Author: Julie

Categories
Politics

Day 1422 and Dialectical Materialism

I am a capitalist. I like markets. I like people having the freedom and individual capacity to choose the course their life will take. We enable that freedom by letting people choose to improve their material conditions.

That might be where the Marxists and I agree. Humans live in a material reality that exists outside of our own condition whose boundaries have significant implications on how we live our lives. I don’t know if I care about the dialect but we are connected and how we change has contradictions.

So how do we include more people in those improvements? How does America continue to do that? I’ve been trying to get my head around what inclusion means in a pluralistic democracy of our size.

Who decides what material conditions matter? Do we agree that we improving our conditions? What are those material conditions? I think making life better does involving improving our material conditions.

I just don’t think we improve those conditions from the top down. I maintain a firm belief in the coordination value of free markets. We make improvements by making our own choices. How do we include more people in making choices where we all benefit?

Some take for granted that diversity improves material circumstances. Certainly empires benefited from breadth and scale in the past. But we’ve seen nationalism and homogeneity work quite well for some endeavors.

I’ve been so fatigued by organizing my life around my identity and not my choices. My choices are obviously enabled and constrained by my identity. I’ve dwelled on gender and disability quite enough.

I’d prefer my conditions be more enabling than constraining which is why I believe so firmly in technology. We enable coordination to individual benefit through building systems that connect each other.

I believe the choices that benefit me can also benefit others just as surely as I believe in the golden rule. Do unto others. Applying that from nation state to neighborhoods to companies and collectives is a process. I’d like more of us to have a say in improving it.

Categories
Internet Culture Startups

Day 1421 and Culture Clashes

I sit in between half a dozen different community nodes thanks to my interests in open source software, decentralization, crypto, and autonomous systems technology.

This set of interest covers a lot of ground from ecosystem level collaboration in financial organizations like DAOs and to player versus AI agents coordination to peripheral control of drones and machinery.

Many different demographics are attracted to these frontiers for different reasons. Hackers have a very different mentality than mercenary technologists looking for maximum margin.

Open source has traditionally struggled more from a lack of financialization than from an obsession with it. Which seems less true in the crypto era than in previous more academic and defense oriented eras.

There are classic open source business models and anyone with age and experience in startups has some opinions which I leave as an exercise to the reader. They occasionally fail and an open core loses more than they’d like to professional services. I am writing on WordPress.

One strange aspect of what drives these frontier spaces to interact is that depending on how much leverage you find in building a network you may have different incentives than other builders and users. Expanding out to scaled use may drive a lot more value than the resources required. How the surplus gets divided is always contentious.

For some, the most crucial cultural goals is expanding access to automation and ripping away as many of the services and middle men as is feasible.

Decentralized systems make it harder for middle men to maintain monopolies. Thats its own goal for true believers. For others the goal massive financialization that drives network connectivity is the benefit. Self interest driving common goals is perfectly acceptable.

As I watch the current season of hyper self interested memecoin cryptomania engage with the academic utopian open source artificial intelligence community, I am reminded of so many of the classic issues we have in financing and sharing in the spoils of common infrastructure. Who benefits is a question we should all be asking more regularly

Categories
Aesthetics Media

Day 1420 and Stimuli

I am always shocked when people say they read anything I write. This isn’t because I don’t think I’m worth listening to but because I know attention is such a scarce commodity.

It’s so valuable we have entire industries dedicated to grabbing your attention. We don’t need to keep it necessarily we just need you to get distracted.

We downplay how well we know what works by indulging people who think they are immune to such things. Of course marketing on works on fools we sagely nod.

Of course we don’t want you to know how effectively we can move your attention let alone your opinion! You thinks anyone wants you to know propaganda works? Dunk on Jaguars new futura font. Scoff at those bot accounts.

Just know that most of marketing is Cocomelon, slot machines and dopamine hits. You can’t fight that without developing discipline which isn’t an infinite commodity. Most people don’t have much of it and aren’t even encouraged to develop. Good luck out there.

Categories
Preparedness Startups

Day 1419 and Know A Guy

Running a startup, for all its supposed glamour, is mostly an exercise in learning how little you know.

Sure there are playbooks for some of what you will do. As the technology industry has grown and startups have become an appealing career choice we’ve filled out how-to guides for everything from fundraising to operations.

Alas all advice is specific to the giver’s experience and untangling biases to make advice relevant to your specific needs is quite hard. That’s where it helps to have more experienced operators on hand to call bullshit.

At chaotic.capital we pride ourselves on being investors who “have a guy” for even the most esoteric possible requests. Playbooks can only you so far when you need an expert.

Just in the last two days we’ve worked through how one hires a chief of staff, what to do when letting go of counsel who made a mistake, installing appropriate security procedures for digital footprints, and the resale brokers for a rare commodity.

We like to problem solve and the weirder the problem the more fun it can be. Removing obstacles and clearing bottlenecks is satisfying work. And knowing guy who knows a guy is a heck of a fun game of social geography.

Categories
Aesthetics Culture

Day 1418 and Winter Wonderland

I’m in a terrific mood. Maybe it is just the hormones cycling up. Maybe the red lights we installed in the bedroom are actually improving my sleep quality. Maybe it’s getting a foot of powdery snow over the weekend.

So much of life seems to boil down to manage my own circadian rhythms even as I plug myself into the hiveminds of my favorite corners of the internet dutifully everyday. And my body likes short days, long nights and the bitter cold.

Certainly success is contributing to my buoyant mode. All of my founders are soaring (which seems statistically rather unlikely given the choppy markets) and the vibes are good. My chaotic.capital clique is thriving.

It’s getting to the point where I think we should host a portfolio dinner or something. Though that would be challenging as we are a distributed group. Alex realized recently that we only met one of our portfolio founders in person before we invested. Can you even imagine that in a pre-pandemic world? Our deal flow comes from the virtual worlds I live in daily.

Being snugly ensconced inside several areas of with macroeconomic tailwinds doesn’t hurt but most of those choices were made two or three years ago so I’m simply directionally correct, well connected, and unafraid to commit once I’ve satisfied my own process. Everyone has a long way to go but it feels wonderful to enjoy their success.

Walking in a winter wonderland.

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 1417 and Simple & Finite

An offensive “joke” I learned from my favorite trainer when I was a powerlifter contains a simple truth.

You should only ask a former fatty for exercise and nutrition advice.

The reasoning is simple. The naturally slim and athletic never had to work for it and as such don’t understand the struggles of the average person.

As someone who has metabolic challenges I feel reasonably strongly this is correct. Struggle that leads to success has useful lessons that ease and natural talents doesn’t always pass along

It’s with this in mind that I sometimes hesitate to give cosmetic advice despite my professional experience. I had some teenage acne and an enormous struggle with eczema on my body. But everything from the neck up has been a breeze.

My face has been clean, clear and even at 40 largely wrinkle free. My hair grows down my back like a hippie. I can get past an optimal place with relatively little work.

I say this not to gas myself up, just that I don’t fully understand the struggle of problem skin or hair. So if you really struggle I’m not your girl.

And yet I get asked a lot about cosmetics as people presume I got my results from hard work. Thats only partly true. Some of it is just good genetics. I’ve got plenty of other genetic dings so I’ll take the good luck.

I do however maintain a very consistent routine and understand the inputs that lead to my desired outputs.

Getting yourself to a Pareto optimal place doesn’t require anything terribly elaborate or even expensive. Women’s magazines and Sephora may make it look impossible but heed the words of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.

The rules of haircare are simple and finite. Any Cosmo girl would have known

There are basic rules for skin and haircare that you can follow diligently and at relatively low cost. If you give some basic inputs about your skin (is it dry or oily) and give me a budget I can get you 80% of the way there if you simply follow some basic steps everyday.

Marcia Kilgore of Bliss and Beautypie fame has a terrific memetic device I repeat to everyone.

ABC + SPF.

Vitamin A (retinol) plus Niacinamide (Vitamin B) and Vitamin C is all you need along with a sunscreen. The optimal order is a retinol moisturizer at night with a day moisturizer that contains B & C vitamins along with a SPF.

Now you can gussy that up a lot with dosing, adding in more acids if you have oily skin or ceramides and peptides (which I do as I have dry skin). I myself take a collagen and biotin supplement for some additional help. My expensive piss post offers some additional supplement options that are worth it if your nutrition isn’t perfect. Obviously you need to sleep and drink water.

Beyond a night cream with retinol and a day cream with SPF you can get more elaborate. There are manual processes for microdermabrasion, red light devices, Botox (I just started at 40 with about 15 units while the average is more like 70) as well massaging techniques and needling techniques. I think it’s overkill mostly especially if you don’t have good habits in the first place. Check your foundation before doing renovations.

If you just do the basics morning and night consistently (which can be fit in one or two products) you don’t shouldn’t to go hard until nailing the basics.

Unless looking good is a professional obligation it’s wasted time and money. Just do the basics. If you need product recommendations I can do that at any price point from drugstore to the luxury houses. It’s obviously a lot of fun if you are into it and I am so just hit me up.

Categories
Culture

Day 1416 and Lagom

As no cultural heritage must remain uncommercialized, you can find many pop culture best sellers on Swedish “lagom” philosophy.

“Not too little, not too much. Just right”

I’d actually never heard of it until today despite being the daughter of a Swedish American man. I am not one for balance though I actually do live a life of simple routines.

But I did recognize my lcultural upbringing when I stumbled across this piece on why the Nordic countries score so well on happiness scales. Apparently it is less “lagom” balance and more that we have reasonable expectations for life.

Consistent with their Lutheran heritage, the Nordic countries are united in their embrace of curbed aspirations for the best possible life.

This mentality is famously captured in the Law of Jante—a set of commandments believed to capture something essential about the Nordic disposition to personal success:

“You’re not to think you are anything special; you’re not to imagine yourself better than we are; you’re not to think you are good at anything”

I did not think I was anything special as a child. I’d laugh listening to Garrison Keillor describe the Lake Wobegon residents who were all above average. Those jokes landed with Minnesotans because who would be so foolish as to set unrealistic expectations?

I went through most of my life with the presumption that I was totally normal. I liked ketchup didn’t I? I wasn’t out of the ordinary and didn’t think I was especially intelligent or attractive relative to my peers.

As it turns out this was a real lack of self knowledge on my part. But it set me up for happiness. Every win feels fantastic because in my head I’m just a normal girl from a normal family who will achieve normal things.

None of that ended up being true. And I’ve been pleased to find myself actually quite a bit above average. They say expectations are premeditated resentments. And I have precious few of those.

Maybe I have achieved lagom. I’ve got just the right amount of expectations for my life. Set it low and your achievements will always be great.

Categories
Media Politics

Day 1415 and Sliding Off The Board

It’s fun watching an entire nation realize none of our citizens functionally have opinions of their own as all of the tribalism of the American system slides off the board into the swamp of personal animus.

– @almostmedia

The great realignment is in full swing. And no one is sure where they stand. The worst thing you believe about your enemy is surely true just as only the very best things about yourself count.

Ego versus ego blunders against each other. The slow glugging of inertia and bureaucracy and nihilism begins to tug. First time?

It’d worth reading Riva Tez’s essay “no matter who wins you lose”

“We are so much worse off than the Athenians during their similar stages of decline. Thucydides once wrote, “The Athenians, who were the most democratic of all the Greeks, were also the most prone to make mistakes, for they were always in a hurry to decide, and were swayed by the emotions of the moment.”

The political satire of the poets in Athenian theaters heavily influenced the city’s political decisions, just as TikTok and the Guardiansway millions of malleable minds now.”

What do we believe as RFK Jr discusses previously quite left wing coded hippie truisms about industrial agriculture and pharmaceutical company incentives.

The institutionalists are the left now and oddly they like Monsanto. But now Bari Weiss is arguing for the value of institutionalists against Peter Thiel. Are we really in for a new era of anti-institutionalism? Do we know where the board even is anymore? Don’t slip and slide into the swamp because you don’t like someone.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 1414 and Signs

I’ve been a bit Delphic in tone over the last week. I’m relieved but also distracting myself with shopping, reading and health projects.

My natural optimism is looking for the positive. If you go in for numerology 14 is a good number for the moment as 1 represents independence, leadership and change while 4 is stability and balance.

The world is shifting but my path is clear in front of me. We may be on a chaotic course but the adaption brings us new opportunities. I’ll just do my best to get enough sleep when things get exciting

Categories
Politics Startups

Day 1413 and Much to Consider

It’s a nice number for today’s post. A strange countdown inside one day. A little spooky. Maybe also some good luck. Fourteen. Thirteen.

I am tabulating much more than my days of writing in a row or any particular numerical significance that this position of numerals might show. I’m adding up our position and deciding how to play our hand.

There is simply so much to consider. I feel it in my joints. Maybe that is evidence of acceleration. All I see and hear is speeding up. Are you accelerating anon? Maybe that’s the pressure in my joints and it’s arthritis at all.

I have felt a bit sick to my stomach and I’d prefer to blame it on delicate lady things. It could also be nausea from the spin cycle of all that “much to consider” of the moment.

I’m glad I’m ensconced in my winter farmhouse. The numbers go up. The game’s whirlwind spins. There is much to consider.

It really ruins your appetite this whirling. The ride up the rollercoaster. No wonder Alice in Wonderland commercialized into whirling teacups at Disneyland. Can’t have it be the symbolism of opinion and fuzzy opinions.

So there is much to consider as we whirl like dervishes into the next moment.