“ We have unusually strong marketing connections; Vitalik approves of us; Aella is a marketing advisor on this project; SlateStarCodex is well aware of us. We are quite networked in the Effective Altruism space. We could plausibly get an Elon tweet. ”
From the short investor spiel document. Also they want to just bypass the FDA?
Ok, read their actual pitch. Lmao they think that a one time introduction of a GMO bacteria strain is going to ‘just work’ because they’ve also GMO’d it to outcompete other bacteria?
There’s a reason we aren’t running our cars on yeast-produced gasoline. No matter how awesome your tuned microbe is, it’s still subject to mutation and natural selection. If your beneficial changes aren’t actually helping it survive, they will not be conserved. And those ‘competitive’ changes you jacked it up with to make sure it dominates the environment? Well, that might end up horizontally transferred into something you don’t like.
About the right amount of ‘we humans are smarter than dumb biology’ metal-fetishism I’d expect from the folks concerned.
Some nice sneer:
I can understand Aella wanting to fund a project so she never has to brush her teeth again
Probably also heavily interested in Never Take a Shower Again research
https://nitter.net/nunyabeeswaxfed/status/1705695595413790814
Furthermore, we don’t have to worry about regulatory slapdown if we sell it as a medical tourism product in, say, Próspera. We could brand this as a secret medical treatment for the super-elite, like Peter Thiel’s StemcenterX or Minicircle’s regenerative medicine hub, and charge $20,000 a dose.
Why is this option A?
$20,000 and a trip to Honduras seems pricey for some bacteria, but maybe they can package it with other … services …
A moment of silence for the people of Honduras, who have to live with these weirdos.
Christ, Próspera is another planned city? What is it with these maniacs and planning ideologies that went out of fashion in the thirties?
I can assure you that’s not the only part of the 30s they’re nostalgic for
A variant of this organism was first created in 1985, and volunteers deliberately inoculated themselves with the modified strain. This has, to our knowledge, caused no ill effects since.
Who needs the FDA when you have vague hunches?
Now I want Shark Tank but it’s all treacles luminaries. Wait that’s just the VC scene in silicon valley. Never mind
Ok I figured out how to salvage it. People come on and pitch sensible business ideas that get shot down. We’d also get quotes like:
Aella: “If I take on an advisory role, will I be required to shower?”
Pinker: draws line up and to the right on graph “This problem is already as good as solved. I don’t see why any action on my part is necessary.”
EY: “You do not think in sufficient detail, and for that reason, I’m out.”
Watch me bring them something unnecessarily overcomplicated that boosts their ego to win all of the money.
A micropayment platform designed to integrate with long form textual content. The subscribers will be able to vote with their wallets on the topic they wish the CONTENT_CREATOR to cover.
But there’s a game theoretic twist. The final price of each vote will be discounted based on the share of votes it received, so if you vote for the winning option, your votes will end up costing less. This encourages strategic voting based on what would be the most interesting topic to the largest share of subscribers, incentivizing subscribers to maximize for total utility instead of just their own interests.
Additionally, below a certain threshold of share the votes will be free of charge. This is to encourage heterodox views and foster engagement with unconventional interests that would otherwise be risky to vote for.
The cutoff for the free Complimentary Contrarian’s Votes will be determined by a prediction market running in parallel with the vote.
The winning votes will become investments into the post, binding the CONTENT_EXCRECATOR to CREATE_THE_CONTENT and based on some configurable metric (post score, ad revenue etc.) the investment will accrue dividends, which the subscriber can cash out to a charitable organization. However, this can only be done once per publication per subscriber, meaning the subscriber should wait for the investment to accumulate before cashing in. A global high score will show the subscribers who have cashed in the largest amount in donations and their voting power will be increased in proportion to their score.
I want 15% equity and a public live stream session of the AI box game with Yud where I roleplay as the shittalking French knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
The winning votes will become investments into the post, binding the CONTENT_EXCRECATOR to CREATE_THE_CONTENT and based on some configurable metric (post score, ad revenue etc.) the investment will accrue dividends
I’m in, but only if this part is handled by fractionalizing an NFT linking to the original post on your custom blockchain
“I try not to disturb my natural skin microbiome too much”
(“my bodily oils have come to terms with me, now it’s your turn”)
