Going Infinite
Article
Going Infinite is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 4 times across 4 issues between December 12, 2023 and August 16, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “Have you read Going Infinite? The book on Sam Bankman-Fried?”; “Issue Five includes … a review of Going Infinite”; “One of the most interesting books last year that wasn’t about love was Going Infinite, about FTX”. It most often appears alongside FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, Trump.
Metadata
- Category: Books
- Mention count: 4
- Issue count: 4
- First seen: December 12, 2023
- Last seen: August 16, 2024
Appears In
Related Pages
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- FTX (2 shared issues)
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- Sam Bankman-Fried (2 shared issues)
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- Trump (2 shared issues)
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- 2024 (1 shared issues)
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- 20th Century Fox (1 shared issues)
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- 538 (1 shared issues)
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- Aaron Peskin (1 shared issues)
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- Aaronson (1 shared issues)
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- Abomination (1 shared issues)
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- Abomination (1 shared issues)
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- Abraham Lincoln (1 shared issues)
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- accelerationist conspiracy (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
“Have you read Going Infinite? The book on Sam Bankman-Fried? Not that I generally approve of Sam Bankman-Fried. It’s just that - the book says Sam tried to bribe Trump not to run in 2024. Apparently Trump was willing to do it for $5 billion. And again, not to say Sam Bankman-Fried was right or anything, but obviously if you have $5 billion and you’re a Democrat, then that’s the best use of your money, right? And not to say that I wish he was never caught and had gone on to become a multi-deca-billionaire, but, well, you know . . . “ he trailed off. “Anyway, I was reading about all these delicate negotiations between Sam’s people and the Trump team, and it was funny - here’s this guy who’s famous for creating markets, and he’s stuck with boring old Mk 1.0 backchannel negotiations. So I thought - what if there was an Amazon or an eBay for paying politicians not to run? We wouldn’t have to get Trump our first year. We could start with your local city council member - Aaron Peskin, someone like that. Lots of people would pay Aaron Peskin money not to run. Then we build up from there.”
Inline links: tried to bribe Trump not to run in 2024
Asterisk is now releasing its issues piecemeal; along with Johnson on prediction markets, Issue Five includes articles on airline safety, PEPFAR, developing-world democracy, and a review of Going Infinite.
Inline links: Issue Five includes
Still, the only part I’m really confident in is the “not being pathetic and less than fully human” thing. I notice that some big fraction - maybe the majority - of songs, books, movies, and other culture - is about love. Love is still an adventure. For something to be an adventure, it has to be dangerous. Brimming with the chance to fail in a terrible and final way, or to succeed beyond your wildest imagination and be happy forever. One of the most interesting books last year that wasn’t about love was Going Infinite, about FTX. This is not a coincidence. Love is like a crypto scam, tantalizing you with the promise of infinite riches before dashing you against the rocks. In the unregulated spaces, a few of the colors of primal human experience still leak in, as unfair as God, and we throw ourselves on the wheel and see where we land. Or at least we read books about the kind of people who do that.
...the medium that had never been seen before I am going to start with my second point: How is it possible to say that storytelling is getting better? Michael Lewis’ book, Going Infinite , about Sam-Bankman Fried (founder of FTX and Alameda Research, and convicted of fraud in November 2023) was controversial mostly because Lewis suggested that Sam was a...