Alex Wittenberg

As the writer David Cain points out, we never have time in the same sense that we have the cash in our wallets or the shoes on our feet. When we claim that we have time, what we really mean is that we expect it. “We assume we have three hours or three days to do something,” Cain writes, “but it never actually comes into our possession.” Any number... See more

Niche Lending Protocols

Digital store fronts and apps can be ad inventory. There’s no a priori reason why you can only show ads next to ‘content’ - an ad in a physical store is not the same as an ad in magazine, but apps are apps.

I stumbled across a key insight that may or may not have been spotted before: lorecraft is the evil twin of marketing.

The machine may not make a corpse out of us, although that is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Autonomous weapons systems, for example, promise to do just that. But the machine, when it outsources human judgment, renders us an object and can thus be understood as an instrument of force or power, or, better, as an instrument whose... See more

It is possible that in the short term migration of transactions to Layer 2’s will exert downward pressure on transaction fees earned by ETH stakers, which could negatively affect token price. However, as I explained in my valuation framework, I do not believe it is appropriate to value Ethereum based on its revenues using a DCF - given that... See more

This isn’t a question of proving that something is impossible; it’s a question of what constitutes good justification for belief. The critics of Anselm’s ontological argument aren’t trying to prove that there is no God; they’re just saying that Anselm’s argument doesn’t constitute a good reason to believe that God exists. Similarly, a definition of... See more

The trouble with being so emotionally invested in planning for the future, though, is that while it may occasionally prevent a catastrophe, the rest of the time it tends to exacerbate the very anxiety it was supposed to allay. The obsessive planner, essentially, is demanding certain reassurances from the future—but the future isn’t the sort of... See more

On the surface this appears to be very community oriented, because anyone can buy the tokens, create liquidity, and stake it to earn more tokens. But depending on how it’s done, this could be a subtle way for the initial team or insiders to dramatically increase their share of the tokens.