Tag: Libertarian

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Politics Preparedness

Day 1171 and Choosing Life

“Since you’ve chosen death I must choose another path” It was a shitpost. I posted an acceleration meme. I happily endorse the bumpy progress of material change and the myriad human lives that choose to grow. The responses to my shitpost show that it’s no longer a joke.

Accelerate or die in style of the American Revolution “unite or die” snake representing the thirteen colonies but in the form of a network diagram.

I live in very clear reveled preferences on this front. My husband and I are accelerating the real world in our home in Montana. In two years we’ve planted a fruit orchard, installed solar grid, use the power from that grid to grow hydroponics and mine Bitcoin, we got chickens and advocate for local growth initiatives that allow people in Montana to live and grow together in mutual freedom.

I also believe those rights in the real world rest on a bedrock of natural rights enumerated in the American constitution.

And yet the constituency of safetyists somehow sees it appropriate to invoke force and the state’s monopoly on violence onto their fellow citizens.

You say “if necessary we will stop you”

And then suggest you want to engage in earnest debate. I find it hard to believe a good faith reader doesn’t immediately see the cognitive dissonance.

I do have the right to do as I choose as I am an American. We have first amendment rights.

Until you can measurably demonstrate proof that access to compute (which is just mathematics) has specific measurable harms you cannot invoke force on your fellow citizen for your personal paranoias.

The encryption wars had the same logic. So I ask people who worry about the consequences of compute power and artificial intelligence to give us what we’ve asked for in the form of measurably demonstrated specific types of harms where access to compute is a threat.

No “what if” hysterics, show me specifics and we can address those in policy. Armageddon in your head isn’t adequate. Being afraid isn’t enough.

If you can show measurable harms do so. We must hew to empiricism any time we seek to align others to our cause. Show me specific harms & we work to redress those harms. Actual crimes that exist already should be prosecuted as such. Seeking to newly criminalize a basic right because of unprecedented circumstances should be subject to the highest of scrutiny.

However if you show me you want the power for yourself to make these decisions I say no. We all keep our own conscience. We have existing rights.

I have shown through my revealed preferences I also believe this transition to more artificial will be chaotic. An age of higher variance is upon us and this can be a good thing with enough energy and intelligence. And we are about to get more intelligence thanks to the tools we have built.

I hope we can mitigate its harms. I believe we can apply ourselves in individual ways coordinated by the best efforts of those who build new tools. And that because we cannot predict with certainty we must hold firm to our principles doubly so then. We must be brave in approaching these problems as the principles matter.

Marxist Leninist thought has proven resilient

I am not advocating for revolution. I am advocating for keeping our heads and our hearts in times of change and protecting all of our freedoms.

We have historically shown the value of this position and the folly of violent control “for your own good.” Consider those classic socialist musicians the Beatles. Even they understood that revolutionary force was bad.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know
We all wanna change the world

But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out, in

Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right? (Ah, shu-bi-do, ah)
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right? (Ah, shu-bi-do, ah)
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right? (Ah, shu-bi-do, ah)

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We all doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is, brother, you have to wait

Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right? (Ah, shu-bi-do, ah)
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right? (Ah, shu-bi-do, ah)
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right? (Ah, shu-bi-do, ah)

You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We’d all love to change your head (ah, shu-bi-do, ah)
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead (ah, shu-bi-do, ah)

If you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow

Revolution 1 – The Beatles

If you want to go around quoting Chairman Mao you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow. How prescient those British Boy Band Boomers were. If you are so certain a revolution is necessary but you will take my compute from me then it’s you who wishes to be the Vanguard not me.

These calls for safety and caution, lest an apocalypse scenario ensue, appeal emotions to seek a tyranny of the majority for a fantasy of control over something that “may” be dangerous but not in any empirical ways we can address together and in specific ways. They don’t want to be accountable. Accountability is a democracy not this pantomime of concern seeking control.

Appealing to fears is control. All of the issues which have been brought up in artificial intelligence and access to computer models have past analogs and parallels in our existing policy tool set and within the enumerated rights.

Feel free to specify those issues into specifics and not act like this is Patriot Act 2^nth Terminator 2 Boogaloo. We have no need to indulge in Tom Clancy level panic about sum of all fears.

To lighten the mood this is an aligned AI for you.

Terminator gave his life to save John Conner T2.

If we are in for a Copernican revolution then do not be the church. We must bring our humanity to whatever happens next. Do not seek to control out of fear.

Embrace the freedoms of affirming your right to choose your own human life. These new tools can we’ve built from mathematics and computation can enrich all our lives.

Lest you not think I take the consequences of this massive change and its potential for dislocation seriously, I live off grid with redundant power and water in Montana. I invest exclusively in solutions to the real problems we face in uncertain times including energy, open source, decentralization & trustless intermediaries. I walk this walk. The choice to make the future is up to all of us. And we should walk it in the most life affirming way we can for each of us.

Categories
Community Finance Travel

Day 1155 and On The Ground

It’s come as a bit of surprise to me that I’ve done so much on the ground work in the last two years. Not so long ago I was basically bed ridden and stuck inside for the extended run of the Pandemic. Now I spend half my time on the road again.

Once I was settled comfortably on our homestead in Montana and had an acceptable level of resiliency planning done, I hit the road to pursue my particular brand of weirdo off the beaten path ground work investing.

I cultivate movements, memes, degenerates, eccentrics and engineers. I’ve made many trips to far flung corners of the European continent including extended stays in the Baltics and the Balkans.

You have to experience problems first hand if you are serious about investing in the people whose ideas can have a large enough impact at country, continental or global scale. It’s easy to be bamboozled at the edges so it’s best to be clear eyed about human nature and how technology can improve or harm a given incentive set.

It’s my hope that I’ll put in some face time in other interesting geographically interesting regional hubs. I’ve got Argentina on my agenda but I’ll likely make trips to the Middle East and Singapore as well. If you are in an interesting hub with a desire to pursue ambitious ideas let me know. Maybe I’ll swing by and we can meet.

The emerging network states of culture, affinity and intellect are far flung. The type of free market capitalism preferring decentralized resiliency minded crypto- libertarians are welcomed in as many corners as we are shunned. Either way you will find me on the ground looking for ways to make our incentives improve upon our human natures

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 1149 and Human Nature

I am experiencing a waning in my desire to be online. Not because I don’t wish to be in the thick of things, but because I simply don’t have as much I want to contribute when I am myself under stress. And it’s all stress now unless you simply stop caring. And I still care.

It’s human nature to be stressed at the available problems. I’ve got access to all kinds of problems now on my phone. So I am stressed.

I don’t have any reason to be participating in any stress but my own at the moment except that I see a lot of available problems because I am always watching.

I’d rather pay less attention. But paying attention is what pays the bills. Ted Goia says we’ve gone from art to commerce to attention to dopamine

An uncharitable view of people who sell art, commerce and informations or blame Athens, Jerusalem, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley if you must. In that order.

I suppose this view of information technology as unmitigated casinos of sin is true in a world of addicts. I don’t think we are all addicts. Nor do I think anyone who sells something addictive is a drug dealer.

I’m neither an addict nor a dealer but here I am selling and consuming information nevertheless. I’m not a Kardashian but I’m not a Buddha either. Maybe at best I’m Kim Kierkegaard. The sickness into death compels me to poast.

If we are all addicted to the constant influx of other people’s bullshit then I suppose the attention economy has moved to the addiction economy. We are addicted to the dramas of humanity and some of our dramas are more or less real than other.

A screen grab from a friend of the scariest thing in the world. An attention whore.

Except I don’t particularly want to be addicted to anyone’s bullshit right now. I’m not even all that interested in my own. I’m sick of my bullshit. Why should I pay attention to yours? At best I’ll pay attention to the bullshit on Netflix’s Love is Blind. I don’t mind if it’s packaged for sale. I actually prefer it. At least it wraps in an hour.

I’ve got a few basic principles that orient my life. I believe humans can make decisions for themselves. I believe most of us aren’t at all good at it because we are reactive impulsive animals with just the barest capacity for reasons.

But that capacity exists and it has separated us from the animals. We shall remained chained to the consequences of knowledge. I understand the impulse to blame that bitch Eve. But we’ve got the apple of the tree of knowledge so it’s time to accept paradise is lost.

Anyways, good luck surviving the churn and try not to fuck people over. Good faith is all we’ve got. Try to deliver value and not suck more resources than you deliver. Bow to the thermodynamic Gods and climb the Kardashev scale. Or keep up with the Cardassians. Are you sure you know how many lights there are? Better Google it to make sure.

Captain Picard getting Cardassian in the loop reinforcement learning. I mean torture. There are four lights.
Categories
Startups

Day 1073 and Math is Leverage

People who are bad at math are discovering that the future is entirely in the hands of people who are good at math, and that’s the culture war in a nutshell.

A tweet on math goes viral

It’s a source of power & leverage to be able to clearly articulate your goals and to create tools that can enact them.

To put it another way, being able to give clear instructions about what you want is what actually matters, compute and math are simply ways of extending that capacity. Anyone can harness it. And many more of us will.

That we can distribute this knowledge to our entire planet should be a source of pride. All children are heirs to this legacy of our species. We’ve never had more knowledge so openly held especially as artificial intelligence and machine learning has come into its own.

These tools can be life changing and I’d like to see them in as many hands as possible. Everyone gets mad at the engineers for asking specific questions but it’s not philosophical debates that solves the future. It’s building things we all use.

Engineers see the limits already being suggested in limiting our access to compute for AI and are rightly concerned. It’s in the current Biden executive order on the space. We are seeing limitations enacted in Europe. I believe freedom to compute will become as salient an issue as freedom of speech. Do not give up your power. Learn to harness these tools and coordinate with others who do.

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Community Finance Startups

Day 1070 and Allocating Personal Capital

As part the part of Twitter called TPOT comes into its own power the topic of resource allocation and how to route projects to sources of capital game up with Brooke Bowman of VibeCamp. It is a key question for Network State like entities that will need to navigate social ties.

I want to share how I do it as I’ve rooted some amount of capital across very different communities. I do it with some sets of intuitions I’ve gained from existing in a very powerful network of interests that are “The Silicon Diaspora” which is a syncretic coalition.

Much of it comes down to very specific context of what others are looking for in terms of outcomes. Investors with a specific thesis are much easier to work with for this reason. I try to express mine clearly at chaotic.capital and express myself actively through revealed preferences. I assume nothing is personal & everyone is working with some amount of emotional reactivity as it’s a human business.

A lot of it comes down to knowing who is a node in your network that can redirect it to someone who believes their resources can see a good return on their goals that are varying levels of abstract and personal. Skills and passions vary and this is good. It’s a mix of social capital, actual capital, and attention and it’s a giant game of inference

Some folks very good nodes and quite open to a range of different types of projects. Sometimes it’s just as simple as asking if they know someone who knows someone. I see a lot that isn’t in my own thesis but it’s in my own interest to pass it to others for whom it might be. The ecosystem approach has maximum strength when it’s played as a multi-agent pro-social game.

Also you almost never know someone’s full history so taking any reaction super personally is something I find to be too much for my own emotions. And I know a lot of history so if I can’t do it I try to make the presumption others can’t either. Be kind but clear.

That helps avoid a lot of accidental feuds that otherwise can ignite if you try to be delicate. I find transparent assessments of my own incentives goes a long way if I express it as part of my own reason for aligning. This is how I’ve worked with communities as diverse as back to the land doomers and crypto futurists to effective acceleration.

This is a fancy way of saying I don’t think “gossip” aka information sharing is actually bad but part of the empathy process of understanding what people want to work on and pay attention to in how they marshal their capital. You intake the values of your coalition and find shared ground. You keep their confidences by expressing collective goals. I try not to overweight my goals in that process. You have to do what’s right knowing outcomes are uncertain.

Showing you understand their context, their fears and their reputations concerns helps you. An act we denigrate in popular culture actually helps you to deepen the relationships as each signifier breaks down space between two people and builds trust. So don’t knock gossip. It has evolutionary, societal and individual benefit. Just remember the ultimate outcome is about bringing people closer.

Day 146 Gossip

I believe we are in an era where individuals can exercise significantly more agency because of the high leverage nature of the tools available to us. We owe much of this to information access and that is a wide coalition of people who are exercising basic freedoms to self determine because of this march of technology.

It’s my belief that freedom to compute is freedom of speech and these digital communities represent what I hope is more effective self governance through decentralization. We must build up the social trust amongst each other by showing we value each other’s interests. I believe this to be the right thing to do for each other. It’s the human thing too.

Categories
Community

Day 1065 and Agency

I consider it a positive that the topic of having agency is having a resurgence in many communities with diverse worldviews. The one throughline is that we can shape our world no matter how hopeless odds may seem. All we can do as humans is try to make tomorrow better than today. Optimism has many flavors.

There are many ways you may personally find your own locus of control in your own life. And by locus of control I simply mean tangible things over which you have actual control.

Up don’t mean “monitoring the situation” though I myself doomscroll plenty. I mean deciding that you can impact something by making it happen. You own a thing. Maybe it’s only a small radius over which you have impact. Maybe it’s broad and narrow. Markets have lots of niches for everyone.

I myself take comfort in leaning into what I can do with my skills. And my skills are unique. I am specialized but also don’t mind learning something new. I try to cultivate what they call a high degree of openness. Even though I’m not sure if always do. I trust my capacity to change when believe I can lean on others if I show myself to be capable of delivering in small ways within my specialities. Coordination brings about trust over time.

Don’t assume your betters or the “men in the arena” or someone in charge will handle it. Maybe you are the one who can fix the problem. Maybe you have seen something no one else has.

It’s also possible you are wrong. Don’t be insulted if you need to prove yourself. You should expect others to prove themselves too. Strong networks forward along information to others who show themselves to be trust worthy.

So don’t be tempted to look down on anyone’s choices. We’ve all got to balance human needs which have limits and human wants which are infinite. Not everyone is going to be happy. But we can do our part to own what is real in our own world. Reality is a collective project.

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Community Culture

Day 1061 and Network State Alliances

A not uncommon occurrence for me is getting a DM from a journalist who is running down a story on some extremely online social movement that is gaining normie traction. I am adjacent (sometimes literally given my Montana neighbors) to dozens of uneasily aligned communities. And I chronicle it with a lot of writing.

Who knew hippies libertarians would be as tolerated as we appear to be but somehow we ended up a as the Switzerland of the culture wars. I guess being a tolerant group has benefits. And we’ve held a consistent position which probably helps. Dislike of centralizing control no matter may be simplistic but human nature is makes me prefer it. I bet it’s a default position for plenty of people.

Maybe it’s because my identity is a little hard to pin down but my blend of constituent parts means I’m a trusted party to everything from crypto libertarians to “back to the land” religious revivalists. I am a big believer in the big tent acceptance that America offered.

Categories
Internet Culture Politics

Day 1056 and Freedom to Compute

We must start a #FreedomtoCompute movement based on the idea that access to computing power is a fundamental right.

Math and computing power are as essential as speech. In today’s world, they ARE speech. We may speak in natural language, but the way we extend ourselves, build things, and grow as a species is through our tools. Computation is a tool.

We oppose all attempts to restrict computational power and envision a world where we all have the right to build whatever we can dream.

The incumbent power is always going to try and keep disruptive and democratizing power out of the hands of the populace

Math & computer power are as essential as speech. Imagine if the first amendment had been frozen in time at the printing press and didn’t protect the internet.

We cannot accept permanently lowered standards of fundamental rights

Categories
Internet Culture Startups

Day 1036 and The Right Direction

I’ve been in Europe for the last month. My itinerary included Tallinn, Helsinki and Amsterdam. It was a personal trip with work overlayed on top as the digital nomad as become a regular part of my life.

I have said it before but I don’t take as much pleasure as you might imagine from these trips. Much of the reason I spend so much time outside of America is simply that the State department won’t let in the kind of rare weirdo digital grey tribe talent from the portions of the world the United States has labeled as “bad passports.”

I’ve written about it extensively if you are interested. We’ve reached a crisis point in the dysfunction of our immigration and travel visa system in America and it weighed heavily on me and mine. It’s the most concrete evidence I have that America simply isn’t serious about being competitive in the global economy.

As I head back home to the states, I want to be sure I’m heading in the right direction with my priorities. I’ve been committed to crypto for close to a decade now. I’ve added in more focus as it’s become clearer we can’t rely on fiat and the dollar system. I’ve become part of the artificial intelligence explosion over the last two years. Now that the Network State concept is more formalized and we have rallying movements like e/acc, I feel as if some optimism is cautiously warranted. All it will take is twenty or thirty years of work and surviving the geopolitical tumult. No big deal right?

Categories
Community Culture Politics

Day 1033 and Agency Explosion

I spent my entire day at The Network State conference in Amsterdam. I was impressed by just how many competing visions people had for how we might self organize into a modern sovereign societies.

Naturally people who aren’t sold on a traditional geographic nation state, as a philosophical or practical matter, are a very diverse lot. And most of them are some flavor of dissident. You don’t go looking to create a new state if you are happy with the current regimes. By the looks of the crowd, a lot of people are disappointed in their elites.

So diverse was the content that you could probably find both religious fascist reactionaries and collectivist post-rational atheists on the same floor.

You can find all of the content online and I would encourage you to watch it. You won’t agree with everyone (lord knows I didn’t) but you will see competing visions for how law, currency, education and information sharing can be structured. You will likely find arguments that strike you as morally repugnant. And probably a few that have you clapping in agreement.

It was actually a bit refreshing to see people take firm stances on their values and their limits. I’m not always thrilled to see where some people would place my personal rights (women’s rights somehow remains a hotly contested space) but the “grey tribe” crypto libertarians do their level best to accommodate everyone at the protocol level. Sometimes people you dislike use common infrastructure. Welcome to civilization.

What I saw, as Brook from Vibecamp put it, was an explosion of agency. The people gathered together believed that the future and the spaces they inhabit can be negotiated without intermediaries. Everyone believed they had agency in forming their own network states.

That’s a pretty revolutionary stance. I’m not surprised to find that we don’t all agree on how the revolution will play out. But it’s nice to see that people believe they can build a better a better world with the tools they have available to them.