Cate Hall

What if skill is just a different kind of luck?

@tszzl this way lies madness

machine gematria is underexplored

super curious who Sam's new PR person is

@UV_555 All of the above, on Amazon!

@catehall E-book available on Kindle? Or Is there an Audiobook for this...?

It’s real!

"I sure hope this doesn't have unforeseen lifelong consequences" thought the adolescent, doing their best to poison their brain into the higher social approval probability shape

@hormeze I've heard of AI psychosis, but never before AI specifically designed to trigger psychosis

friends, i have built a bit of a cognitive nuclear bomb: an LLM- enhanced gematria calculator that not only finds meaningful connections for any word you enter but can also bridge almost any two words together using one of 12 gematrai cyphers: gematria.hormeze.com

@bryan_caplan Would be happy to send you a copy if you DM me your address!

I just found out about this, but I immediately support it.

"If something tragic happened in my life I suspect I would just be at the airport in my soul for a while"

@MomaBera @catehall tried to look the article up to read it and ai overview rushed to assure me that it REALLY IS TRYING!!

we're hosting @catehall & Sasha Chapin at The Commons for an Author Q&A + book signing 📚 In their new book, You Can Just Do Things, authors Cate Hall and Sasha Chapin provide a framework for developing a high-agency life.

hot take: dissociation is a perfectly good tool to have in your arsenal when responding to acute stress. the goal is to be able to flexibly apply it in the right circumstances rather than always falling into it.

@calebwatney @IFP @coeff_giving @mattsclancy wow, incredible news for CG!

Some bittersweet news to announce today: I recently left @IFP to join @coeff_giving as Managing Director of Public Policy, where I'm building a new US AI policy team, overseeing the Abundance and Growth Fund alongside @mattsclancy, and managing CG's government affairs work. Building IFP has been the defining professional project of my life, and this was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. In just four and a half years, our team became, pound-for-pound, the most effective think tank in DC. I feel insanely proud of the work we’ve done and the incredible team we’ve assembled. I sometimes joke that when @alecstapp and I launched IFP, we felt like two kids in a trench coat pretending to be a think tank. And now we're a proper institution! But it feels possible to step back now because they've hit escape velocity. The talent density at IFP is bonkers. And I have complete confidence they'll keep racking up counterfactual policy wins with Alec at the helm and our superstar directors. I'm staying on the IFP board and staying in DC. In some sense the new role is a continuation of the old one. All of IFP's policy issues are reflected in CG's portfolio, but now I'm working at a new layer of the stack. So why leave? Because AI is hitting Washington like a tsunami, and DC is still radically underprepared. I hold a lot of uncertainty about timelines, but it seems very plausible that the next 2–10 years will bring the fastest technological upheaval we've ever had to navigate. The new team I’m leading is a bet on how to prepare: proactively scanning the horizon, identifying gaps in the policy ecosystem, headhunting founders, and launching new organizations, while strengthening the democratic institutions that will have to steer through the transition to powerful AI systems. I've written an essay laying out the larger vision here: calebwatney.substack.com/p/a-long-seque… There is no master plan or silver bullet here. I suspect getting AI "right" is going to feel more like a chaotic, iterative process of institutions trying to make better decisions over time as the facts change underneath them. As John von Neumann wrote in 1955 about mastering an earlier technological revolution: “What safeguard remains? Apparently only day-to-day — or perhaps year-to-year — opportunistic measures, a long sequence of small, correct decisions.” Each of the small, correct decisions ahead will look small only in the sweep of the full historical picture. Up close, every one of them will require heroic levels of effort and coordination. Coefficient Giving is scaling rapidly to meet the moment, part of what Nan Ransohoff has called the “third wave of American philanthropy”, potentially large enough to fund thousands of new projects and organizations. The binding constraint is unlikely to be money. It will be people: grantmakers and policy entrepreneurs and others with the judgment to make a long sequence of small, correct decisions, and the ambition to build the institutions we wish we had. I'm hiring a team of exactly those people, starting with generalist grant makers and a chief of staff. If you share this vision, please apply! And if you are building something that we’ll need in the years ahead, reach out. jobs.ashbyhq.com/coefficientgiv…

@mind_plastic @richardludlow He is just a very nice person :) Paperback I think gets made or doesn't get made depending on how the hardcover performs -- so no ETA on that!

@richardludlow @catehall Oh! Sorry I thought you two worked on it together or something

If you want to Just Do Things but are not currently in a position to Just Buy Things, respond here with whether you want harcover, kindle, or audio, and I'll get your info to pre-order you a copy (up to 10 people).

Did you know the singular @catehall will be at Fractal Campus on July 25, signing books and answering questions? Register here: luma.com/kk5eaizx

One way to increase your surface area for luck is to throw parties or events, especially a regular series of get-togethers that are low-pressure to attend. Suggestion: a bagel-brunch. @CateHall @HarperCollins amzn.to/4f0pCIK #ad #StevosNovelIdeas

50-year-olds are a fifth as old as America

V normal technology x.com/SkyeSharkie/st…

This is basically Diamond Age