Hello!
1) This week’s article is on Making Trust Abundant. It builds on last week’s Defining Abundance article. In it you’ll learn:
How “moralizing gods” create centralized trust
How Bitcoin creates distributed trust
How the Russian “Internet Research Agency” exploited abundant trust
(The graph below tracks the shift in how humans have created trust.)
2) Some interesting feedback on last week’s article: Defining Abundance.
One reader, Alex Danco, gave this feedback:
A. I like to define abundance as a phenomenon of demand, rather than of supply. Abundance is when friction of consumption approaches zero.
As friction of consumption drops to zero, the inevitable consequence isn't just more consumption (& virtuous cycle of economies of scale) but also more variety of consumption (& virtuous cycle of platformization).
B. Abundance tends to lead to new, emergent scarcity. This can take many forms, but it always takes the same basic form factor:
Abundance = more volume and more variety --> inevitable consequence of increase in entropy (large increase in total number of possible states, and only some of those states are desirable). Examples of this:
Positional scarcity: There are a large number of states; but you only want the state where you are first in line.
Integral scarcity: Abundance leads to complexity, switching cost, technical debt, and other forms of "it's harder to fix the problem than to tolerate it".
Lots of great feedback here. For more on how abundance creates positional scarcity, see Alex’s essay here, or this piece from Packy McCormick on how Clubhouse leveraged positional scarcity in COVID.
3) I’m restarting my podcast and changing the name from Grey Mirror to Conversations With Rhys. (In 2017, it was called Creating a Humanist Blockchain Future!)
My first interview will be with Benjamin Bratton, the author of The Stack and 18 Lessons of Quarantine Urbanism. Let me know if you have any questions that I should ask him. (Or if there’s anyone else I should interview!)
LINKS
1) Amazing New Yorker piece from sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson: The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations.
He touches on FutureUs, climate change, and how #FlattenTheCurve shows that we can have a longer time horizon:
We’re now confronting a miniature version of the tragedy of the time horizon. With #FlattenTheCurve, we’ve decided to sacrifice over these months so that, in the future, people won’t suffer as much as they would otherwise. In this case, the time horizon is so short that we are the future people.
On markets as a means (not an end), stakeholder vs. shareholder capitalism, and Doughnut Economics:
Economics is a system for optimizing resources, and, if it were trying to calculate ways to optimize a sustainable civilization in balance with the biosphere, it could be a helpful tool. When it’s used to optimize profit, however, it encourages us to live within a system of destructive falsehoods.
On shifting values as a project in and of itself:
How we feel is shaped by what we value, and vice versa. Food, water, shelter, clothing, education, health care: maybe now we value these things more, along with the people whose work creates them. To survive the next century, we need to start valuing the planet more, too, since it’s our only home.
It will be hard to make these values durable. Valuing the right things and wanting to keep on valuing them—maybe that’s also part of our new structure of feeling. As is knowing how much work there is to be done. But the spring of 2020 is suggestive of how much, and how quickly, we can change. It’s like a bell ringing to start a race. Off we go—into a new time.
2) Prioritizing COVID-19 interventions & individual donations. This is a great overview of impactful COVID donations spearheaded by Catherine Olsson and Ian David Moss (with some help from myself and other folks). Key learnings for me:
Speed is super important and led to our recommendation of FastGrants.
I was surprised by GiveDirectly’s limited scope. Their international COVID program is only operating in Nairobi. I wish there was a generalized API for transferring money from rich folks to poor folks. #Give______ (GiveIndia is the start of this in India.)
3) The latest Write of Passage essay from Oshan Jarow: UBI and the Capitalist Production of Consciousness. Oshan does a great job of explaining how markets shape our mindset.
4) Two great (and sad) pieces from Dylan Matthews on “extra” animals being dumped in landfills and why factory farms, prisons, and nursing homes are all warehousing efforts.
5) Here’s a recording of my recent talk at TheStoa: COVID to Post-Capitalism. (Thank you Peter for facilitating!)
JOBS / OPPORTUNITIES
Effective Altruism Jobs Board (is there a job board for tech ethics, systems, etc.?)
Project Wren looking for a content writer
EVENTS
Weekly Bento (recurring, Sundays)
Effective Altruist Events Calendar (recurring)
Interintellect Salons (recurring)
The Stoa (recurring)
Foresight Institute (recurring)
MUSIC
I’ve been exploring a new genre of music called Cinebeat. I learned about it through this Quora conversation on future genres of music (weird, I know). Phil (my Quora “friend”) describes Cinebeat as containing: Metal, digital hardcore, baroque music, opera and even slight folk influences. It is hugely cinematic, but manically “pop”.
Some of my favorite artists from the last year released Cinebeat albums: Bring Me To The Horizon and Rina Sawayama. If you like Die Antwoord or Grimes, check out these four songs below. And if you really dig it, here’s an Expanded Cinebeat playlist.
Finally, I want to give a quick shoutout to all the moms out there. Y’all are great. Kids are great. Thank you. ❤️
And some specific love to my own mom, whose recent mini-strokes are bringing her closer to death. I cried for 30 minutes today looking at pictures of you, Mom. I know you’ll never read this, but I love you.
Thanks as always for reading, let me know if you have comments, and have a good week!
Warmth, Rhys