Severin Matusek

Yancey Strickler argues that the way we see our self influences what we perceive as valuable - a concept he further expands through Metalabel and his idea of post-individualism. 

Status. The token (visible through Opensea and my Twitter profile) signals my involvement in a project that I, and others in my sphere, deem relevant.

But what if there is no underlying logic? Or, more to the point, what if the logic shifts based on the platform's priorities? If you go down to the midway at your county fair, you'll spot some poor sucker walking around all day with a giant teddy bear that they won by throwing three balls in a peach basket.

With the platform era now coming to a close (partially due to AI slop’s overreach) and AI supposedly driving cognitive costs to zero, counterintuitively, our institutional structures will enter a growth phase in response to a new demand for shared narratives.

The internet works but not for us. This much is painstakingly obvious and has been for years. And yet, where are the better alternatives?

Another way of gaming the system, which I would argue is more dangerous, is to promise something that you either know you can’t deliver, or you’re not sure that technology can deliver, but by trying to essentially reengineer society around the technology, reengineer consumer expectations, reengineer user behaviors, you and your company are planning... See more