As with any axiom, you believe it or you don’t. If you do believe it, picture an alternate world B in which it wasn’t true. Once you have pictured that world—picture how that world would imagine an alternate world, C, in which it wastrue. Now, compare these three worlds—A, ours; B; and C.

1. The new technologist believes in the power of good critique. It is not hostile to interrogate each other’s ideas, products, or goals.

I think maps and recipes are often good comparative structures.

A good map highlights where you’d want to go. You’ve seen the image of the peak of a trail and along the way it might highlight things worth seeing. Thus, it invites the hiker towards the destination. Simultaneously, it’s not as they say the “territory” itself. While some of us do enjoy just browsing Google Maps for fun, it’s not a replacement for the journey. Surprise is still necessary for a good and enjoyable hike.

A bad map doesn’t drag you in to explore it. It can also be too dense.

A great recipe shows you the food which is the end of your planned narrative. The ingredients are partly visible in it and the journey takes you through the process. A poor recipe is unable to foreshadow what you might eat and leaves out gaps in preparation such that the logic or plot of the preparation leaves you frustrated or lost (resulting in an undercooked mess).

Sometimes, a recipe might show you something that’s unattainable for an average cook, in the same way that a map might deceptively lure you into a direction with information and visuals that don’t match reality.

So, great (direct or indirect) foreshadowing and non-linear storytelling relies on:

1. Setting a novel, realistic, and clear future event

2. which from the setup of ingredients available at the start

3. leaves a viewer surprised in how the start gets to the unique end.

Real thinking is to an AI like waves are to a lattidue line.

In an AI, there is genuinely no one home. It’s all model. No reality.

the map is not the territory; but neither is the model

How to Citizen: “To citizen” is to show up. We just assume there’s something for us to do, and we don’t always know what that is, but we have an orientation toward, “Put me in. I don’t have to lead, but I have to be a part of the thing.”

Number two: “To citizen” is to invest in relationships with yourself, with others, and with the planet around you. We have inherited a story of separation of all these things, and they’re actually all one. The quantum physicist will tell you that really in a short sentence. So that myth busted.

“To citizen” is to understand power and all the different ways we have it. Eric Lou, I call him one of our founding guests, founder of Citizen University. He says: power is just the ability to get somebody to do what you want them to do.” And we have different ways of doing that. Physical force is obvious. Money, especially in this society, is pretty obvious. Ideas, sharing them. You’re very powerful, Krista. Putting our attention on something, we give power to what we give attention to, and we can choose, within default settings and design incentives, but we have the power to choose what we give our power to with our attention.

Fourth of four of these principles is: “To citizen” is to value the collective. We do all these things out of a sense of collective self-interest, not just personal, individual self-interest. Valerie Kaur was our very first guest for How To Citizen.

When you encounter a piece of life-changing information (no matter how large the change part is), you are simultaneously discovering and creating ‘yourself,’ becoming incrementally more complete.