי לוודא שהם נשארים קרוב. עבר זמן מאז החלק הראשון של המלחמה. וכן - ההתנדבות פחתה. אנשים חזרו לחיים רגילים. בן דוד שלי במילואים מתלונן וצוחק שאנשים לא מביאים אוכל כמו בעבר. וכן - אני רואה ויכוחים פוליטיים. ואני רואה אנשים עקשנים בדעותיהם. אבל אני זוכר את האנשים האלה מתל אביב וכמה שהם טעו. הם טעו אז והם טועים עכשיו. הם ראו הכל הפוך. כי כל מה שאני יודע זה - שהרעש של האזעקות ניקה לנו את הראש והראה שהפילוג הוא אשליה, אהבתנו אחד לשני הייתה המציאות. המלחמה הסירה את כל מה שהיה קטנוני ושטחי. ברגעים החשובים היינו שם אחד בשביל השני. כאשר החיים התפרקו החזקנו אחד את השני יחד. כשהיינו צריכים לאהוב אחד את השני אהבנו אחד את השני. כשיכולנו להיות אנוכיים, הקרבנו קורבנות במקום. כי אנחנו משפחה. וזו האמת. פילוג הוא אשליה. אולי הציניים עדיין לא יסכימו איתי. בסדר. הם יכולים לעשות את זה. כל מה שאני יודע הוא, באותם שבועות ראשונים אנשים תרמו דם כי אנחנו חולקים את אותו לב. לי קרן ✡