Timour Kosters
@timourkosters
Investor & builder working in blockchain and ml. Tweeting: @timourxyz
linktr.eeTimour Kosters
Progressive decentralization is not enough - continuous decentralization is important. Because even in true DAOs, there will always be forces that tend towards centralization
Rehash: A Web Podcast • S3 E6 | DAO Decentralization Thesis & Artificial Intelligence w/nintynick
Ursula Le Guin: "They talked, and new worlds were born of their talking. It is of the nature of idea to be communicated: written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on."
What do we mean by “decentralization,” anyway? It’s a capacious term, and in the past few years it’s been tossed around more freely than ever. Flocks of birds, free-market economies, cities, peer-to-peer computer networks: these are all considered examples of decentralization. Yet so, too, in other contexts, are the American public-school system
... See moreJames Surowiecki • The Wisdom of Crowds
Here are some of the details from the initiative that stand out to me:
Emphasis on walking, biking, & high quality transit: Compact development is at the core of this proposal. It leads to walkability and enables efficient, high-quality transit services. This not only reduces carbon emissions but also fosters a sense of community and accessibility.... See more
Emphasis on walking, biking, & high quality transit: Compact development is at the core of this proposal. It leads to walkability and enables efficient, high-quality transit services. This not only reduces carbon emissions but also fosters a sense of community and accessibility.... See more
Devon Zuegel • Part 3: The first walkable city in America in a century
Here are some of the details from the initiative that stand out to me:
Emphasis on walking, biking, & high quality transit: Compact development is at the core of this proposal. It leads to walkability and enables efficient, high-quality transit services. This not only reduces carbon emissions but also fosters a sense of community and accessibility. Imagine being able to walk or bike to most of your destinations, with public transport as a convenient option for longer trips. The city plans to embrace townhomes and small apartment buildings that create gentle density, moving away from the sprawling single-family homes that dominate much of American suburbia. This approach allows for more people to live in a smaller area, preserving natural spaces and reducing the need for long commutes.
meta-crisis and New Ideas for the Future
There is a peculiar attitude, here at the beginning of the 21st century. On the one hand, we agree things aren’t fine. On the other hand, there’s a widespread feeling that there’s nothing to be done.
The first thing to recognize is that this isn’t always how the present feels: often in the past, people had a sense that there was something—something huge — to be done. Essays like the Communist Manifesto give people this sense. Before that, at the dawn of modern democracy, documents like Common Sense (in the US) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (in France) gave people the same sense. There was something to be done.
Human nature, far from being fixed, is read differently from age to age. These different readings give rise to totally new ideas for institutions. And these new readings and new institutions seem to reshape us. Often, what works out in practice would have seemed impossible on the previous views. Furthermore, the traits we are supposedly balancing — autonomy, collective responsibility, equality, etc — are themselves changing. They, also, are expressions of one view of human nature or another.
Indeed, each of our present-day institutions can be traced to a vision of human nature which swept through society. Each new vision led designers to focus on different features of a desirable society, and to recognize different approaches as viable. This made new institutions attractive.
- What was the aha moment for Scott with crypto?
- Scott was aware of crypto early, but very skeptical. Saw that everyone was trying to decentralize just for the sake of it. But decentralization has costs. Centralized entities are often more effective in coordinating interaction.
- His opinion started to change with examples of use-cases where tech was
Sari Azout • Market Design Masterclass ft. Scott Kominers
Companies with poor unit economics found themselves propelled by aggressive venture dollars (which themselves were propelled by a low-interest-rate environment). Those companies then turned those dollars into aggressive customer acquisition. Until recently, the market rewarded growth at all costs.
Digital Native • Revisiting Lifetime Value and Customer Acquisition
Multiplicity principle: we are not one, we are many
Parts can be seen as clusters of beliefs and emotions and values that get activated at different times, and that can be interfaced with by treating them as if they were actual subminds.