Tag: Systems Thinking

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Aesthetics Internet Culture

Day 391 and Breath

Daily overstimulation is starting to rub the pressure sores of America’s downer induced depression into a full blown mental health crisis. Like, even more than usual. War with Russia in the imagination, inflation and market volatility coaxing a recession, culture war skirmishes over every basic fact in the pandemic, along with generalized anxiety are fucking us up focus wise. And every propaganda outlet and publicist on the planet is having a field day.

I’m listing to The Prodigy’s Breath and mumbling lyrics like pyschosomatic insane. So I guess, come play my game?

I try not to listen too much music as it overstimulates my nervous system to be honest so its kind of rare for me to have Spotify playing. I’ve got a finely tuned propaganda radar that benefits from sensing subtle shifts in tone and extremely online discourse. I can’t do that if I’m too worked up from the rough stimulus that comes from pop music. I mostly use it to run my portfolio and investing but sometimes I think I should really be used in the service of some autocrat or multi-national. I’m the doubt factory

I guess it is nice I can make a buck during the end of the empire. I’m one of those post structuralism, post-capitalism babies. A regular Bane “born to the darkness” of hyper objects like markets and climate change. So I guess I’d better be molded to being the kind of villain that survives a world of agitprop and meme warfare. Thanks Adbusters!

Frankly I’m having a fucking blast. Sure I’m scared I don’t have my homestead property all shored up for civilization hiccups, but I’m of the mind that the crumbles is going to take a while so might as well enjoy the gains that come from a massive upheaval. I guess its true venture capitalists are ghouls. I mean at least we aren’t private equity carrion birds but it is wild that the system rewards a class of people that invest in creative destruction.

But even as I want to paint myself as bad, I do stereotypically think what venture capital does is often good. We can’t predict second order effects. Chaos theory doesn’t let us see all the future paths. But stochastic as shit power laws are just math so we’ve got a shot at accidentally making things better. So while the agitprop tries to sway your opinions might I recommend you just Breath? That is my professional advice.

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Preparedness

Day 376 and Unnormal

I’ve been going about my life as if everything were normal this past week. I had meetings. I did long term strategic planning for various business interests. I went to a doctor’s appointment. I went grocery shopping. I went house hunting for a mountain house. I was living life.

But absolutely nothing is normal. The doctors appointments needed extra planning as old of the offices burned. Going to the grocery store was particularly emotional as I was so sure we’d lost it in the Marshal Fire that completely devastated two entire towns in Boulder County. Much of my planning meetings incorporated issues related to uncertainty on government interventions and the concern of regulatory overreach.

It feels totally normal to be concerned about political uncertainty and incorporating the aftermath of a climate disaster into errands. It is absolutely “unnormal” to use a term I heard on the “It Could Happen Here” podcast. Shit is just getting weirder and weirder. And there is absolutely no evidence to suggest we should expect life to ever return to some kind of normal. There is no “before times” normal I’ll ever see again in my life.

I say this as someone who is investing time and money into finding a homestead that I wish to be resilient against the background of an uncertain world. I believe things will get worse. And I’m actively taking steps to make my life more livable and productive even in worse conditions.

Because I don’t want another wildfire close call. I don’t want to be totally dependent on supply chains that have natural vulnerability to disease or weather. On Reddit this week our local sub had 200 comments on an empty milk refrigerator at Whole Foods. The discussion couldn’t decide if the issue was the wildfires that destroyed other area groceries leaning to increased demand, that the rival chain was having a strike labor action so more people were shopping Whole Foods to avoid crossing a picket line, or that too many Covid cases hit the trucking company that does Amazon’s logistic legs meaning goods never made it to the store. And what’s wild is no one seemed that worried that even on of those issues would have been viewed as a national crisis a few years ago. This was just all part of living our new unnormal.

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Preparedness

Day 351 and Preppers

The smartest people I know are preppers. Not the end times doomers and apocalyptic types; preppers I know are regular people who happen to have the means to get ahead of disasters. And they are quietly preparing for a much harder century ahead.

There is a significant amount of optimism in my world right now. Crypto and web3 has done well for startup people who saw the promise of blockchain early. But also more traditional startups like SaaS companies are having boom times as well. Every aspect of the pandemic has made life appreciably better for technology workers of all kinds.

Permanent work from home freed us from expensive cities like San Francisco. A stock market buoyed by stimulus made our equity heavy portfolios soar. We have been able to isolate if we want. We’ve had only the upside of the pandemic and born few of its burdens. We are the undisputed winners of the pandemic. And we see how that victory is fragile. An accident even. We did little to earn our comfort.

And so we are preparing for bad times. I’ve got multiple friends who have moved to rural communities from metropolitan cities where they have lived for decades. They are investing in farmland in some cases. In others, just little upgrades like gardens and chicken coops in small towns provide a bit of resilience. Gentleman farmers are making a comeback. Homesteading is to millennials what “back to the land” was for my boomer parents. Some of it is cozycore but a lot of it is genuine desire to get back to making things that keep us alive.

I’m seeing it increasingly from people who work in finance as well. There is a kind of quiet consensus that it’s wise to prepare for winter. Even in the midst of growth so impressive even the Fed is finally acting on inflation, the savvy finance folks know our world has risks. We talk about downside protection and portfolio diversification. But we also quietly talk about tail risks, complexity science and anti-fragility.

It’s not the we are Cassandras assuming that we live in a permanent bearish state. We aren’t convinced that if Rome falls so do we. If anything most of us are optimistic bulls who believe the best case scenario could show us into a new exponential age. But also many of us live in America. And who knows if America’s political situation will remain stable. Our liberal party can’t govern without panic and incompetence and our conservatives are openly adopting populism that flirts with fascism.

Add in that the regular climate driven catastrophes are now weekly. We are all aware it could be our homes in the eye of the next storm. And well it’s rational to be concerned that the world will be more chaotic. Some of us, including me, are convinced it will be an age for making fortunes.

But we aren’t idiots. We believe in scale, specializing and capitalism. We’d also like to know how to manage our own vegetables out back. It’s wise to know your local farmer and dairy. It just tasted better. We know it’s more resilient. Being decentralized may add in some additional friction. We think that’s a good thing in some cases. Why do you think we invested in Bitcoin?

Now I’m not saying we are right. I have no idea when or how some kind of disaster will befall us. But I am saying it couldn’t hurt to have some bottles of water and a couple weeks of food on hand. I’m saying you should prep. DM me if you need help.

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Preparedness

Day 325 and Preparedness Reading List

Since I’ve been yakking on about being a prepper recently I thought I’d take a moment to share my recommendations for thinking about a more resilient life. They range from the extremely practical to the oh shit I hope I never need this information.

Homestead & Practical Skills

Escape the City by Travis J Corcoran is literally pound for pound the best value in preparedness. It focused largely on folks who want to build up a piece of land or otherwise want to homestead. But it’s extremely practical advice on everything from planning a home to what tools and skills you will need.

Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery: an absolute classic with everything from recipes to practical how to guides. If you want to see what practical skills might be for you this is a great start.

Back to Basics edited by Abigail Gehring: it’s not as comprehensive as Carla’s encyclopedia but it’s a bit more accessible if you want to think about gardening, food preservation and the like.

Land book by Neil Shelton: a very specific little book on how to evaluate and buy rural properties for families.

Emergency & Disaster Preparedness

Beginners Guide to Emergency Survival Preparedness by Jeff Kirkham and Jason Ross: these dudes write the Black Autumn series which is a weirdly racist but packed with surprisingly good detail fiction series. Their beginner guide is actually short and reasonable information on preparing for the 3-10 day emergencies.

Urban Preppers with Pets and Kids by James Mushen: exactly what it claims. I used to be an urban prepper and it’s one of the first books I read after Hurricane Sandy got me prepping. Likely the first place to start for most of you.

Philosophy

Lean Logic by David Fleming: it’s subtitle is a dictionary for the future and how to survive it. This isn’t practical so much as a deeply comprehensive look at a world that isn’t flooded with cheap oil and requires a more decentralized approach.

First Aid and Medical

The American Red Cross First Aid & Safety Handbook: pretty self explanatory. This is the text everyone uses when they get certified.

The Survival Medicine Handbook by Amy and Joseph Alton: preppers love this doctor and nurse husband and wife duo. The book is super practical and frankly you should pray you never need it. But if you are outdoorsy you appreciate that medicine looks different if a doctor isn’t on the way to help.

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Preparedness

Day 323 and Fantasyland

I’m very open about being a prepper. I think it is a moral imperative to be resilient if you have the means to do so. When disaster strikes, which it inevitably does, being able to support yourself and your neighbors frees up first responders to care for the genuinely needy.

Because of this belief I’ve been investigating homesteading seriously for the past two years now. I’ve got concerns about the typical issues someone with exposure to finance has; worries about inflation, the social impact of labor being a poor store of value with currency debasement, & widening inequality. I am also deeply concerned about the rise in populism and the predatory graft of the far right. Add in supply chain worries and the effect of the pandemic on living standards and you can see how I’d prefer to have more control over my own basic needs.

But my plans to go off grid has always had a bit of a fantasyland element to them. While I would love to move to northern Montana and invest in a large property I didn’t expect I’d be able to do that immediately. I needed to get to know the towns, watch an illiquid market over months if not years, and also remain proximate to civilization as I still plan to maintain a career in startups and finance.

But yesterday my husband and I came across a property outside of Boulder Colorado that met many of our criteria for more prepared living. An unobtrusive property on an acre just outside of town that I jokingly called greyman as you’d never guess it was built out for resilience. It has 100% solar with insulation & a wood burning stove for backup, there is a working well that irrigates the garden & orchard, its got a hothouse & a chicken coop, it’s on a reservoir, it has a workshop & an artist studio, and well I could go on. Now I’ve got no idea if it will pass muster on an inspection but as you can see I’m already dreaming of the possibility. It’s not something I’ve absolutely got to do so we can very much walk away from a deal but I’m interested. Enough that I’m looking at mortgages and bringing in a contractor to take a look.

Now I don’t need all of those things right now. The reality of maintaining a vegetable garden and making it through a canning and preservation season isn’t lost on me. Actually building the muscles for true resilience is something that happens over years. But that’s also why I want to start now before it becomes a must have. Learning how to feed yourself when you’ve got no choice isn’t a situation I’d recommend.

We underestimate the work that goes into maintain a healthy, comfortable, warm and well fed life. Mostly because capitalism breeds specialized labor. Which is good in my book. We’ve achieved so much with it. But any complex system is less resilient. So you’ve got to acknowledge that the tail risks are there and real. So if I’ve got a chance to begin on 70% of my ideal preparation while still keeping within my budget and also staying within civilization for the time being then I’m going to consider it. It’s time to move out of fantasyland.

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Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 322 and 10x

One of my favorite hobbies used to be powerlifting. When I had to take time off to control my ankylosing spondylitis (it’s an inflammatory spinal condition) I was simply in too much pain to walk around the block let alone squat 250lbs. But as we’ve controlled my symptoms so efficiently I’ve been able to pick back up weightlifting this fall. I’m overjoyed as this represents full recovery to me.

I’ve been slowing introducing weight using the core barbel lifts using the Starting Strength method. It’s been a blast as I get to have beginner gains all over again after being sedentary. The biggest change in how I train compared to my time before managing a rheumatoid condition is timing my training around my recovery. I used Whoop and Welltory who both measure my HRV or or heart rate variability. It’s basically a measure of how well your autonomic nervous system is coping with stress and turns out to the best predictor of how well I will feel on any given day.

A recovery chart of my HRV with red marking the days I lifted.

I’ve noticed that lifting hits my HRV hard. And it takes time to get it back to a normal place. Sometimes several days. I absolutely cannot not push my recovery frame without making my HRV dip even worse. It’s fascinating to see how well correlated the two appear to be.

On days when my HRV dips my resting heart rate is noticeably worse and using an app like Welltory I can see much more stress I’m under and how damn active my sympathetic nervous system is at work. The stress of recovery is significant. And my symptoms will tend to flare. Pain and fatigue are noticeably worse.

Despite the evidence I have found it mentally challenging for me to trust this stress and recovery process. On bad days when my HRV dips I forget how well I felt on the good days which leads me to some emotional flailing. Instead of trusting the routine I’ll panic at how shitty I feel. I’ve got amnesia about how terrific & productive I can be.

I’ve got to learn to trust the numbers. Otherwise I’ll do stupid shit like push to get something done on a bad day. That activity will take hours of hemming and hawing and willpower and brute force. If I had just waited for a good day to get my shit done chances are the task will take me 5 minutes.

Forcing myself to abide by the recommendations of Whoop and Welltory gets me out of the cycle of flailing. Listening to the data can override my amnesia. If a bad HRV day happens I just don’t try to do ANYTHING. Because I know on a good HRV day I’ll be 1000x more productive. It’s a discipline I need.

Everyone has different capacity. Forcing yourself into the “industrially necessary” routine of a 9-5pm weekday only makes sense if you are in a bigger corporate system and must be reliable even if you are not performing at your best.

Freeing myself from the mentality of being available on a bourgeois schedule is challenging. I hate feeling like I disappoint people by not always being “on” and productive. I feel like availability & reliability matter more than outcome (which is occasionally true but not generally true). The reality is you can have 10x Julie or you can have consistent Julie. I’d pick 10x personally.

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Internet Culture Startups

Day 319 and Chaotic Labor Markets

If you follow me on other social media you may have noticed that I recently launched and am fundraising seed stage venture capital rolling fund we’ve named chaotic.capital. Since this is a blog for my friends if you are an accredited investor I’d love for you wander on over to take a looksy. Or feel free to send me a DM on Twitter or slide into my email inbox which is just julie AT chaotic dot capital.

The TL:DR on the fund is that the world is getting exponentially more complex and that is making living life chaotic as fuck. Humans don’t like chaotic. We like predictable. So we invest in seed stage technology startups that help individuals, families, organizations, and even whole communities, adapt to living with chaos.

I’ll be talking about all the areas we invest I’m sure but today’s post is about about how we might adapt to a more chaotic labor market and what kinds of companies we’d like to see in the space to capitalize on the chaos of the future of work.

The pandemic has accelerated a lot in the labor markets. Hiring in developed economies has been getting harder. The great resignation has a large chunk of the skilled workforce in movement. But student debt is making it less appealing to pursue traditional credentials like a four year college degree. Skilled workers have at once never been more competitive in the labor market but it’s also never been more expensive to pursue those skills. Where there is tension there is opportunity.

So how do we get more people skilled and let those with existing skills deploy their labor more effectively? I think that web3, or if you prefer the decentralized web, presents a unique opportunity to decouple skills & compensation from identity and corporations. Flexibility drives innovation. Web3 let’s us step clear of concepts like one full time job per person.

Workers are seeking replacements for the centralized stores of skills & proof, socializing, and networking we’ve used in the past. The hodge podge of self reported credentials and certificates we put up on LinkedIn or a personal website is a mess and only allows us one centralized identity. That sucks for privacy and also for people with a diverse set of skills. Recruiters see what we present but that’s never the whole picture.

Some would argue that political polarization will require we either prove identity and in-group or lead us to pseudonyms (identity on/off switch) that let us be judged by work product and proof of skills rather than in group approvals and social validation. Regardless, regulatory capture and special interest groups are now being viewed negatively as younger workers see them as expensive obstacles to career progression. If Kim Kardashian can take the bar without ever going to law school why should you go to law school?

One reason that chaotic is particularly interested in is stores of identity, proof of skills and proof of work capacity is that Web3 and decentralization will pick up the slack in labor markets for younger people.

We won’t want to polish our entire lives in order to get one job with a single employer when we know corporations shows us little loyalty. We’d rather find ways to optimize for our preferred compensation package. That could be flexible contracts and hours, remote first work arrangements, healthcare subsidies, or maximum pay; whatever we chose there should be a recruiter that can find us a job and a workplace that will leverage our skills. If you want inspiration on how this might work I’ve got a list of crypto science fiction to read.

In order to avoid falling into low level service jobs we will need to pick up proof of work and proof of skill jobs. Automation is less of a threat than low level service jobs and dead end work for most young people. Finding ways to get get paid for learning is going to make the jump from play to earn video games to play to learn universities one day.

Portable and “fractional” identities will be required in a future where one person with one job isn’t the norm. So how do we build different identities that keep us safe from context collapse while still giving flexibility and portability on our achievements and documented skills?

All of the above is food for thought. If these problems interest you hit me up. I’ve got a request for startups below. If you want to talk about any of them find me on @AlmostMedia on Twitter.

Request for Startups

  • Skills repository Github for provable disciplines beyond coding
  • Web3 LinkedIn where we can turn on and off elements of our credentials
  • An identity wallet
  • A social capital wallet
  • Influence & social capital graphing & portability
  • Fractional identity platforms

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 317 Walk Without Rhythm

I struggle with accepting the reality that humans have natural rhythms. I struggle even more with the idea that living by them is to my benefit. Circadian rhythms and seasonal rhythms control our days and nights. The body craves the repetition that rhythm brings even as the mind rejects the idea that we are behold to it.

Call it a Calvinism of the body. We are predestined to our rhythms. We’ve got freedom to chose how we live, so even though rhythms bring strength to our bodies, our mind strains against the constraints. We must have free choice we say. Except what good does it bring us to reject our natural physical rhythms?

There are many types of rhythms. Our world is built out of them. Regular, random, progressive, alternating and flowing rhythms give shape and order to everything around us. All of our art forms leverage the beauty of rhythms freedom and constraints. Nothing is new under the sun but the combinatorial possibilities are infinite.

I’d do well to retain that sense of wonder at the infinite as I fight against the sense of indignation that I am limited by rhythms. We are all limited by the forms in which we exist. Until I get to discover what is beyond the veil of physical existence I’m stuck. Maybe beyond that I’ll find the formless freedom of pure comprehension. Or maybe I can learn that freedom always comes with the constraints of its medium. That doesn’t mean I’m not free to be creative within the form I have.

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Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 311 and Conspiracy Care

The current “news” cycle is up in arms about a football player taking medical advice from a podcaster. Depending on who you read this is either a very bad thing or a fight against woke mobs and cancel culture. If you have no idea what I’m talking about there is no reason to dive in further. Don’t upset yourself.

People take advice from people they trust, and sometimes we trust people we perceive as being smarter or even as having higher social status than us. Shortcuts are part of life. And if you have access to someone, say through a parasocial relationship like social media, that you perceive as being well equipped to solve problems you will probably listen to them. Which is a point Eric Weinstein made about Joe Rogan and healthcare that I think is especially salient.

I think we have to understand that people are also looking to Joe as a pass-through for concierge medicine. If you have brilliant Uber-rich people in your life you hear a lot about medicine you can’t afford. Whole body work ups. Multi day examinations. Lots of medical gear.

I didn’t used to have much health care. I went to free clinics and doctors who I could pay $50 cash to for antibiotics without a hassle. It’s probably little wonder that when I had real health care issues I wasn’t prepared for just how bad most care in America is even with health insurance. I thought I’d get good healthcare with a nice insurance plan. But it mostly sucks. I got dismissed, ignored and generally not diagnosed for almost a year. And then I figured out how wealthy people do medicine. And I began healing.

Holy shit is it night and day different what spending real money outside of your health insurance will do. Like Joe I get concierge care. And to the advice I get is pretty far off what you hear from a baseline healthcare practitioner like say the doctor who can only see you for 20 minutes and can’t risk anything that isn’t clearly proven and approved. But someone who doesn’t answer to a big hospital system? They turn out to be much more flexible and will help you work through the risk and reward (and also cost benefit) of a host of different tests, treatments, supplements, devices and diagnostics.

And over the course of about three years I went from functionally disabled and completely unable to work to, well, basically fine. Three years ago I could barely walk and now I’m back to powerlifting and hiking. But the sick thing is I am certain if I were a plebeian I would be on disability for life. I would have at best been prescribed pain medications and left to rot and potentially develop an addiction or two.

So is it any wonder that in a country with a mass chronic disease issue we’d look to wealthy proxies like Joe Rogan and imitate what he says is his care? Fuck no. It’s downright immoral and condescending to suggest that the victims of American healthcare systems shouldn’t try to help themselves. No one else is stepping up to pay for their healthcare.

What is a genuine issue is that without context and a team of professionals you might accidentally become a victim to conspiracy theories. Which is exactly what we’ve seen with a number of Americans. But the line between conspiracy and simply untested or unproven treatment is a lot blurrier than I expected. I had concerns I’d be taken advantage of by functional medicine doctors and holistic practitioners. And surprisingly that just didn’t happen. I was always given context, research, second opinions and supported in making as informed a decision as possible. Doctors are collaborative by nature and my team has encouraged me in my efforts to test and trial a lot.

This kind of care does not come cheap. I’ve spent close to $80,000 on concierge care services over the past year. This includes everything from diagnostics & testing to compound pharmacy and off label pharmaceuticals (get metformin just trust me), to a host of medical devices and treatments as well as the hourly cost of a primary care physician, a prescribing & case physician (it’s not uncommon for different doctors to do medicine management so as to monitor your entire case for interactions) and clinical nursing. Like I said, if I didn’t have money I would still be on disability. I’d estimate only 20% of my progress came from before I went to a more personalized approach. Medicare for all isn’t going to deliver you the kind of care I got.

I don’t really have a takeaway or solutions here. Most people don’t have complex chronic diseases nor do they have the need for the kind of last 20% health optimization that the billionaire class go in for either. But you can do a lot on your own. A lot of health is just preventative care.

I’ve shared a basic biohacking guide for beginners before. Replacing fat with lean muscle and getting your basic nutrient and fitness profile improved should do a lot for many of you (not true of chronic disease patients that’s complex). After you’ve done the basics on your fitness, body composition, and sleep hygiene for 3-6 months you can move on to supplements. You maybe surprise at what you learn and how much it deviates from what is common knowledge about health. Here is a little hack to save you time. Eat protein, lift weights and get sunlight. And stop looking down on people just trying to survive. That makes you feel better too.

Categories
Internet Culture Startups

Day 282 and Stop & Go

I wasn’t born until after stagflation so I can’t tell you what America or Britain felt like in the 70’s but the chattering classes seem to enjoy bringing up the comparison. But there does seem to be a bit of “stop & go” energy in the air. Everyone is raring to go but the energy cannot quite flow freely as we smack into obstacle after obstacle. Demand is pent up but the reality of supply is uglier.

Obviously this perspective of excitement and demand is colored by working in startups where the bias is always towards the excitement of building new things. Crypto is burning with the fire of millions of zealots, all of whom are confident we are building the infrastructure for a better future. Everyone feels like it’s worth investing and higher prices are a good sign. There is more go than stop here.

Of course, I am one of those zealots. I’ve got the optimism of someone who saw how fast previous waves of web1 and web2 changed my entire world. Wealth and creativity was unleashed twice over for the elder millennials who were lucky enough to witness the dot com boom as children and the social media era as their first jobs.

There were massive crashes and financial implosions too. Stop more than go. More of us got hurt than got wealthy. But we saw the possibility even as failure engulfed most of us. So we believe we might be the lucky ones this time. That we might be the ones to win the game. “Red light, green light” seems fun if you can make up ground when everyone is running. Just don’t get hurt too bad.

I feel this energy in my own body. I am excited to push into everything. My portfolio companies are all riding high. There is no way I can do it all in any given day. So when the go energy pushes me sometimes I find myself leaning into stop and simply taking a nap in the middle of the day. It makes me a little jittery to feel the push-me-pull-me of demand grind up against the limited supply of energy and focus. I’d like to feel fully unleashed but I know somehow there are moments where it’s best to stop before I go.