Cappucher

An internal version of Astra, @OpenAI’s next major model family, solved 10 major open problems in mathematics, quantum complexity, and theoretical computer science. We believe it will be a major step for scientific reasoning. openai.com/index/ten-adva…

I’m not scared. I think you guys will fail because your ideas are stupid and very, very, old and will fail wherever put into practice. Price controls are older than Christianity, for instance. Your Mao schtick is moronic and takes advantage of your fans’ ignorance. I think you’re a cosplaying radical kid of privilege and apologist for murderers and terrorists. But you’re not scary dude. You’re a poseur. I think it’s hilarious you streamed my comments to your easily duped fans.

@mishakgg That’s amazing. Which branch of math was this in?

My gpt instances have disproved 8 conjectures with counterexamples and solved 2 open problems. I have specifically focused on my own country's academic papers and mostly at most 5 years old papers. All in one day. I went on a walk, ate, watched tv and still managed to get all of it done in one day. Kind of bizarre. If I really went hard for it I could probably hit 50 a day. Probably in the coming months there will be a flood of math.

I think GPT is getting decent at disproving (relatively?) non-trivial conjectures upon general request. chatgpt.com/share/6a6aa28f… After giving it the prompt in the conversation above, it actually seemed to disprove two random 3 month old conjectures out of random arXiv papers - one relatively simple gen func combinatorics problem that the authors were probably too lazy to brute force and another graph theory problem that seems to require some level of ingenuity. The graph theory was simple enough where relatively elementary lines of attack seemed to kill the conjecture though

@jasondeanlee x.com/cappucher/stat…

Announcing two new conjectures proved chatgpt.com/share/6a69989a… chatgpt.com/share/6a6a7d70… Many more to come with the same prompt

The main point is it’s very dangerous if the stores only “work” because the gov is absorbing the costs, since no other local store can afford to cut prices that much. It’s not a reflection of the market and most likely could crowd out private grocers that would otherwise be viable

@cappucher Yes, the subsidy is in the form of capex and tax breaks, which is why I make the comparison to sports stadiums. The knee-jerk critics think this is Venezuela bc of who is fronting it. It’s lazy. At least criticize the proposal for what it is vs what you imagine it to be

The best refutation against a planned economy is probably the ECP – the economic calculation problem – and its complement, the local knowledge problem, developed by Mises and Hayek respectively. Essentially, in a planned economy, you cannot allocate resources efficiently due to a lack of market prices, which are needed to calculate costs, profits, and losses. So a government agency doesn't actually know if what it's producing is what people actually want or if it's wasting scarce resources. And the knowledge of what people want is dispersed across a large population rather than a group of bureaucrats; e.g., rapidly changing information about what particular consumers need, what goods are locally scarce, what individual businesses are capable of producing, etc. Prices for goods and services act as a pretty good coordination mechanism to quickly share information across the whole market. An almost tragically good textbook example of this was the centrally planned food-distribution system – like what Mamdani wants to do – in Venezuela. The government enacted strict laws capping retail prices for food and other basic items to make them "affordable," and what followed were stores packed with... empty shelves. At the controlled price, quantity demanded greatly exceeded quantity supplied, so inventories were rapidly exhausted. Also, when the controlled retail price fell below the cost of producing, importing, or distributing an item, there was little incentive for firms to supply it, resulting in the classic price ceiling shortage. So not only did people want more goods than they needed, firms stocked far fewer goods than people actually needed! As a result, people had to wait in hours-long lines or even purchase the same products for far higher prices on the black market. And when the government noticed there was a problem, they just doubled down on it and responded with *further* intervention! TLDR: all this will ultimately do is 1. hurt privately owned grocery stores, since the price of substitute government-owned goods is now lower 2. cause heavy shortages, because something like the fruit market is much closer to perfect competition than to monopoly and will thus obey the usual laws of price ceiling shortages 3. result in a distribution of goods that don't reflect what people *actually* need and instead what Mamdani *thinks* people need Let's not become Venezuela.

@FiveBestIdeas Sure, you were right and I concede that point. But the stores’ economics depend on public subsidies and contractual requirements that ordinary private grocers don’t have, which is the more pressing issue

@cappucher Please read the RFP. There is no stipulation that the operator bidding for the lease must be a non-profit. It’s open to grocery chains or any qualified company with a record of running a grocery store. The 30% reduction is a condition placed on the operator who wins the bid

The grocery stores are not operating for profit, are taxpayer subsidized, and must run on the horrific price ceiling of 30% of market prices. Local small grocery stores usually operate on very thin profit margins and I see no world where this is simply another privately run grocery store

@cappucher He’s constructing buildings that he will then lease to private grocery store operators. That’s it. It’s basically a sports stadium

If the government run stores are operating at prices lower than the market price, there will be shortages and local businesses will, without a doubt, be hurt. The logical conclusion of this experiment will be an increased government deficit and a decrease in the number of jobs in the private sector

@cappucher So a handful of stores run a particular way in a city of 8 million+ is equivalent to central planning of an entire economy? 🙄

@krassenstein What are the chances Mamdani and co know about the ECP and the local knowledge problem

BREAKING: Mayor Mamdani just announced a plan to open 5 city-run grocery stores. Prices will be set at 30% below retail.

Mayor Mamdani did not simply express a personal political opinion. He used the authority, symbolism, and credibility of the mayor’s office to issue what amounted to an official public address declaring that the democratically elected leader of the world’s only Jewish state is a ‘war criminal’ who is ‘not welcome in New York City.’ That is a profound misuse of the office entrusted to him by all New Yorkers. After acknowledging that New York City has no independent legal authority to execute the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant, the mayor nevertheless chose to transform that legal reality into a televised political spectacle. Respect for the separation of powers and the legal limits of public office is a bedrock of American democracy; those limits should not be treated as an inconvenience to be exploited for political theater. Perhaps most telling was what the mayor chose to leave out. His address made no mention of Hamas or the October 7 massacre of innocent civilians. Instead, he delivered a sweeping moral indictment of Israel while erasing the terrorist atrocities that ignited this war. Appeals to universal humanity and justice ring hollow when they exclude the victims whose suffering does not fit a preferred political narrative. This is no longer simply about Prime Minister Netanyahu. It reflects a broader pattern in which Mayor Mamdani repeatedly singles out Israel while using the prestige of his office to legitimize rhetoric that further isolates the Jewish state and deepens division here at home. At a time when Jewish New Yorkers are experiencing alarming levels of antisemitism, harassment and intimidation, they deserve a mayor who refrains from fomenting hatred against the world’s only Jewish country while maintaining the fiction that this is not anti-Jewish. Throughout his campaign, Mayor Mamdani repeatedly insisted that his responsibility as mayor would be to focus on New York City and the issues affecting New Yorkers. New Yorkers elected him to make their neighborhoods safer, combat hate and unite a diverse city, not to conduct foreign policy or transform City Hall into a stage for ideological declarations about world leaders. New Yorkers elected a mayor, not a prosecutor of foreign leaders. Mayor Mamdani should spend less time trying to demonize only one leader and one country from City Hall and more time protecting the New Yorkers he was elected to serve. #Mamdani #MayorMamdani #Israel

hello there the jacobian conjecture is false thanx to my close friend akhil for asking about it and my other close friend fable for working during the world cup final ((1+xy)^3 z + y^2 (1+xy) (4+3xy), y + 3 x (1+xy)^2 z + 3 x y^2 (4+3xy), 2 x - 3 x^2 y - x^3 z): \C^3\to \C^3, has jacobian determinant -2, and sends (0, 0, -1/4), (1, -3/2, 13/2), and (-1, 3/2, 13/2) to (-1/4, 0, 0)

This is complete BS. Randy Fine is one of the biggest proponents of the SAVE act; he voted against a procedural compromise, and his objection was that the compromise *didn’t go far enough* to force senate action on the SAVE act. AF post targets Fine only because he’s Jewish

@captive_dreamer I feel like in principle, most non-grifting traditional libertarians like Sowell/Friedman would avoid being captured by anti-Americans, but those seem to be a dying breed. But nowadays it seems like it’s been taken over by antisemites and anti-driving license whack jobs

Fascinating screenshot. So Chris Helali lives in Russia, is a founding member of the American communist party - as I said earlier today - and is being interviewed by “libertarian” Ron Paul. What am I supposed to conclude from this about the libertarian movement?

@deebopoy Yeah, I’ve heard about that. One nice part about private schools is that they don’t need to follow “discrimination” laws as rigorously as magnate schools. TJHSST is still excellent though and continues to produce a ton of Olympiad winners

@cappucher They tried to do this to TJHSST as well, it's not a lottery but it's not as rigorous anymore

An equivalent of this happened to Lowell HS in SF. They replaced the merit based system with a lottery 2021-2022, and the number of freshmen with failing grades increased from ~8 to 25%. Two years later, they reinstated grade and testing requirements for applying 8th graders.

@Steve_Sailer @LincolnRestler Personally I go to another one of these selective elite schools, and for the most part teachers are relatively competent and have doctorates. I’d say it’s pretty hit or miss though; probably better than the avg public school but not like professor level

@LincolnRestler Does Stuyvesant High School actually have better teachers or does it just have better students? Is there some sort of test you have to take to prove you are smart enough to teach at Stuyvesant? Or is testing just for students?

1 in 5 NYC public school students are Black, but at Stuy - our most prestigious high school - 3 of ~800 incoming Freshmen are Black. We urgently need state legislation to modify the admissions process. A single test should never be only factor deciding who gets in & who doesn’t.

Leaving out the Italian, Jewish, and Irish enclaves in NYC is like leaving out Mexican and Persian enclaves in LA. It’s not an “oopsie!” This is deliberate subversion. The communist must erase your history so he can demolish your home and make it his own.

If Democrats want someone who hates capitalism, despises Trump, loves Nazi apologism, hugs America's enemies, has Cenk Uygur's endorsement, and cosplays as a blue collar working man even though he grew up silver spoon...Tucker Carlson does have a house in Maine.