Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
We used to talk of analysis paralysis. What if AI makes synthesis paralysis possible? Or execution paralysis? People who start Claude coding and not being able to stop. Churning out an endless series of things.
Probably not possibly since indefinite creative synthesis is not a stable kind of stickiness, unlike indefin...
4
20
Been on a 5 week 10k steps (~4.5mi on average given my stride length) streak through some bad winter and rain days. Usually at least 8-9k before 11 AM, often while on a zoom call (all my meetings are mornings, which I dislike but can’t change).
Stress test: For the past couple of weeks I’ve had something between a col...
13
I’m interested in a general compute version of this proposition abstracted away from details of blockchains. Perhaps:
Logic > long-term memory > …DRAM > “HBM” > register memory
HBM in scare quotes because I don’t mean the specific hardware standard but anything at that level in the memory hierarchy.
Feels like the s...
The scaling hierarchy in blockchains:
Computation > data > state
Computation is easier to scale than data. You can parallelize it, require the block builder to provide all kinds of "hints" for it, or just replace arbitrary amounts of it with a proof of it.
Data is in the middle. If an availability guarantee on data
47
35
495
Alex Honnold randomly climbing Taipei skyscraper while world is crashing and burning is a nice boss non sequitur move. Fully narrative capture resistant but can still compete for headlines with Greenland, Davos, Minneapolis, Clawd, etc. and win.
Life goes on outside the narratives that try to corner attention.
81
33
693
$15 pill that cures everything…
Zk snarks are the ozempic of blockchains?
The obesity metaphor actually tracks as does the panacea quality of GLPs against all conditions with addiction-like root cause
I no longer agree with this previous tweet of mine - since 2017, I have become a much more willing connoisseur of mountains. It's worth explaining why.
https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/873177382164848641
First, the original context. That tweet was in a debate with Ian Grigg, who argued that blockchains should trac
11
Life after tokens 🤔
Tokens are like economic assembly language that keeps trying to put on makeup and thrust itself into user space environments.
Imagine if you were trying to use a painting program and it kept interrupting brushstrokes with requests for permission to use particular opcodes or low-level kernels.
Wh...
6
1
33
Preferences revealed 🙃
Neynar is acquiring Farcaster.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll transfer ownership of the protocol contracts and code repositories, the Farcaster app, and Clanker to Neynar. They will run and maintain everything going forward.
Some members of the Merkle team, Varun, and I will step back from day-to-day work on Farcaste
3
1
29
Underground Empire by Farrell and Newman was published in September 2023, just before the current climactic chapter of the book’s core theme got underway. To its credit, the book is consistent with, if not predictive of, current events. Good book to read right now if you want to process and orient above the noisy play-...
1
4
I worry that this sounds like a call for holy war and crusading that requires saintliness to participate 😬
Borderline “don’t be evil” type exhortation.
I liked the earlier call to technical advances over parameter scaling. That felt like a properly energizing reorientation. More “can’t be evil” spirit through invent...
2026 is the year that we take back lost ground in terms of self-sovereignty and trustlessness.
Some of what this practically means:
Full nodes: thanks to ZK-EVM and BAL, it will once again become easier to locally run a node and verify the Ethereum chain on your own computer.
Helios: actually verify the data you're
3
21
In @yak study group recent calls about Claude code, @anurajenp used 2 illuminating metaphors:
a) It has a flywheel effect on doing stuff
b) It feels like loading up a dragster (with config info) and flooring the accelerator
Both suggest a particular interpretation in OODA loop terms: The observe/decide/act (O_ODA)...
5
2
13