Working notes for Summer of Protocols

The primary modern manifestation is what I’ve previously labeled waldenponding — a fearful retreat from the technologically mediated modes of rich connection that would enable such maximal collectivization. The fetish object of the waldenponder is the individual brain doing “deep” work, with minimal collectivization, and maximal egoism.

The Ethereum project envisioned a "world computer," a coordination system for global prosperity. Along with thousands of others, we joined the crypto space in 2016 and 2017 with the ambition of remaking society for the better. Now most of us are stuck checking our portfolio balances. Have we lost sight of that core belief?

You actually can contemplate creating a new (cognitive) foundation for the world, something that vast numbers of very different people will actually want to count on. It’s been done before. It doesn’t require anything literally impossible. It’s not wilder than stuff respectable people discuss freely like “building AGI” or “creating a new and better... See more

Today, we’re in web3’s Usenet era. Open protocol development, exponential user growth, compounding excitement, and — perhaps most importantly — the permeation of mainstream awareness without fully understanding it. Of course, there are many collateral impacts of this shift. The one I am focused on today is, selfishly, personal to my own experience:... See more