Torben

the first time you get an idea in your head it feels good; that doesn't mean it's a good idea; when you remember that idea again, it doesn't feel as good — only the ideas that feel great when you remember them a few times are good ideas

llms are in a chain from the printing press > the encyclopedia > the internet > llms

ai is cmd+F for all human knowledge

Diverse things can be named through the anaphora — it opens up space for parataxis. In the best case, it unites disparate things, encompassing them in the repeated phrase. In the worst case, in becomes a "junk drawer" poem.

@internetvin 🌱grow where you are planted🌱

"Yours to Discover" by internetVin My little talk at Toronto Tech Week 2025. This was a new format and setting for me, I was pretty nervous about it, but I thought I would just try it out and see what I would learn. Thank you for everything so far.

De-risks from bad AI outcomes.

I feel like the knowledge production industry needs to have a classification system, with extremely sensitive cutting edge research being unavailable to AI training datasets.

@lukeburgis @DarioAmodei I am experiencing writing a novel as a rite of passage though I never thought of it like this before reading this post.

In his new essay The Adolescence of Technology, Anthropic Co-Founder and CEO @DarioAmodei writes that he believes AI is ushering in a “rite of passage” for humanity. “I believe we are entering a rite of passage, both turbulent and inevitable, which will test who we are as a species. Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it.” In my upcoming book The One and the Ninety-Nine: Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion, I write about the indispensable role of rites of passage in the development of the solid self—the core of every person that is the heart of conscience, identity, and ultimately joy. This is in contrast to the pseudo-self, a term coined by psychiatrist Murray Bowen to describe the malleable self which is captive to what others want or expect and shaped by the systems we inhabit. Rites of passage are not rituals to mark change, but the process through which people actually change. People who live mostly through their pseudo-­selves can pass through any number of rites of passage, some of them little more than shifts in affiliation from one group to the next. And there are darker versions: the initiations that pull teenagers into violent street gangs, the hazing rituals that demand humiliation as proof of loyalty, the online subcultures that groom the vulnerable into extremist identities. The rites I focus on in The One and the Ninety-Nine: Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion are the ones that lead to a more solid self—­ rites that are demanding enough to change a person, yet ordered toward their good and the good of the communities they inhabit. A healthy society provides rites of passage for its members entering adulthood. As we enter a new era of technological advancement, we must forge a collective rite of passage that orders our use of technology toward good, and each of us must prepare ourselves—our solid selves—to wield it.

When things are feeling really bad I watch this video. I believe it is the most important video on the internet.

US auto loan debt is $1.6T, roughly the size of Turkey or Indonesia's economies, two of the world's top 20 economies.

@Eirikvi Don’t forgot the cooper Plato

@moonbeeaam +1

Even though I know it’s wrong, I’ve always parsed “Kind of Blue” as meaning “a type of blue” rather than “a bit blue”. Like the album is about a certain shade

All families are hurricanes

I read it, amazing book. Got me on a big specops/Middle East reading kick. Reading / have read Steve Coll Ghost wars, Gretchen peters seeds of terror, Naylor relentless strike, since reading fort Bragg. I actually bought two copies, audio and hardback. Thanks for putting me onto smth so interesting!! Amazing read.

The Fort Bragg Cartel sold more than 100,000 copies in less than 6 months. If you haven't read it already, you're missing out

@internetvin I’m a remote employee but I rented a coworking space just for Dec-Feb so id have the priveledge of going to work in some nice refreshing Canadian air. I told the manager to disable the heat in my office to save money because I’m not wasteful

If you live in Toronto and you’re the kind of person that can’t slug through a bit of snow to get to your office on a day like this, it honestly says a lot, it’s crazy how fast people default to working from home in a situation like this, crazy cowardly.

The poet is just the person who wanders around their house, muttering odd combinations of words to themselves.

The Prologue, a short story by Glen Bullock: commonmeasure.substack.com/p/the-prologue…

Ironic ad placement.