Linch

[April Fools' Day] Introducing Open Asteroid Impact

> “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Hillary Clinton, who is still alive I'm proud and excited to announce the founding of my new startup, Open Asteroid Impact, where we redirect asteroids towards Earth for the benefit of humanity. Our mission is to have as high an impact as possible. Below, I've copied over the one-pager I've sent potential investors and early employees: Name: Open Asteroid Impact Launch Date: April 1 2024 Website: openasteroidimpact.org Mission: To have as high an impact as possible Pitch: We are an asteroid mining company. When most people think about asteroid mining, they think of getting all the mining equipment to space and carefully mining and refining ore in space, before bringing the ore back down in a controlled landing. But humanity has zero experience in Zero-G mining in the vacuum of space. This is obviously very inefficient. Instead, it’s much more efficient to bring the asteroids down to Earth first, and mine it on the ground. Furthermore, we are first and foremost an asteroid mining *safety* company. That is why we need to race as fast as possible to be at the forefront of asteroid redirection, so more dangerous companies don’t get there before us, letting us set safety standards. Cofounder and CEO: Linch Zhang Other employees: Austin Chen (CTO), Zach Weinersmith (Chief Culinary Officer), Annie Vu (ESG Analyst) Board: tbd Competitors: DeepMine, Anthropocene Valuation: Astronomical Design Principles: Bigger, Faster, Safer Organizational Structure: for-profit C corp owned by B corp owned by public benefit corporation owned by 501c4 owned by 501c3 with a charter set through a combination of regulations from Imperial France, tlatoani Aztec Monarchy, Incan federalism, and Qin-dynasty China to avoid problems with Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem Safety Statement: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from human-directed asteroids should be a global priority alongside other civilizational risks such as nuclear

355Apr 1, 2024

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The Simplest Case for AI Catastrophe

Hi folks. As some of you know, I've been trying to write an article laying out the simplest case for AI catastrophe. I believe existing pieces are worse than they could be for fixable reasons. So I tried to write my own piece that's better. In the end, it ended...

Feb 577

The Matchless Match

tl;dr I wanted to consult the internet for good triple and quadruple entendres. unable to find a good existing compilation, so I wrote my own! Attached at the end are some of my original contributions. Triple and quadruple entendres, and the search for the elusive quintuple Matchmaker, matchmaker, plan me...

Jan 3011

The 7 Types Of Advice (And 3 Common Failure Modes)

Reposting my Inkhaven post on ontology of advice here. Are you interested in learning a new field, whether it’s programming, writing, or how to win Paper Mario games? Have you searched for lots of advice and couldn’t choose which advice to follow? Worse, have you tried to follow other people’s...

Dec 30, 202526

Unknown Knowns: Five Ideas You Can't Unsee

Merry Christmas! Today I turn an earlier LW shortform into a full post and discuss "unknown knowns" "obvious" ideas that are actually hard to discuss because they're invisible when you don't have them, and then almost impossible to unsee when you do. Hopefully this is a fun article for like...

Dec 25, 202575

Linch's Top Inkhaven Posts and Reflections

This November I attended Inkhaven1, a writing residency where 40 of us posted daily, workshopped each other’s pieces, and received feedback from more experienced professional bloggers and editors. A month of writing under pressure was challenging, but I’m overall glad I did it. I was worried about the quality and...

Dec 19, 202538

Rock Paper Scissors is Not Solved, In Practice

Hi folks, linking my Inkhaven explanation of intermediate Rock Paper Scissors strategy, as well as feeling out an alternative way to score rock paper scissors bots. It's more polished than most Inkhaven posts, but still bear in mind that the bulk of this writing was in ~2 days. Rock Paper...

Dec 10, 202559

How Stealth Works

Stealth technology is cool. It’s what gave the US domination over the skies during the latter half of the Cold War, and the biggest component of the US’s information dominance in both war and peace, at least prior to the rise of global internet connectivity and cybersecurity. Yet the core...

Dec 8, 202548

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[April Fools' Day] Introducing Open Asteroid Impact

Linkpost: They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie?

LTFF and EAIF are unusually funding-constrained right now

Linkpost: A Post Mortem on the Gino Case

Linch

The Simplest Case for AI Catastrophe

The Matchless Match

The 7 Types Of Advice (And 3 Common Failure Modes)

Unknown Knowns: Five Ideas You Can't Unsee

Linch's Top Inkhaven Posts and Reflections

Rock Paper Scissors is Not Solved, In Practice

How Stealth Works

[April Fools' Day] Introducing Open Asteroid Impact

Linkpost: They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie?

LTFF and EAIF are unusually funding-constrained right now

Linkpost: A Post Mortem on the Gino Case

The Simplest Case for AI Catastrophe

The Matchless Match

The 7 Types Of Advice (And 3 Common Failure Modes)

Unknown Knowns: Five Ideas You Can't Unsee

Linch's Top Inkhaven Posts and Reflections

Rock Paper Scissors is Not Solved, In Practice

How Stealth Works