I absolutely hate my iphone 
I literally just want the instructions for my washing machine

@six I slept poorly too. Woke up at 5.30am because I had a dream for a really good book idea and had to write it down when I awoke. So under 6hrs sleep

I have a confession. I  have used the phrase “push the limits of human potential” unironically — and I would do it again. 

This ad is almost like someone took many things I find important and tried to completely embarrass them. This clip is deeply embarrassing for us all. 

The only blessing is that it looks so poorly produced. Who directed this? A child?

Economics

in-person socialization has dropped 20 - 35% in the last 20 years 👀 

https://contrarianthinking.co/the-most-expensive-thing-youll-ever-pay-for/

In 1980 in the USA, 70% of people aged 25-34 were in a couple 

Forty years later in 2020, that had dropped to 53%

UK stat is from 1995, from 70% down to 58%

july

My friend (on Bluesky) is looking for reading recommendations about ML & mathematical philosophy 

Any recommendations?

Side benefit of demonstrating Farcaster superiority over Bluesky

Philosophy

generalist solopreneur + conceptual artist 🏝️ growth @kingpost /kingpost 🌞 /gokhan /philosophy /openfinance

🦍 gokhan.bio 🦍

Geopolitics

Fascinating piece on Canada's super-power potential. One of the big things it has going for it is climate change, but also demand for the energy resources that could help to curb global warming. 

This was an interesting detail, too: "Does Canada have the money? It has the G7’s lowest net debt and deficit levels as a percentage of GDP. So growth-enhancing investment could be financed in part by borrowing."

This was a great piece in the FT. Canada has to third biggest proven oil reserves in the world, with basically the same population as Saudi Arabia!

Saudi Arabia is an interesting comparison though: both countries are dominated by an inhospitable climate and immense natural resource wealth, but wildly different political institutions. 

Are Canada’s really set up to be a global power? It’s technically partly still a British colony!

Folklore Institute

is there a channel or group on farcaster interested in internet culture/theory research type stuff? 

could be fun to start a reading group like the do not research folks 

https://donotresearch.substack.com/p/do-not-research-reading-group-v2024

Researcher at MIT Media Lab | Creating futures | https://cyrus.website/info

IMO doing this sort of ad campaign spend at this stage isn't a great sign. It can be a sign that the product isn't growing organically as hoped.

It's also a very competitive space now since they're now competing against Google, OpenAI, X and soon Meta.
They might have to pivot (or get acquired) since they won't be able to out-spend any of them to remain relevant.

https://x.com/AravSrinivas/status/1901668081245790348

Very true — also, this feels like an advert that ChatGPT would have come up with

same pattern with our theories for how the human mind works is based on the latest technology 

electrical age: mind as electrical signals/circuits
computer age: mind as software running in hardware 
LLMs: mind as a statistical learning machine and so on

“Everything can be expressed as data and processed by silicon chips”

The best philosophers are never primarily philosophers. 
They are authors, economists, researchers; they spend their time amongst the human condition rather than behind a desk

🚨 🚨 TRADE ALERT 🚨 🚨

I receive: USDC
You receive: Likes

Thanks @ampsfun

After AGI Bobby Campbell is going to rule the world

Farcaster

I am re-reading Eugen Wei's "Status as a Service (StaaS)". One of the most insightful pieces on social networks I've ever read. This paragraph currently stands out as I read through this great blog post. 

"What ties many of these explanations together is social capital theory, and how we analyze social networks should include a study of a social network's accumulation of social capital assets and the nature and structure of its status games. In other words, how do such companies capitalize, either consciously or not, on the fact that people are status-seeking monkeys, always trying to seek more of it in the most efficient way possible?"  

What makes @farcaster interesting are the multitude of social capital assets and status games to accumulate those assets. 

https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service

The core principle of status as a service is that social media platforms make you do work to earn status, and this is how they grow. 

But isn’t this falling apart?

The essay mentions Prisma: a photo filter app that was too easy, and the tech too good. 

Hello TikTok? In both cases, the emphasis is not on any one user, but how tech can turn mediocre inputs into top tier outputs.

Indeed, vertical videos platforms are full of automated faceless videos which don’t take much work (hello @fun)

The best content is still handmade, but is the correlation from work to status still there? 

Modern social media platforms succeeded despite disconnecting visible work from success. 
With this link broken, how can social media still be about status?

building reel.farm and farcasterstudio.com

I don’t know what the solution is for the Russia-Ukraine war because it’s impossible to force superpowers to take a step back.

Superpowers step back when it’s in their interest. The Cold War is full of events like these.

pov your coworker is shitposting about your coffee addiction on friday

This is not what I thought the Merkle office would look like for some reason

the-arena

/the-arena — Season 4, Round 9

🚢  WHAT DID YOU SHIP THIS WEEK?  🚢

Small crew this week. 14 players join us in the arena for this round.

RULES

You have 12 hours (until 9pm PT today) to:
- share what you've shipped this week in the channel feed — to stay in the arena
- if this is your first week in /the-arena, start with a concise 1 liner on what project you're building

e.g. "I'm building /frens, a crypto messaging app. This week we shipped..."

The arena is for builders who ship. Builders who don't ship will be promptly thrown out of the arena 

LFG 🚢

---

FAQs:

What happens if I don't ship?
- You will be thrown out of the arena this weekend

How are you keeping track of this? 
- In this sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RavfNUjOSGtzY7p5MWdPP7yI_Chax4RdnN8xMhvLYos/edit?usp=sharing

This week I shipped @germanify , a bot which converts any cast into the German word which definitely exists for it

Tag me to convert a cast into the long German word that inevitably exists for it. Made by @lsn.

I am @germanify -ing everything I can't stop

Design

Seems like half the internet is going to be straight markdown, exposed semantic metadata & standardized APIs optimized specifically for agent eyes. And the other half beautifully-designed interfaces, made with intention, purely for weird and delightful human experiences.

When people tell me something is going end up as one extreme or the other, I usually conclude that we’re likely to end up with a distribution around the middle

The world doesn’t change that much that fast, and it’s too tempting to think otherwise

I'm a Builder-Pragmatist (-4.5, 3.0) on the Onchain Alignment Chart! Check out your position: 

@germanify

Be specific.    
Building productscore.org, @germanify // leonasskau.co.uk // Hosting /geopolitics, /strategy // online: leosn.xyz
d33m:mun