David Slifka

Sounds bad when you put it that way

Is polymarket so bad that people should turn down their money? Honest q

If 6x the local police force actually spent months capturing the "worst of the worst," we should see crime drop noticeably. Let's see what happens…

Bad government wastes so much of people’s time that could otherwise be spent on useful things.

Thank you for everything you’re doing

bsky.app/profile/alex...

if you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine - Obi Wan Kenobi

Anyone else thinking about this these days?

New second amendment just dropped! Guns are great as long as you aren’t doing anything the government dislikes.

Why our family loves Alpha School NYC The good, the bad(ish), and how to decide for your child

Our kids now say things like "I like Alpha 20 times more than my other schools." The future of education will look more like this. We're very grateful that our kids get to experience it now.
/end

Full essay with all the details: alphanyc.substack.com/p/why-our-family-loves-alpha-school

Alpha School has been controversial for “replacing teachers with AI.” From the inside, this concern is bizarre. The adults at Alpha are just as important and just as present as in other schools.

/9

The strongest signal: Of ~20 day-one NYC families, three have already enrolled a second child. The people who've seen it up close are giving the ultimate vote of confidence. 8/

Prospective parents always ask me what has been bad so far. It’s a very fair question but I struggle for an answer; there’ve been hiccups but nothing that I’d call “bad.” The biggest unknown is whether quality holds as they scale quickly. 7/

The social concern everyone asks about: There's still lunch, recess, breaks. But the *structured* social learning is great, like town halls where kids debate and vote, group projects, and workshops on interviewing strangers. It's not just screens all day. 6/

Afternoon workshops teach things I wish I'd learned in school: giving/receiving feedback, public speaking, self-learning (kids had to teach themselves to solve a Rubik's cube). Once you see these skills taught explicitly, it seems crazy that other schools don't. 5/

What surprised me: How differently Alpha works for each of our twins. Our son thrives on the incentive structures and lack of distractions. Our daughter is filling some learning gaps beyond what regular school would achieve. Both benefit from and enjoy the afternoons and optional homework. 4/

And homework isn't just optional, it's fundamentally different. No more mystery assignments, no more 3-hour homework nights. Want to skip homework for a family event? Fine. Kid wants to work ahead over break? Also fine. 3/

At Alpha School, kids finish all academics in the morning using personalized software. Afternoons are for life skills workshops. Homework is optional. It sounds too good to be true; it's not. 2/

Why our family loves Alpha School NYC The good, the bad(ish), and how to decide for your child

So many parents asked me about Alpha School that I wrote up our experience.

Five months in, our whole family (kids and parents) would be crushed to go back to regular school. Here's why 🧵

alphanyc.substack.com/p/why-our-family-loves-alpha-school

They Wanted a University Without Cancel Culture. Then Dissenters Were Ousted. Inside the civil war at the anti-woke university backed by Bari Weiss.

The Politico UATX story hits a nerve because it's the classic authoritarian rise:

1. Make fair critiques of the status quo
2. Enlist sympathetic pluralists who help you rise to power
3. Become a mirror image (or worse) of everything you once criticized

www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Yeah we’re pretty perfect it’s true

How come?

My working model of the country has been that it's split into three groups: Left, Right, and low interest in politics. (And that calling the middle group "moderate" is misleading.)

This is a great addition of texture to that middle group.

Love

Thanks but if you google you’ll find otherwise

Yes exactly, for residential buildings up to a certain size. Which impacts safety basically not at all.

just getting tide of the ones that aren’t net beneficial, like double-stair requirements and too-high parking minimums.

Two things are true:
1. “numerous powerful industries shape the lion's share of most U.S. regs”
2. The barriers to housing supply are mostly caused by other actors.

IMO we weren’t talking about or working on #2 enough until Abundance.

In some cases yes; but with eg zoning and housing regs, corporations aren’t the problem. That call is coming from inside the house.

It's good that the case against Comey is falling apart, but I hate how easily we became a country where the president gets to prosecute his foes.

Didn’t they get these only recently?