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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 […]

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Culture Startups

Day 1278 and Follow On

I’d like to think I’ve got a talent for understanding how hype and momentum are built. I learned this skill set by doing. I picked it up simply by being a cool kid working in the trenches of the business of style. How does hype turn into capital? Well it’s complicated. Consider two significant trends […]

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Internet Culture Preparedness

Day 1261 and the Jackpot

Dedicated roamers of the internet are people who like to notice things. Cyperpunk aesthetics made it romantic to experience global abstractions even as the reality of the power of oligarch, state and corporation blended into murky dystopian reality. I said recently on this photo that we’ve got to stop hyperstitioning William Gibson. We keep finding […]

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Media

Day 1184 and Discourse is Back but Sharded

The era of shared media narratives with simplistic framing and consensus seems gone. The information sphere is now like glass shards with many distinct realities according to Axios. I think we have many more than twelve realities as class, politics, identity and material concerns overlap. The Internet has allowed all of us to develop esoteric […]

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Aesthetics Culture

Day 1053 and Revivalism

You’ve gotta have faith. I am a little surprised to find myself discussing what appears to be a genuine revivalist movement from all walks of life. “This particular corner of Twitter” is neo-Shakerism. The singularity is always coming is coming for the computer nerds. The rationalists are pitted against futurists. Steely realists admit to having […]

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Community Internet Culture Politics

Day 973 and Reinforcement

I’ve spent a lot of time this summer thinking about who gets to decide the boundaries of society. Automation of civic and cultural life has been happening at the speed of capitalism. It’s about to happen at the speed of artificial intelligence’s processing power. At least during most of techno-capitalism, corporations and governments were still […]

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Culture Preparedness

Day 883 and Ride the Edge

If you aren’t comfortably with the current standards of living on average, I’d consider shoring up your resources now. As our planetary resource situation doesn’t appear to be getting better. As more first world countries come to terms with slowing growth (perhaps even degrowth), resource scarcity is going to affect daily life in uncomfortable and […]

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Finance Startups

Day 852 and Give A Damn

For long involved reasons, I am an Arlo Guthrie fan. The involved reasons are my parents are hippies and my godfather had the good fortune and bad sense to be his touring agent. So I was lucky to see Arlo perform Alice’s Restaurant in my own hometown of Boulder Colorado. If you’ve not heard of […]

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Community Startups Travel

Day 849 and “Oh I Follow You!”

I’ve been in Austin for Coindesk’s Consensus crypto conference. I’m flying home to Montana today after five intense days of work. But if the on the ground reception is any indication, I nailed this year with my talks and vibes. I might actually be good at my job. Conferences can be tricky if you are […]

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Startups

Day 846 and Serendipity

Last night I arrived in Austin for my favorite annual cryptocurrency event called Consensus. If you are participating please consider coming to my interactive town hall on Thursday at 1:30pm where we have an hour of panel & audience discourse on the future of trust & community. I am excited for this panel as I […]