The boy stirred with excitement.
He rolled left and right, unable to sleep. He tapped the right temple control on his Neuralink to check the time.
4:30AM… damn. Still another 3 hours until he could open his presents.
Amazon Prime Day was his favorite day of the year.
From the time he was 3 years old, he heard stories of Bezos the Great uniting the world with unlimited free delivery for Prime Families - those who earned enough credits in the Great Gig Economy. Thanks to Ol’ Saint Jeff, scarcity no longer existed, and all Prime Families had access to whatever they needed, whenever they needed it, so long as it was approved by the Regulator.
The boy knew that on Prime Day, if he had been a well-behaved citizen, Amazonia would send him the greatest gifts he could ever dream of. Although, he didn’t really know what dreams were - dreaming became irrelevant when the Algorithm in the Sky started to front-run them.
Last night, he followed Mother AI’s instructions and left a bag of fresh blood under the Prime Day Smart Cooker - a goop storage device that could 3D print just about any item a little boy could desire. The blood was a tribute for Ol’ Saint Jeff to gather upon delivering his wondrous miracles.
The boy was getting older now, 7 years to be exact, and his friends no longer believed in St. Jeff.
“It’s so stupid. Why would anyone fly around the world pulled by supersonic drones to deliver presents to Prime Families anyway? Wouldn’t it be faster to just wormhole it.”
Regardless of their blasphemous doubt, the boy still believed. His Mother AI always reminded him that believers would be rewarded handsomely.
Crash, zip, bang, whir!!!!
He heard a rumbling downstairs.
“It’s Ol’ Saint Jeff!”
He hopped out of his Casper Smart Bed and slid down the railing beside the staircase…
“Shoot, I missed him again!”
The blood bag was gone, and in its place floated an AR ticket to the boy’s favorite virtual world — YouTube Kids Land.
In YouTube Kids Land all well-behaved Prime Family Kids could watch infinite hours of their favorite cartoon characters unwrapping virtual gifts from Amazonia. All Prime Family Kids in YouTube Kids Land received a bottomless bowl of Lucky Charms cereal upon entry.
Lucky Charms had been banished from Amazonia 250 years ago - something about tainting the blood - but in YouTube Kids Land, the boy could have all he could eat!
“500 years, and that Ol’ St Jeff’s still got it! How does he do it?!” the boy exclaimed with glee.
“He does it with LOVE,” Neuralink whispered in the boy’s brain.
This Week’s Podcast:
Machine Learning with Lloyd Danzig, Chairman of the International Consortium for Ethical Development of Artificial Intelligence
“Usually as humans, we need some kind of catastrophe to learn our lesson in any way.”
Lloyd Danzig is an expert in the application of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to sports betting. I learned a ton in this episode about the flaws in human thinking, prediction markets, and the wisdom fo the crowd. Lloyd also finished on some juicy points around free will, human’s difficulty predicting outcomes, and God as a supercomputer.
What I’m Reading
Ideas
Why You Need an Extreme Ownership Mentality, Jari Roomer
Paul Graham’s Favorite Autobiographical Works (Ben Franklin on my list too)
Why Europeans No Longer Dream of America, FT
Startups
XB1 Rollout, Boom Supersonic
Snapchat Turns London into Augmented Reality Experiment, Wired
Markets
Data - Your Place or Mine, Richard Allan
New York’s Commercial Rents are Too Damn High, NY Times
Upside-Down Markets: Profits, Inflation and Equity Valuation in Fiscal Policy Regimes, Jesse Livermore
Crypto
Delegate “Dos & Don’ts”, Jesse Walden
The Optimistic Rollup Dilemma, Starkware
Crypto Market Structure, Arjun Balaji
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