Severin Matusek

We’re looking at what’s going on in the world and using words to help people make sense of it. It’s ultimately a service to the reader — here’s what’s happening out there, why it’s important, and what it means for you.

“The other day I was tinkering around in my garage and I decided to build a new ideology.”

According to a draft of an unpublished Substack post, his newest plan is to promote Urbit as an élite private club whose members, he believes, are destined to become “the stars of the new public sphere—a new Usenet, a new digital Athens built to last forever.”

What appealed to me wasn’t the monetary use of blockchains but the idea that they could provide the basis for a more user-centric alternative to the unpleasant state of affairs known as Web 2.0.

A literature which is made by machines, which are owned by corporations, which are run by sociopaths, can only be a “stereotype”—a simplification, a facsimile, an insult, a fake—of real literature. It should be smashed, and can.

what I’m interested in is not only how we set the stage, but what makes a performance so good that we all end up believing it.