Taylor

“One of the things that makes @SpaceX so valuable is how valuable it is.”

Had @Ada_Palmer back on – this time to talk about Machiavelli, perhaps the most misunderstood thinker of all time. Machiavelli cut his teeth as a high-level diplomat for Florence, a position from which he got to closely observe the most important rulers in Europe at the time, including the ones who were on the path to destroying his dearly beloved Florence. In 1513 the Medici retook control of Florence and, wrongly suspecting Machiavelli of participating in a coup attempt, fired, tortured, and exiled him. Machiavelli could have fled his exile and worked for any number of different principalities that would have been eager to make use of his talents. Instead, he decided to rot in the countryside and compile his career's lessons about power, politics, and human nature into a book he dedicated to the very man whose new regime had tortured and exiled him, Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici. But at least the Medici were in a position to use his insights to defend Florence. Machiavelli the patriot did not want any other hands to touch this book, because those hands, armed with these lessons, might pose an existential danger to Florence. The closest modern analogy, at least as Machiavelli would have seen it, would be Szilard's letter warning FDR about the possibility of a nuclear fission bomb. What were those insights? And how were they inspired by Machiavelli's dangerous diplomatic missions all across Europe, and his extensive reading of antiquity? Watch this episode with Ada Palmer to find out! 00:00:00 – How Florence bargained with Cesare Borgia for survival 00:15:08 – Machiavelli’s analytical innovations 00:23:58 – Why popes became warlords 00:36:13 – Why the common people demanded nepotism 00:47:57 – Cesare Borgia brought terror to rulers and justice to the people 00:57:55 – Art as a proxy for war 01:06:41 – Florence, a city famous in hell 01:15:57 – The Prince was a job application to Machiavelli’s torturers 01:41:39 – During the Renaissance, original ideas had to be couched in antiquity 01:50:44 – Why copyright began with the Inquisition 02:02:12 – Machiavelli wasn’t Machiavellian Look up Dwarkesh Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, etc.

The future belongs to designers who build.

Una gata embarazada estaba por parir Así que su amiga paloma fue y se puso a hacerle un nido

Logo design for Bloom.

i wasn’t potty trained until i was 8 . now im a PM at meta and i make $750 ,000

Lol the solution was requesting a refund via the X Support site

@XHandles Where's my handle? It says up to 7 days wait. But it's been weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t get it by the time my Premium+ expires.

An industry first: Handles requested via the 𝕏 Handle Marketplace now dynamically redirect all past searches and mentions to your new identity. Full URL redirects coming soon.

People always ask me “how do you develop taste?” And I say “go to the niche telephone museum and study the origin of buttons and don’t be a little bitch”

year 2 of playful ideas my favorites from 2025…

@hopes_revenge Many such cases

my life is pretty great . but i don’t like it

@tomieinlove I'm in the process of proving this to be true...

Video games have the potential to be the highest and most comprehensive “total work of art” in the Wagnerian sense. But that potential is largely squandered by the types of people who become video game developers.

how can this kind of illiterate crap make it into public

@interaction I never received any invoices by email nor can I check what my billing email actually is. And no replies from the support email given by your bot. What do?

Say hi to the new Poke! 🌴 Now officially approved by Apple to text on Apple Messages. As the first and only AI agent. Chat now: Poke.com

@cryptotrade091 Wow. Life is so beautiful

@taylorlee Congratulations🎉🎊you have been selected among the winners of the ETH giveaway

George Hotz is the only guy under 60 years old named George

Black flowers blossom

@Roostsocial @anulagarwal Of course. I’m an expert :)

@taylorlee @anulagarwal Help train some pigeons for us

You are all overthinking your app ideas. This guy made a top #12 mobile app that lets you send messages by pigeons to your friends. And you can watch it live fly across the map and deliver your messages! +you can pet your bird, play games, etc. So stop overthinking, simple ideas like these make a ton of $$$