Devin Baker

But the punch line is this: the catalyst came from non-crypto tradfi derisking, which happened to push Bitcoin down to a level where short gamma accelerated the downside due to hedging, but not directional, activities which in turn led to the requirement for more inventory- this then reversed quickly on 2/6 for tradfi market neutral (but... See more

Philosophy might just be finding something worth working on. Or someone worth loving. Better yet, someone totally unworthy of love, like you and me.

What is worth working on?

This, maybe. A poem. A song. A puzzle. A program. A podcast. A letter. A gift. The little thing you are trying to get right. An attempt at understanding and explanation, even... See more

We have convinced ourselves that simulation has exhausted the middle of everything— war, technology, politics, the economy— and that the only serious move left is the last one. Simulation has not exhausted the middle. It has exhausted our patience for it. The middle is still where the complications live, where the position is ambiguous and the... See more

The opening Eisenhower spent years agonizing over could have been modeled by anyone with a map and a calendar and enough compute. Simulation compresses whatever it can reach. Human effort migrates to whatever it can't. This is how it has always worked. It will be more true after AGI than before. That is more phases of more games compressed into... See more

Across every domain we have stopped playing openings. We have stopped playing middlegames. The instinct everywhere is to skip directly to the endgame. To reason backward from the terminal state and treat everything between here and there as something to recite and move on.

Consider modern war. A century ago, wars were fought with openings. The first... See more

In Yemen we bomb buildings that are already rubble. In Iran we pretend to destroy Fordow and the Iranians pretend to believe us, then hit Al Udeid and we pretend not to notice. In Venezuela we spend months blowing up boats in the Caribbean and stage the abduction of a man while his government stays intact. These are wars not being fought, but... See more

In a sense, one could argue that Bitcoin, and perhaps to an even greater extent Ethereum, Solana, and their peers, are essentially "SaaS" solutions. You pay a fee to the network to execute code; the protocol is the software, and the gas fee is the subscription. While that is admittedly stretching the definition, especially given the massive... See more

My hope is that we use AI to automate the inhuman so we can return to the human. Leaders should stop rewarding performative busyness and start rewarding discernment, creativity, judgment, honesty, clarity, and care. Parents should reclaim attention and focus that attention on what matters most. Creators should create with the lightheartedness of... See more

I’m optimistic, not because I think AI is harmless, nor because it won’t have far-reaching and painful implications, nor because I think humanity will suddenly wake from its Tower of Babel delusion, but because it might expose a lie we’ve lived under for a while – that your value is your output. If AI can out-output you, then you’re forced to... See more