Max

Article

Max is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 8 times across 8 issues between August 23, 2021 and April 01, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as “Contact: Max, paxperplexus[at]gmail[dot]com”; “lured by Max’s continually growing wealth and reputation”; “one of Max’s most important deals was buying an automated loom company”. It most often appears alongside Budapest, Europe, facebook.

Metadata

Category: People
Mention count: 8
Issue count: 8
First seen: August 23, 2021
Last seen: April 01, 2026

Appears In

- Budapest (4 shared issues)
- Europe (4 shared issues)
- facebook (4 shared issues)
- Germany (4 shared issues)
- Hungary (4 shared issues)
- India (4 shared issues)
- Poland (4 shared issues)
- Romania (4 shared issues)
- Scott (4 shared issues)
- ACX (3 shared issues)
- ACX (3 shared issues)
- ACX MEETUP (3 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.

Meetups Everywhere 2021: Times And Places

August 23, 2021 · Original source

OAKLAND, CA (RSVP) Contact: Max, paxperplexus[at]gmail[dot]com Time: 7:00 PM, Thursday, September 9 Location: Marina Lawn, Jack London Square, we’ll be on the grass (you can bring blankets or chairs if you want) at the northwest corner. I’ll be wearing a blue and white stovepipe hat. For food there is pizza, Thai, burgers and salads very nearby. Coordinates: https://w3w.co/softly.finishing.risks Notes: I hope someone uses this chance to start a public weekend meetup in the East Bay — but if not I hope my weeknight meetup can suffice.

Inline links: RSVP, https://w3w.co/softly.finishing.risks

Book Review: The Man From The Future

July 13, 2022 · Original source

The family patriarch was Max von Neumann, an extraordinarily successful lawyer - he made so much money that the Emperor of Austria-Hungary ennobled him for service to the national economy. Every night, Max would gather John and his two brothers around the dinner table. First, he would discuss his own day - the cases he had argued, the financial deals he had negotiated., any problems that had been on his mind. Then the children would present on what they had been reading about. The whole von Neumann family - father Max, mother Margit, and the three sons - would have protracted arguments on Henrich Heine’s poetry, or the trajectory of anti-Semitism in Europe, or the paradoxes of God’s omnipotence. Sometimes leading intellectuals would attend and join in, lured by Max’s continually growing wealth and reputation. One frequent guest was Rudolf Ortvay, director of Budapest’s Theoretical Physics Institute. Another was Sandor Ferenczi, a student of Sigmund Freud working on bringing the recently-founded psychoanalytic movement to Hungary. John’s brother Nicholas wrote an account of these sessions, including slightly strained accounts of how they might have influenced John’s future development. For example, one of Max’s most important deals was buying an automated loom company; as a result, the whole family picked up expertise in loom technology. The looms of the time were controlled by inserting punch cards, later to become a standard in digital computing (though not AFAICT through von Neumann’s influence in particular).

Inline links: wrote an account

Even More Bay Area House Party

January 04, 2023 · Original source