personal Personal Wednesday: Using "I Am" Statements to Make Your Identity Large In general, it's powerful to keep your identity small. But it's also helpful to have a clear sense of self identity. To achieve this, I've started a simple but powerful habit: "I am.
crypto ethics What is #BlockchainEthics and Why Should We Care? The goal of this post is to help the reader understand what #BlockchainEthics is and why it matters. What is #BlockchainEthics?#BlockchainEthics is a civil society-based movement to help shape blockchain technology for
crypto ethics #CryptoEthics Concepts: Decentralization-Enabled Unstoppable Code "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." — Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham JailThe
personal Personal Wednesdays: Understanding The Process of Therapy I'm a huge fan of therapy (if you haven't done it yet, you really need to try it!). Thus far, here's my most succinct explanation of it (and its benefits). Therapy is a
blockchain The "Mother of All Demos" for Crypto? The crypto world has been super excited by PoolTogether this week (especially the ETH-focused cryptoeconomics world). It reminds me of the excitement around FOMO3D about a year ago. It has me thinking about
writing Meta Monday: Getting Back on the Writing Horse (and public accountability) It's been a while since I wrote my last post (12 days, eep!). But I would truly love to keep writing (almost) daily. To do this, I'm going to start experimenting with commitment
fragility Defining Meta Existential Risk “Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake." —Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our
meta Use These 5 Powerful Mindsets To Understand Our Uncertain World We are still in the "touching the elephant" phase of the "ideological mindsets" that emerge from "The Transition" (away from late-stage-capitalism at the birth of the internet). In other words, we don't yet
language Meta Mondays: (language to use when) Seeing as a Human Organism The goal of today's article is to give readers more understanding of the more recent neologisms that I use/support, especially ones that I use in the context of "systems thinking for good"
nonviolence The Difficulties of a Non-Weaponizable Mindset. (e.g. Who is our enemy? Can we use shame?) In general I try to embody a "non-weaponizable" mindset. i.e. A mindset that has the following property: If this mindset was duplicated across all humanity (i.e. if everyone had this mindset)
personal Personal Wednesdays: I'm Excited to Hang Out with My Dad This Friday This is a bit different than my traditional "Personal Wednesday" post, where I talk about things like emotional frameworks or my own vulnerabilities. Today, I just want to note something that has been
language Meta Mondays (Language): Using "Find-Replace" for Multi-Perspective Thinking Unique language is a good example of "the future mindset is already here, it's just not evenly distributed yet." Today I want to focus on how to do "multi-perspective thinking" by using a
systems Better is Worse There's a popular(ish) concept among the Twitterati/developer community known as "Worse is Better"—"the idea that quality does not necessarily increase with functionality—that there is a point where less functionality
personal Personal Wednesday: My "How to Work With Me" Manual (as API) + Thoughts on Big 5 I'm a big fan of: Making internal docs publicly transparentThinking of humanity as a set of agents/nodes in an evolutionary gameThe How To Work With Me (HTWWM) manual (1, 2)Therefore, I'm
blockchain Blockchain Wins Over Developers with Self-Actualization (in addition to Integrity) All new technologies are driven by a feedback loop between the supply side (developers/employees who are excited to work on a product) and the demand side (consumers/enterprises who want to buy
memes The Remixability of Hashtags, #_____LivesMatter, and #FutureLivesMatter Disclaimer: I know this article touches on some possibly triggering topics (identity-based memes). I'm primarily trying to explore it from a meta/positivist POV, rather than a normative POV. I'm always open for
personal Personal Wednesday: Categorizing Needs I'm a big fan of nonviolent communication (NVC). For me, one of the most difficult parts of the practice is understanding our human needs. There are a variety of frameworks that break these
language Different Types of Community at the MIT Media Lab I'm part of a "community" working group at the MIT Media Lab. We're trying to re-imagine how academic institutions should interact with "community". However, because "community" can mean any n:n relationship, it
book review Book Review: "Just Giving" by Rob Reich, A Political Theory of Philanthropy I'm interviewing Rob Reich on my podcast soon. As preparation for that interview, I wanted to review his most recent book, Just Giving, which I loved (I highlighted 15% of the book, compared
self-tax Self-Tax Sunday: How a Self-Tax Constraint Breeds Creativity I have enough money, so I self-tax myself 20% post-tax ($900/month) to give to support civil society. By categorizing this 20% into a special self-tax bucket, this money now has a completely
movements What Emerging Movements Should One Track? (and a quick reflection on RadicalXChange) Civil Society will play an increasingly important role in our future. Movements are a leading indicator of the role these new "Civil Society groups" will play. Therefore, I try to "track" the different
personal Personal Wednesdays: Attachment vs. Non-attachment (Stoicism, Buddhism) I've recently been working through a difficult tension in relationships. On one side you have "non-attachment". This is generally pushed by Stoicism / Buddhism. The macro idea is that attachment leads to suffering, therefore
language Meta Monday: How I Use Punctuation Hmmmm. I'm not sure the best way to write about language, but I know I want to. It's nice to reflect on how one writes (compared to others). Let's start with certain punctuation
self-tax #SelfTaxSunday: Carbon Offsets as a Service I recently realized that Fred Wilson's "Funding Friday" is an example of self-taxing. In this vein, I'd like to experiment with #SelfTaxSunday! Today, I'd like to talk about Carbon Offsetting. Remember that your
link What To Do When You're Behind on Writing? (Link folks to Good Content! Doctorow's Terra Nullius) I'm trying to write every weekday (and have a 4-day streak right now!). Usually I try to write for 30-60min in the morning. But today I was too busy and didn't make that
