Category: Community

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Community Politics

Day 1405 and America is Speaking

I spent several hours with my ballot last night. My husband and I engaged in scenario planning with every race and ballot initiative though we’ve been following them all closely through the year.

We have done our best to get engaged in the civic life of Montana because that is our obligation as people with time and resources.. There are many excellent non-partisan groups dedicated to a range of everyday issues from housing policy and education to more abstract policy like the right to compute. I recommend the Frontier Institute if you are inclined towards libertarian and growth policies.

We’d been lucky enough to meet many of the candidates who were running for a range of offices from federal, state and judicial. It’s a privilege to be a part of the process and every candidate makes a huge sacrifice to run for office. They make themselves accountable to us.

Nothing feels quite as good as voting for your neighbor. John Lamb the libertarian candidate for our Secretary of State is a good neighbor with a wonderful family. I believe in the value of voting for your neighbors. He and I align on many issues and where we do not I remind myself that it need not divide us. I know he raised wonderful children. Which means more than any individual policy.

Now, of course, many of my preferred candidates won’t be elected. It’s possible the ballot initiatives I support do not have the support of the majority. I did what I could to have my voice heard through the election season and today with my ballot.

A line at of rougly hundred deep to vote on Main Street in Bozeman Montana at 4:30pm Mountain Time. It is below freezing and snowing

Montana allows any voter to request a ballot by mail. You can also vote in person. Montana offers early voting. I’ve voted in three elections since we’ve moved here and I’ve never seen a presidential year turnout. Even with so many options to vote ahead and avoid the lines we still had hundreds of people lined up to vote.

We dropped our ballot and drove home. American is speaking now.

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Community Culture

Day 1384 and Long Lunch

No offense to Stephen Sondheim’s Company, but I think ladies who lunch have been unfairly maligned culturally.

We are so quick to dismiss socializing as some superficial ritual. But social bonds are the way we maintain our civilization.

If you can make time to enjoy a long lunch with pleasant and diverting company, you possess a degree of richness that has little to do with personal wealth. It’s a richness of spirit.

Everything can acquire the social capital required to have a little lunch with friends. Being present and kind to one’s dining companions is a joy to be cherished.

Cherish those that would take time to share their company (and a meal) with you. Whether it’s a swanky restaurant, at someone’s home, or on at the office. Take a long lunch with someone who interests you.

The ladies who lunch understand the value of these social bonds to their community. Elaine Stritch would drink to that. And so should you and I.

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Community Culture

Day 1349 and Worry Not

Through Robin Hanson’s link round up today I came across a review of a book by Joyce Beresen “Warriors and Worriers” that has a novel thesis on how different sexes cooperate and compete.

Human males form cooperative groups that compete against out-groups, while human females exclude other females in their quest to find mates, female family members to invest in their children, and keep their own hearts ticking. In the process, Benenson turns upside down the familiar wisdom that women are more sociable than men and that men are more competitive than women.

The Survival of the Sexes: Warriors and Worriers

The reviewer Tove K of Wood from Eden suggests that Bereson’s work shows that worry and fear may be playing a part in our current fertility crisis for women.

If women worry more about competing for resources than men because their social competitions are zero sum (versus men who must be more cooperative for group defense) than I can see how if you get to fear being a driver of inferiority. If you are struggling with poverty or resource constraint you might be living in fear. It’s hard to imagine that there are infinite games. Maybe too many of us can’t see beyond limited zero sum “us versus them” resources competitions.

In that theme, Bryan Caplan wonders if only fear (and shame) can sway the highly impulsive as they are not as able to see cause and effect.

When I grew up young women experienced rather pervasive fear and shame on becoming pregnant. Now we see more women convinced to pull back from the risk of children entirely.

What I can’t quite square in these theories is how much actual resource constraints play into this versus the subjective differences in resources we see in our social groups. Is it all a comparison game?

You may be doing objectively better than any of your ancestors but still feel inadequate next to a lavish Instagram feed of an influencer. If you don’t think you can live up to the high standards of parenting required in American life maybe you’d worry yourself into a smaller family.

Or as many are choosing you’d worry yourself into no children at all. Last week the Surgeon General said Americans were in a crisis of parental stress. Who wants that? I’d say that women should worry less but if our biology says “only the paranoid survive” the future of humanity will take more than just our evolutionary instincts. We need to want to live.

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Community Culture

Day 1329 and Monkey See Monkey Do

I finally finished listening to the Joe Rogan podcast with Peter Thiel. I prefer reading and writing but I put it on at 1.5 speed while exercising and eventually powered through

I usually prefer peace and quiet when I workout, but I thought it would be nice to catch up on popular culture. It’s something others enjoy so why not engage in some mimicry. And it did inspire some of yesterday’s writing if only tangentially.

I’m lucky enough to be internet friends with the peerless Luke Burgis. His hugely successful book Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life introduced popular culture to philosopher Rene Girard.

I’d first encountered Girard at university and through Thiel’s influence pursued further understanding of the topic thanks to Luke’s scholarship on the topic. A quick orientation on the thesis is as follows.

What Gravity Is To Physics, Mimetic Desire Is To Psychology”

Why do you want the things that you want? Well to get back to the Rogan/Thiel podcast, humans are still “monkey see, monkey do” when taking action and pursuing a desire. Mimicry is a powerful explanatory principle for human nature.

Not knowing who or what to emulate is surely a source of anxiety in our current moment. What constitutes the good and the true seems especially unclear in our long now modernity. Which way western man? As social animals we look to each other. If you want to give others something worth mirroring you have that power. Equally who you choose to emulate impacts others. Choose wisely.

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Community Startups

Day 1321 and Credit Where Credit Is Due

I can’t get into the details but I learned today that there is an internal metric at an institution based around work I was personally responsible for achieving.

Literally none of the credit has accrued to me because ultimately the thing didn’t really work but the downstream effects of the social credibility I brought really benefit someone I am not sure I’d have wanted to benefit. If I’d had a choice which I very much didn’t. Sometimes your social capital accrues to people you don’t even like.

I like having social capital to spare but I didn’t realize that someone was profiting off of it to such an intense degree till today. Power laws rule everything around me and it’s actually good. Just funny how little credit you month get for something and how much it might benefit someone else.

I don’t even know if I can even politely point it out simply because it’s déclassé to do so. I’ll have to enjoy the the little irony on my own. And believe me I am. Maybe it gets shared in a small circle of folks for whom making money for jerks it’s a fact of life. But I’ll take the credit privately.

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Community Politics

Day 1317 and The Circus Came To Town

I am hunkering down for a Friday evening at home. Batten down the hatches, secure the chickens in their coop, turn on the security system and lock the doors kiddos because the circus is here.

Former President Donald Trump is hosting a rally in Bozeman Montana tonight and I would like to keep my distance from the circus. There are naturally rallies, counter rallies and protests to go along with the main event.

We don’t live in the town of Bozeman thankfully but comfortably far enough into rural county land that we shouldn’t be bothered.

Nevertheless when something big comes to town, and it’s harder to imagine something bigger than a political rally, it can get in the way of basic routines like grocery shopping or picking up prescriptions at the pharmacy.

I was doing a few errands over the lunch hour and traffic was crawling as trucks decked out in flags paraded through town. It was actually quite festive even if it slowed everything down.

Trump is speaking at 8pm and already by noon the rumor on local chats and news websites was that the indoor arena was nearly full with early arrivals.

There is a portion of 19th street where local farmers sell fruit and vegetables on the side of the road. Today it was packed with booths selling Trump paraphernalia instead of cherries or sweet corn. I

think the most astonishing flag I saw was “Cum-Allah Harris” but it was otherwise your usual MAGA fair with lots of signs for local Republican candidates as well.

Slow traffic and roadside flag sales

I didn’t get any close up pictures as I was trying to avoid the scene but I did a little bit of looking as I drove by. I’m hoping it brings good business to restaurants, bars and motels though in truth August is already so popular a time to be in Bozeman we don’t really have much capacity.

I’m safely back home long before anything has kicked off and I indeed to keep it that way. Don’t invite trouble and trouble won’t find you. But I look forward to hearing stories from friends and neighbors. Maybe I’ll watch the livestream.

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Community Politics

1302 and Virtual Insanity

It’s a crazy world we are living in

A number of my friends and colleagues have descended on Nashville this week for the Bitcoin Conference. I didn’t make the trek as southern heat in mid-July isn’t for me.

Despite being remote, it’s been easy keeping up on the event. I connected various friends who all different politics & interests. It’s been a delight to get selfies and “ussies” sent to me as my network connects in person. My virtual network exist IRL.

Meanwhile back in “extremely online” land where I spend my workday it feels as if the virtual insanity is at a fever pitch.

We’ve been recycling the same fears of virtual worlds since I was a kid. When I was in middle school the big hit was Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity.

You may remember it as a catchy funk hit where a gentleman in a big black hat dances through an underground city.

Oh, futures made of, now, virtual insanity
Now we all, we seem to be governed by a love
For these useless twisting of our new technology
And now there is no sound, for we all live underground
Yes, we do, oh

Jamiroquai “Virtual Insanity” c. 1996

It doesn’t seem like much has changed in the intervening quarter century or so. Everything is a twisting of technology as hyper partisans battle for mindshare on who decides on who can owns the virtual world and its creations.

I hope it provides some small comfort that the things we are challenged by not new. Intractable human nature doesn’t change much. So before drowning in the virtual insanity consider doing something in real life. I’d be happy to facilitate introductions.

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Community Emotional Work

Day 1293 and Pollyanna

I’m a millennial who was mentored professionally by Generation X. Boomers rarely factored into my early work life. Even when I reported to the C suite and a board it was still mostly Gen X.

My Gen X mentors had a watercolor landscape of gentle layered cynicism that painted a picture I just didn’t quite see. I don’t have the temperament to see the worst in people and I still believe I could reshape institutions. I felt the biggest difference between myself and my mentors was that I was a bit of a Pollyanna. Many Millennials are earnestly optimistic.

That’s kind of a funny statement as I’m known amongst my social circle for my interest in what happens when things go wrong. I live in Montana in a small farmhouse with a solar grid. My husband who works in Bitcoin. I named my venture fund chaotic. My revealed prefences don’t scream “belief in the future” at first blush. I was taught that being prepared is how you end up with good outcomes.

Cynicism clashes with my belief that good outcomes are possible. Not only can we get wins but have to do so. There is no way out of our problems that is not through.

And I’d rather face that reality with a smile and a belief system in my fellow man. Better to endure regular disappointments than to never know the joy of things going well.

I want to approach the future as one that I can personally shape. Being allowed to contribute to a network that works collaboratively appeals to me because it’s fundamentally an optimistic vision. We can coordinate through all kinds of mechanisms for consensus.

Despite the cynicism of Gen X I am confident I wouldn’t have the dream of networked collaboration if their hackers and engineers hadn’t shown me we could build something better. Maybe that’s not cynicism but realism. And I hope that the realist camp contains lots of Pollyannas. Don’t stop believing and hold on to that feeling.

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Community Media

Day 1281 and Independence Day

On day 915, which was last year’s 4th of July I wrote about the aspirational America as an idea. It involved blowing shit up. It seems like each Independence Day I find a way to praise Roland Emmerich’s fine science fiction film.

I haven’t watched it yet today but hopefully I’ll at least put on a few clips to enjoy fighter pilots, aliens, inspirational Presidential speeches and fireworks.

The backdrop of drama in the media about Joe Biden is in some ways an ideal way to recall the fractious American community. A continent held together not by ethnicity or religion but by entirely abstract ideals is going to constantly tested.

The theory of print capitalism posits that capital sprung from the solidarity of nationalism presented for the first time in mass media. The common cause of one’s countryman makes it easier to levy for taxes for conflict.

We are far beyond print in our media now. It’s almost cheap to call out media climate “totalizing” an it undersells the experience. Social media makes the experience of Americanness so fluid it ranges from aesthetic choice to the anarcho-tyranny of ailing power.

And yet we try to do better as the general temperament of the nations. America is a place where the founding mythos is that anyone from anywhere can become one of us.

The nationalism of belonging in America has nothing to do with meeting a check box of criteria. Though we are trying to make it more so with bureaucracy. The ideal is that free country sets the condition so anyone succeed. Liberty is a hard fought thing. You can celebrate it in a manner that’s pleasing here. Namely fireworks.

Happy 4th of July everyone. I’m as committed to the American project. The frontier is in our souls and we search it out together in freedom.

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Community Politics

Day 1277 and Don’t Lose Your Head

Everyone has their entertainment and mine is makes me a little bit of a stereotype. I hate podcasts but do most of my chores while listening to Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast.

I was catching up today with an interview with equities analyst Tom Lee. My attention got caught and stuck on his description of Bitcoin.

“Yes, Bitcoin is unlike other asset classes because there is a cooperative value. You know, the people who contribute to the network benefit from it. And that’s different than any other asset class.”

From Odd Lots: Why Tom Lee Thinks We Could See S&P 15,000 by 2030, Jun 24, 2024

Now I don’t think this is unique to Bitcoin. Cooperative value can be found in everything from nationalist politics to luxury handbag resale pricing. But I do this it’s important to have cooperative values be baked into a network for it accrue value.

We’ve traditionally mitigated concerns about market cooperation through clear property rights and legal protections. We’d backed up those claims with things as abstract as a monarch. We’ve evolved to it to the slightly more concrete full faith of the United States and Byzantine bodies of securities law. Fiduciary duty and all that.

But as we become less inclined to trust that the buck does in fact stop “anywhere” we are looking for ways to mitigate that risk. How to operate in a world without trust? You develop trustless protocols. Humans have plenty of intuitions about trust and many these intuitions struggle without a clear person with authority to act.

So I ask if we are heading into a “headless” age?

As distrust in institutional power struggles we are seeking out new ways to continue the business of life and civilization even if a high trust society is in question.

We’ve got networks like Bitcoin that work without a head. We have new corporate structures like decentralized autonomous organization (DAOs) that can operate strictly based on cooperative rules, and indeed now entire memetic cultures (like e/-cc) which hold power while being headless.

Lest you think this is some frontier tech idea that doesn’t apply to you we’ve headless content moderation systems & headless retail platforms. Huge swathes of financial tech is living above the API.

You could even argue that we’ve got headless political parties as the Democrats and Republicans both struggle with defacto heads nobody particular trusts. I don’t know if we can live in a headless democracy. Deciding who is a citizen is a very different matter than deciding who is a shareholder.