Astral Codex Ten

David

13 min read

David

Article

David is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 13 times across 13 issues between August 23, 2021 and April 06, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as “Contact: David, ashland[dot]acx[dot]meetup[at]gmail[dot]com”; “One thing I gather from all of these comments, especially David’s”; “unlike what the Davids seem to want”. It most often appears alongside ACX, Boston, facebook.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 13
  • Issue count: 13
  • First seen: August 23, 2021
  • Last seen: April 06, 2026

Appears In

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.

Meetups Everywhere 2021: Times And Places
August 23, 2021 · Original source
CALGARY, AB (RSVP) Contact: David Piepgrass, qwertie256[at]gmail[dot]com Time: 1:00 PM, Sunday, September 5 Location: Pearce Estate Park: parking on 17a St SE, one of the 10 picnic tables northeast of the parking area, unless full. Look for a red-shirt guy and "ACX". Coordinates: https://w3w.co/readily.rosette.pools
Inline links: RSVP, https://w3w.co/readily.rosette.pools
ASHLAND, OR (RSVP) Contact: David, ashland[dot]acx[dot]meetup[at]gmail[dot]com Time: 10:00 AM, Saturday, September 18 Location: Lithia Park, in the meadow at the main (north) entrance, across the street from Skout Taphouse. I'll have a sign with ACX MEETUP on it. Coordinates: https://w3w.co/chances.shelter.group
Inline links: RSVP, https://w3w.co/chances.shelter.group
Highlights From The Comments On Missing School
August 26, 2021 · Original source
Another common theme was that I underestimate how bad missing school could be for poorer children. From David Roberts:
Inline links: David Roberts
One thing I gather from all of these comments, especially David’s, is the idea of school as being covert social services for poor children.
And partly it’s because a lot of the service being provided is (taking David’s description seriously) something like “your home environment sucks, we are going to make you spend time with normal people in a normal environment in the hopes that some of it rubs off on you”. Framed that way, it sounds pretty offensive, kind of adjacent to “you are unqualified to raise this kid, so please turn them over to the government”. If you openly asked parents in dysfunctional families to do this, they would probably revolt. But forcing everybody get your social service, even the people from functional families who don’t need it, is a pretty neat trick for looking less sinister.
Your Book Review: The Dawn Of Everything
June 10, 2022 · Original source
It’s a co-authored book by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The Davids. First, we have David Graeber, anthropologist, famed author of Debt: the First 5,000 Years, notable figure in the 2008 Occupy Wall Street movement, a playful but snarky writer, almost certainly the reason for the section titles being the way they are, and now deceased at the relatively young age of 59, just several weeks before The Dawn of Everything was published, victim of a totally inexplicable and blazingly fast case of necrotizing pancreatitis. The surviving David, David Wengrow, is lesser known but more erudite, more pragmatic, classically academic both in his pedantry but also in his impressive armament of archeological knowledge, and it’s Wengrow who’s been trying to fill the shoes of the more famous Graeber by making the post-publishing media whirlwind tour, sometimes to visible discomfort as he goes on long-winded lectures while the hosts try hastily to cut to the next segment.
What is the version of prehistory the Davids offer in The Dawn of Everything? It is an anti-story. The Davids are offering up an alternative to (as well as a criticism of) thinkers like Steven Pinker or Jared Diamond or Yuval Noah Harari, all of whom give a standard model of human prehistory that goes small hunter-gatherer tribes → invention of agriculture → civilization (with its associated hierarchies and private property and wealth inequalities).
The thesis of The Dawn of Everything is that neither of these is correct. In fact, the Davids argue the standard model of prehistory isn’t supported at all by modern archeological and anthropological evidence; in its place they offer a complexified account, wherein prehistorical humans lived in a panoply of different political arrangements, from extreme egalitarianism to chattel slavery, and that, just like humans in recorded history, they consciously collectively chose to live in the arrangement they did (well, except for the slaves), with the result being that
Universe-Hopping Through Substack
September 29, 2022 · Original source
I feel like this is weak. If I were doing this, I’d point out that 1 Kings 10-11 describes the moral decline of King Solomon. His main offenses are overtaxing the people, taking too many heathen women into his harem, and overspending on luxuries - including monkeys from far-off Tarshish. God gets angry at all of this and curses him to have his kingdom fall in the next generation. Surely monkeys + sexual profligacy = curse, plus the impending fall of the kingdom, forms a better “monkeypox means the End Times” argument than the “zoonotic disease” drivel. Also, Solomon’s excessive taxes come out to exactly 666 talents of gold - coincidence? But also: the Hebrew letter qoph means “monkey” - both symbolically, in the sense that its glyph is supposed to represent a monkey with a tail, and literally, in the sense that the word “qoph” also means “monkey” in Hebrew. According to kabbalah, it is the letter of impurity and unholiness. Its gematria value is 100, representing the 100 people killed by plague every day due to David offending God. But qoph is also the first letter of the Hebrew word keitz, meaning the end of time! I really feel like you could make a much stronger case here!
Inline links: means “monkey”, According to kabbalah
Another Bay Area House Party
October 19, 2022 · Original source
“Heyyyyy, I haven’t seen you in forever!” says a person whose name is statistically likely to be Michael or David. “What have you been working on?”
“Oh man,” says Michael or David, “The most exciting startup. Just an amazing startup. We’re doing procedural myth generation with large language models.”
Maybe Michael or David senses your skepticism. His tone becomes more confrontational. “And if myths are really just for ‘galaxy-brainers who are too obsessed with the classical western humanities tradition’, then explain why my startup has already gotten $10 million in funding from Peter Thiel!”
Highlights From The Comments On Bobos In Paradise
December 09, 2022 · Original source
I feel like if even half of this was true, The change in Harvard’s and other university’s admission policy would have been a much bigger deal. Aristocracies don’t generally sit on their hands when something threatens their position. At the very least there would be legislative attempts to reverse the change. It’s possible the aristocracy didn’t realize how important the change was, but they should have realized it when the meritocrats became a thing, and when their kids stopped getting into top universities. There just wasn’t enough of a fight for something which supposedly toppled a virtual nobility. And it is highly unusual for an entire class of people to make an epistemic mistake about something which it is very important for them to get right, when the consequences of a mistake will be immediate and when the subject isn’t some obscure scientific field which requires expertise to understand. If David was smart enough to figure all of this out, why weren’t the aristocrats? It was far more important for them to get it right, and it doesn’t seem that David’s knowledge of the future was particularly useful for this inference, so the aristocrats had nearly all the relevant information David did.
https://www.phillymag.com/news/2004/04/01/david-brooks-booboos-in-paradise/ — worth a read not just for the careful "oh wait, your telling anecdote is literally not true, the opposite is true", but for Brooks' attempt to intimidate the journalist. 2004 was the end of a long era where you could just make stuff up.
Inline links: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2004/04/01/david-brooks-booboos-in-paradise/
Meetups Everywhere 2023: Times & Places
August 25, 2023 · Original source
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA, USA Contact: Cat Contact Info: cat[dot]esposito[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Tuesday, October 10th, 6:30 PM Location: Free Range Brewing - 2320 N. Davidson St., Charlotte, NC. I'll be in the outdoor seating section that is in front of the residential apartment buildings and will have an ACX MEETUP sign with me. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/867X65RP+6P Notes: It's a brewery that typically serves food on Tuesday nights.
Inline links: https://plus.codes/867X65RP+6P
CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA Contact: David Piepgrass Contact Info: qwertie256[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 16th, 2:00 PM Location: Inner City Brewing, 820 11 Ave SW Coordinates: https://plus.codes/95372WVC+52C Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/LZQ6HBAd8afoqPP27
Inline links: https://plus.codes/95372WVC+52C, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/LZQ6HBAd8afoqPP27
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, USA Contact: David Contact Info: ddfr[at]daviddfriedman[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 23rd, 2:00 PM Location: 3806 Williams Rd. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/849W825J+6P [CANCELLED, SORRY, EMAIL DAVID FOR MORE INFO]
Inline links: https://plus.codes/849W825J+6P
Meetups Everywhere 2024: Times & Places
August 29, 2024 · Original source
Contact: David O. Contact Info: inlets_spinal_0a[at]icloud[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 28th, 06:00 PM Location: Motel One, 111-114 Middle Abbey St, North City, Dublin, D01 H220 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C5M8PXP+6H Group Link: hxxps://chat[dot]whatsapp[dot]com/Ecgu6De4a[ignore this]XkDhAk9FELKGr (Note: The link has been obfuscated due to spam.) Notes: No RSVP required
Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C5M8PXP+6H
Contact: David P Contact Info: qwertie256[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 07th, 02:00 PM Location: First Street Market, 1327 1st Street SW, Calgary. Look for a red ACX sign. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/95372WRM+2F Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/LZQ6HBAd8afoqPP27
Inline links: https://plus.codes/95372WRM+2F, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/LZQ6HBAd8afoqPP27
Contact: David Contact Info: ddfr[at]daviddfriedman[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 01st, 02:00 PM Location: 3806 Williams Rd, San Jose, CA 95117 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/849W825J+6P Group Link: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/SSC%20Meetups%20announcement.html Notes: Please RSVP to my email so we will have a rough count of how many we are feeding
Inline links: https://plus.codes/849W825J+6P, http://www.daviddfriedman.com/SSC%20Meetups%20announcement.html
Book Review Contest 2024 Winners
October 11, 2024 · Original source
2nd: Nine Lives, reviewed by David Matolcsi. David is an AI safety researcher from Hungary, currently living in Berkeley. He doesn't have much publicly available writing yet, but plans to publish some new blog posts on LessWrong in the coming months
Inline links: Nine Lives
The Complete Rhyming Dictionary And Poet’s Craft Book, reviewed by David. David is a materials science PhD and programmer who blogs with co-author Felipe at The Hall of Impossible Dreams about fanfiction, poetry, video game machine learning, and fanfiction poetry about video game machine learning. He is currently looking for work, and can be reached at david@hallofdreams.org.
Inline links: The Complete Rhyming Dictionary And Poet’s Craft Book, The Hall of Impossible Dreams, fanfiction, poetry, video game machine learning, fanfiction poetry about video game machine learning, david@hallofdreams.org
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2025: Times & Places
March 25, 2025 · Original source
Contact: David Contact Info: dj[a t]theory-a[period]com Time: Saturday, May 24th, 10:00 AM Location: Zhongshan Park, Changning District (Main Entrance) Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8Q336CCC+29 Group Link: https://discord.gg/G6x [remove this bit] RGnvD Notes: Please RSVP
Inline links: https://plus.codes/8Q336CCC+29
Contact: David O Contact Info: inlets_spinal_0a[a t]icloud[period]com Time: Friday, April 11th, 7:00 PM Location: Motel One, 111-114 Middle Abbey St, North City, Dublin, D01 H220 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C5M8PXP+6H Group Link: hxxps://chat[dot]whatsapp[dot]com/Ecgu6De4a[ignore this]XkDhAk9FELKGr (Note: The link has been obfuscated due to spam.) Notes: No RSVP required
Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C5M8PXP+6H
Contact: David Friedman Contact Info: ddfr[ at]daviddfriedman[period]com Time: Sunday, April 6th, 2:00 PM Location: 3806 Williams Rd, San Jose, CA 95117 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/849W825J+6Q
Inline links: https://plus.codes/849W825J+6Q
Meetups Everywhere 2025: Times and Places
August 29, 2025 · Original source
Contact: David Contact Info: dj[a t]theory-a[period]com Time: Saturday, September 27th, 10:00 AM Location: Zhongshan Park 中山公园 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8Q336CCC+29 Group Link: https://discord.com/invite/C [remove this bit] meRexz7JM Notes: Park meetup so feel free to bring pets, RSVPs are appreciated
Inline links: https://plus.codes/8Q336CCC+29
Contact: David Contact Info: inlets_spinal_0a[a t]icloud[period]com Time: Friday, September 12th, 6:00 PM Location: Motel One, 111-114 Middle Abbey St, North City, Dublin, D01 H220 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C5M8PXP+6H Group Link: hxxps://chat[dot]whatsapp[dot]com/Ecgu6De4a[ignore this]XkDhAk9FELKGr (Note: The link has been obfuscated due to spam.) Notes: No RSVP required. Email me if you have trouble accessing the group.
Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C5M8PXP+6H
Contact: David Contact Info: ddfr[a t]daviddfriedman[period]com Time: Saturday, September 20th, 2:00 PM Location: 3806 Williams Rd, San Jose, CA 95117 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/849W825J+6Q Group Link: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/SSC%20Meetups%20announcement.html Notes: RSVP to my email so we will have a rough count of how many we are feeding.
Inline links: https://plus.codes/849W825J+6Q, http://www.daviddfriedman.com/SSC%20Meetups%20announcement.html
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2026: Times & Places
April 01, 2026 · Original source
Contact: David Contact Info: dlwjiang[@]gmail[.]com Time: Saturday, May 23rd, 11:00 AM Location: Zhongshan Park, Changing District Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8Q336C9C+RC Group Link: https://discord.gg/Cme [remove this bit] Rexz7JM Notes: Please contact me via email or in the discord server for access to the WeChat group
Inline links: https://plus.codes/8Q336C9C+RC
Contact: David O. Contact Info: inlets_spinal_0a[@]icloud[.]com Time: Saturday, April 25th, 3:00 PM Location: Motel One, 111-114 Middle Abbey St, North City, Dublin, D01 H220 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C5M8PXP+6H Group Link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/ETaD [remove this bit] qjMaFFTB6gDzZwfKoI?mode=gi_t
Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C5M8PXP+6H
Contact: Sajid Contact Info: msr[.]sajid1283[@]gmail[.]com Time: Friday, April 3rd, 1:00 PM Location: David G. Porter Memorial Japanese Garden, OAC Centennial Arboretum Centre, 200 Arboretum Rd, Guelph, ON N0B Coordinates: https://plus.codes/86MXGQRM+3Q5
Inline links: https://plus.codes/86MXGQRM+3Q5
Open Thread 428
April 06, 2026 · Original source
Starting at Anthropic, we marched thirty minutes to OpenAI, then another forty to X. A friendly and professional police escort allowed us to walk down the street. As we marched, David led us in chants and slogans. I remember “1…2…3…4…Orwell told us what’s in store” and “5….6….7….8…no AI surveillance state.” Someone tried to start a chant of “You will not replace us!” but was shushed by the other attendees.