A lovely meditation on what happens when you write 11,000 blog posts. In this case startup blogging. I’m written an order of magnitude less so hopefully I can avoid some of the negative consequences and enjoy the lessons.
Twitter is in the middle of a multi-day long information war ostensibly over foreign worker visas in America. It’s about visas in the same way that Gamergate was about “ethics in journalism” if you catch my drift.
The similarities are interesting. It’s a fight over who’s interests are included and prioritized in a lucrative space. If gaming makes money and had that much vitriol involved imagine how much worse it is at the scale of a nation. All power struggles become culture war online.
American, being the aging but dominant geopolitical entity on the planet, is a popular place to be. So naturally the fight for who benefits from America is gnarly as fuck and has a lot of racism.
Who has rights and who benefits from them sounds much grander than video games or fashion but who decides what is “in-group” is existential.
As we experience the Great Reshuffle over the next decade or two, the question of who is protected in a nation state couldn’t be more potent. And human nature means we are viewing it with as much sense as a gaggle of fashion editors. Being part of the in group in America is as ugly a business as any.
Do you know what LARP means? If so, do you remember when you first heard the term? Think back and recall the context of your first exposure to the term. I’ll give you a couple hints for history.
Maybe LARP was used to describe playing a tabletop game like Dungeons and Dragons. Perhaps you went to a Renaissance Fair and encountered the melees put on by Society for Creative Anachronism. If you remember Dagohir you are a real OG & also old.
LARP stands for live action role-playing. It originally involved fancy dress, maintaining character and strict but fantastical rule sets. Its not much different from what children call “make believe” except it’s done by adults who presumably understand the difference between fantasy and reality.
It’s likely if you are younger and extremely online, your first encounter with LARPing was less “gamers dressed up with swords” and more “anon pretending to be some type of identity” on a social media platform. Like based and woke, LARP is a term that has had a lot of semantic drift.
Increasingly it feels as if some of us aren’t sure what is shared consensus reality and what is fantasy anymore. We used to call that “crazy” but it’s so prevalent one has to wonder if whole categories of otherwise sane people have gone nuts. People become convinced of fantasy they have made in their identities and are acting out on them.
Violent extremists will extensively engage in confirmation bias prior to the implementation of their plan. However, in this context, it becomes confirmation violence, or the use of targeted violence to impose social and political beliefs onto others and, therefore, change their behavior — in a grandiose sense, perhaps even the course of history
I personally can’t think of a more chilling term than confirmation violence in the wake of the public reaction to the assassination of United Health Care insurance CEO Brian Thompson. We are now LARPing ourselves to death. A bit too “if you die in the Matrix you die in real life” vibes if you ask me.
Think about how we went from digital mobs to physical riots to the dangerous new trend of assassination as cancellation. Vaguely defined members of today’s outgroup are no longer merely targets of online criticism but actually targets of stochastic terrorism. This is leaderless, decentralized violence. No one person held up a hand to start it, and no one person can easily stop it.
As centralized authorities are going through significant challenges to their authority we are probably in for a lot more LARPing to death. I’d be prepared to see a lot more violence emerging from LARPers convinced of their own story’s moral superiority.
And I’d be careful about buying into anyone’s story as we adjust. If all the world is a stage but the characters have real weapon’s we are in for a world of hurt.
Americans are in pain. Literally and emotionally. How that happened isn’t my focus. We are in the middle of a national conversation about the failures of institutional medicine and its relationship to our government. We are treading in deep water and it’s best not to get swept away.
There are many communities that have emerged on Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, GoodReads and elsewhere dedicated to the many paths available to go about fixing the problems in your life. There millions of strong communities of interests, hobbies, courses, and network knowledge that can enable you.
One of those communities is called TPOT. What is TPOT, who is in TPOT, what are its values and what does it believe are all involved and sometimes contentious questions. Being illegible is a big thing.
We mostly agree it stands for “this particular corner of Twitter” which is a loose network of nodes of people interested in applying knowledge they learn across our networked multimedia to their real life.
The experimental “you can just do things” attitude is a big tent. You see DIY projects, tutorials, reading lists, artificial intelligence and coding discussions, fitness and biohacking experiments, nutrition and cooking, meditation and nervous system research, pain management, psychology and emotional wellness and much more. You also see more far out woo woo topics like psychedelics, evolutionary psychology, and many flavors of rationalism and epistemology.
One of the most qualified voices to speak on TPOT might be Brook Bowman of Vibe Camp. In my understanding of her interpretation, TPOT is a memetic virus and once you touch it you are in the topology of TPOT for good.
tpot is this crazy memetic virus where the term itself means so little and is so contagious that you kind of become part of it just by hearing about it
Brooke
This is protective and makes it resilient. The network is bigger than any node and this is a good thing
So TPOT is best understood as a network composed of many interoperable nodes of interests and many layers of engagement. A memetic complex that you become part of on contact. If you read my blog it’s likely have many clear lines to TPOT.
If you like fitness, coding, rationalism, nutrition, or even home improvement well congratulations you are one or two nodes away from “just do things” as a life philosophy yourself and might be a member of TPOT yourself if you talk about it on Twitter.
And this is now some very dangerous semiotic territory as we cope with the gaping wound that is American health and murder. And I am concerned the narratives are going to be heavily fought over territory.
Because it’s easy to dislike a techbro right now. It’s pretty easy to dismiss the group. I can see it now. “Are your friends into this weird sounding acronym TPOT? Have you heard someone say “you can just do things?” If so you need to alert the authorities!”
Of course this sounds funny and histrionic. It’s totally normal to take responsibility for what you can in your life and try out ways of improving your life somewhat.
Everyone is dealing with pain (chronic or otherwise). Being an adult is a set of emotional challenges to manage and most of us do so by making the shocking decision to take action and do something. That doesn’t mean this world is is dangerous. It certainly doesn’t mean murder. It means doing something in your day life like lifting some weights, shipping some code, checking your biometric data, and trying to be a friend to lessen the pain most of us are in.
Cool is as scarce as a resource as our species has ever encountered. We plunder and horde cool like the spice in Dune even though absolutely anyone is capable of becoming cool.
I know you probably want to argue but Julie I’ve never been cool or no one I know is cool. Well I’m sorry but that’s actually a skills issue and you can be a part of culture.
Anyone can become cool by not giving too many fucks about the rules. Notice I didn’t say “no fucks” as obviously there are rules and gatekeepers and all kinds of ways to modulate what I’ll call cultural capital.
It’s not too hard to become a polite participant in the unwritten rules of culture. If you are additive to any of ways we create, propagate and monetize culture you will be welcomed in once you learn to contribute.
Looking for a toehold? One of the ways we decide on who and what is cool is simply by showing up to the various nodes of wealth and power I’ll call the circuit. An artist mutual of mine calls it the city with legs.
If you are curious and want to participate the the circuit roughly encapsulates the vacation and social calendars of our global elite class. And it’s quite public and often reasonable accessible if you are curious enough to research. Read the styles section and you notice the repetition.
It’s a more diverse group than you might think. It’s certainly more open to than when society was run by a hereditary aristocracy. Yet it’s still contained enough that anyone on the circuit jokes it’s the same old thing.
Sometimes folks complain that you never meet anyone new on the circuit and it’s true you encounter the same people over and over again. You will probably see me from time to time. Power likes cool because cool is a powerful determinant of wealth and status.
If you attend the main fashion weeks, the world economic forum, the Met Gala, Art Basel, Formula 1 races, the awards seasons, or the main conferences you have encountered the circuit. If you have met someone who winters or summers somewhere then you have seen the circuit.
Maybe just as a townie but you’ve seen it. Even a cat can look at a king. If you’d like to hop on the circuit be sure to bring something to the table. The thing about culture is we are always looking for new faces. You too can try out being cool just for fun. Break a few rules but maybe ask someone on it which ones they follow to get a feel for it first.
Like many fans of Star Trek, I am not at all ashamed of my affection for one of science fictions greatest franchises. I’m proud to love it.
When I visit San Francisco I like to rewatch the classic original series movie from 1986 “Star Trek: The Voyage Home” which is affectionately known as the whale movie.
Future San Francisco is a beautiful paradise where exceptional young people go to Star Fleet Academy. It’s fully automated luxury communism thanks to the not really military (but definitely feels like it) the United Federation of Planets.
The movie involves getting Spock back from previous escapades that had left him for dead. As they retrieve Spock a crisis is unfolding on earth.
A spacecraft is signaling to Earth alas no one can answer it. It disables everything near it. The Enterprise figure out that it’s whalesong and decide the only way to answer is going back in time to find Humpback whales.
The Reagan era was a strange one for environmentalist. The crew goes back in time to rescue Humpback whales and ends up in San Francisco in the 70s at least vibe wise. It was definitely a pop culture “save the whales” moment.
San Francisco was a mess in the past and everyone finds this to be relatable as a plot point though we all know it can be made a paradise.
We see nuclear vessels in Alameda as the brave future. We have to save our whales to save our future though. This was not a universe where environmentalists make the best villains. Environmentalists are the good guys which is almost sweet.
The Voyage Home is a ridiculous movie with a premise stuck in a bubble of social attitudes that is almost comforting.
Leaving San Francisco myself to voyage home myself makes me laugh at one of comedic bits of the movie. “I don’t know how these people made it out of the 20th century!”
To the skeptics I say a double dumb ass on you! Humans and their colorful metaphors might just might get us to the future after all. And San Francisco will be part of making it.
I was preparing to head out for a lunch meeting when I got a blaring alert on my phone. I’d been putting on cosmetics in the bathroom while my phone charged in the other room. Initially I thought it was an amber alert.
The National Weather Service has issued a tsunami warning. A series of powerful waves and strong currents may impact coasts near you. You are in danger. Get away from coastal waters. Move to high ground or inland now. Keep away from the coastal waters until local officials say it safe to return.
My blaring alarm was not for a personal family tragedy but a warning for the entire Bay Area. A 7.2 magnitude earthquake had been registered offshore.
Naturally Twitter lit up almost instantly as a number of older established users remain in the area. When San Francisco has weather or news it tends to dominate the instant chronological feed.
Thankfully organizations like the U.S Geological Survey and other relevant public service accounts spread information quickly.
I could feel my cortisol spike as one after another meetings canceled and texts came in from friends in the city (and those who knew I was in town) checking up on each other. We quickly learned it was a large earthquake and its proximity to the coast automatically meant a tsunami warning.
We are staying in a hilly neighborhood so it was easy to calculate we were 100 feet above sea level. It seemed we us an hour till any expected wave was due in San Francisco at 12:10.
An hour of warning seemed like a lot for filling up tubs with water and doing a few frantic preparations like washing socks in case we were looking at a disaster. We wondered if SFO might be impacted given how low lying it is relative to other neighborhoods.
A friend headed over as the park was high ground so we figured why not watch if something happens and catch up together.
As Twitter churned it was mentioned in some coverage that “this was a strike-slip fault, as opposed to a subduction fault, so it’s less likely to cause tsunamis.”
As other areas closer to the epicenter did not see waves, we soon got the automated cancellation of the warning. 12:10 cane and went without a disaster. The cortisol wave I was riding crashed. Everyday there is some new chaotic thing that gets integrated into one’s world as just another day. Yesterday it was corporate assassinations. Today it was tsunamis. Hopefully tomorrow will be calmer.
There is always a debate in startup life as to how the density of a given ecosystem impacts outcomes. A tight network of well connected communities and individuals helps founders, investors and talent connect.
Before the pandemic it was considered fairly normal to be within a major hub as the common knowledge was that “density” matters. You wanted to be in the action of a scene.
There are great startup cities. New York has an incredible scene. My hometown of Boulder has a great technical core. But as much as cities and companies compete over status the one with longevity is Silicon Valley. Heck it was a debate when that even encompassed San Francisco until Twitter moved in.
Then everyone spread to the four winds during the pandemic. I like to think of this as the era in which Silicon Valley got back to its digital roots. Being extremely online became a behavior that worked well for anyone if you communicated well with words. Being on the right coast was about being in the right online communities. The network state is online.
I’d say that was as pure a return to source culture as there ever was. Different people value signal across different networks and the open web of words has been home to software and hardware developers for generations.
The world that builds companies lives virtually as much as it does in the real world. We like to meet up but we also know it’s the tools that connects us that make the difference.
Every subculture that has emerged with a breakout hit did it through the digital commons we built together. I’ll always appreciate coming to the source culture to replenish but I know the density of the network is at its swiftest when our extremely online communities communicate.
I’ve heard this multiple times across enough demographics in the wider “startup” ecosystem that I’m afraid I’ll have to accept it is happening. People are faking being weird. In some cases they are faking being autistic.
I find this to be an almost laughably unlikely thing to want to imitate. And yet I’ve heard it three times in the last week. The new poser is faking being a neurodivergent weirdo.
We regularly joke that at chaotic.capital a part of our deal sourcing relies on “Julie being professionally weird on the internet.” My pinned tweet from three years ago is a ramble on this ethos as it’s been true for decades. Unique fixations often undergird problem solving.
Being weird, or more specifically autistic, has now taken on a specific connotation of an intelligent but socially strange or oblivious character who sees the world differently. This means you are special somehow and can be forgiven for being a dick (that’s a lie be nice).
It was probably a source of pain for many millennial kids who were awkward the more oblivious you are the less it bothers you. Marching to the beat of your own drum. We’ve got a whole set of social tropes around smart nerds in popular media and most of them were negatively coded.
Despite this history, revenge of the nerds occurred. The power and dominance of technology (and its cousin nerd) culture means the spergy truth telling autist has cachet. We live in a post Sheldon Cooper world. Once something involves capital it collects social capital as well.
I have clearly underestimated how much this affects Zoomer behavior and incentives. Millennials experienced this archetype negatively but in a softer “everyone is special” culture your quirks can lead you to money and prestige. So there is now an incentive to act like a weird asshole to fake being weird and a little socially anxious.
If autism can have stolen valor then we might be in that era. It seems to greatly annoy the actually autistic (a tag on social media used by many poorly socialized entirely normal people) to have the symptoms of autism faked.
Authenticity is actually quite hard to fake and anyone with a decent social radar can usually spot it. Whether all autists have that capacity to read social cues is up for debate. It’s probably why anyone tries to fake being a genuine weirdo.
I’m inclined to say skills issue as the internet has made class, manners, and social cues much more accessible to everyone. And good news being every social class values being chill, real, and passionate. So there is no need to fake anything. Just vibe. Be cool.
Yesterday I had one of those Lyft driver experiences where your life changes from what you learned. While driving to the airport, our very chill Zoomer driver explained the different financial incentives he got for ground game political canvassing in the Montana Senate race.
As our driver explained it, Sheehy (the Republican candidate) paid fewer people more ($22/hr) than Tester (The Democratic candidate) with more flexibility and a higher number of hours, but more aggressive requirements (20 doors/hr) for success.
Naturally the young man being ambitious and motivated to earn (he clarified he was an independent politically) he chose being on the Sheehy teams as it rewarded his desire to make money. Though he did pick up some hours for Tester it just wasn’t much.
That’s the difference in the ground game in a nutshell. Ambition from a young man was rewarded and he aligned with those incentives. And the candidate won.
Im certain he was a terrific door knocker. He has the easy social graces of a local. He felt PacWest Missoula than over the divisive to plains kid but still as Montana as they come. He was white boy with face tattoos & piercings in the way of Zoomers.
His whole energy seemed to be aligning to vibes. He told us he came in to run ride shares for the big football game in Bozeman. It was a busy night and he ran out of hours (Uber tops you at 12). He was media savvy. Theo Von had just played Missoula and he was sad to miss it. Kendrick Lamar played on Spotify.
His attitude was so positive. He liked Uber, Lyft and Dashing for the flexibility. He said it didn’t feel like work because you are helping with the daily life of people. Helping others be responsible appealed to him. It’s nice to get someone who shouldn’t be behind the wheel home safely.
He used to make prosthetics but this paid better & was more social. It was fascinating learning how he picked up Uber & Lyft regionally in Montana and decided to run longer shifts for events. His attunement to supply and demand was keen. He seemed determined to maximize his time as it was his preferred lifestyle. He noticed incentives and it moves him.
If he ever see this “Hi Jacob!” It was great ride. Seeing viscerally how Montana’s senate race played out across the waves of rational economic actors living their American lives.
