Today I am writing mostly for myself, while also sharing in public. I have thoughts that I want to capture in words as best I can. And this feeds into a project I am working on but, it is too early to say more.
There are still a few people writing on Medium that I follow. One of those is Speaker John Ash who I became aware of because of his appearance on The Stoa. I was impressed by The Purple Pill Manifesto and how Ash wants to use AI in service of the Good.
Jim Rutt has stated on a podcast that he is very impressed with Speaker John Ash. For me, that is noteworthy as Jim Rutt is not easily impressed. It seems to me that what Ash is trying to do is worthy of widespread support, but that is not my work to do.
This morning I read A Conversation with Gemini About Cognicism by Ash.
Me: How do source embeddings relate to Ŧrust?
Gemini: Source embeddings and Ŧrust are directly intertwined within the Cognicism framework. Here’s how they relate:
Source Embeddings as Evidence of Trustworthiness:
Speaker John Ash seems to have a deep understanding that all people are not equally trustworthy. As we gather collective intelligence and collective wisdom, we need to identify those individuals who deserve to be at the top of our lists in our various communities, measured by AI in a fully transparent manner. I have an unsophisticated, informal list of my chain of trust in my head, as most of us probably do, but we need something much better.
On Substack I read What we learned from a 3-month co-living experiment by Richard D. Bartlett. IRL experiences are very valuable as we seem to have an imbalance between theory and experience. I only have time to highlight a couple of key points from this article.
For an experiment like this to work long term, it’s crucial that you can maintain good relationships between housemates. With 8 long-term residents and 79 total guests, I was surprised by how well this worked.
I think this was partly due to how we work with authority: Nati & I generally operate in a highly collaborative way, but we were clear for this experiment that we would hold ultimate authority for the project.
Communities that lack transparency around ultimate authority are more likely to be Terrible Communities.
What’s next?
I said this was a short-term prototype of a bigger vision. Now that we’re finishing up, I feel much more confident about doing something permanent. I think my ideal would be to live with about 6-8 longterm residents, maybe running about 8-10 big events of our own each year, and rent the space out for other people to run their own events there too.
When it comes to community building, Bartlett ia a source I trust.
Next up for me was The Inner Life of the Future (Talk at NYU) by Jonathan Rowson on Perspectiva's Substack. And I added FORGE 2023 | The Inner Life of the Future | Jonathan Rowson to my YouTube Watch later list. I have too many videos on my list.
High on my list of potential paid subscriptions is Daniel Pinchbeck’s Newsletter. This morning I read Feeding the Tiger, but only the free portion. I want an answer to his question, “But what difference does any of this make if we are, indeed, hurtling toward extinction?”
By this time What Would You Do if You Had Goggins-Level Discipline? by Peter Limberg had landed in my Inbox.
Greater consciousness and intentionality are needed more than ever to avoid diminishing into a subpar state of human becoming.
I agree.
But as a retiree, I must confess that I am not willing to give up much comfort these days and I am probably too accepting of my current subpar performance level due to diminished discipline.