The new Alchemists We have reached a long awaited point in the unfolding evolution of the Bitcoin/blockchain/crypto/Web3 (“Web3”) ecosystem: the DAO moment. In its simplest form, the DAO moment is the point at which the Web3 ecosystem turns its full attention on the problem space sometimes known as “governance” or “coordination.” …

And the continuing adventures of SOCI Hi everyone. Last year (or maybe the year before), Medium censored one of my posts with effectively no explanation or process. So I no longer feel called to post here. …

The following has long struck me as obvious, but it occurred to me yesterday that it might not be. So I share it herein. We are aware of the phenomenon called “Metcalfe’s Law.” Roughly that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users…

We have now reached a very interesting point. At least at the narrative level we have reached the point that “defunding the police” is a real proposition. It even seems plausible that some jurisdictions (most notably Minneapolis) will do it. …

[3.15.20] The story of the unfolding meta-crisis that we have been watching for the last decade has become enormously more salient over the past few weeks. This is a moment of major risk along many different fronts. It is also a moment of singular opportunity. Foremost among them is to…

This post will be an extension and update to the model first shared in Situational Assessment: 2017. Some familiarity with the concepts developed therein and continued in Situational Assessment: 2018 will be assumed. If you have not read those two posts, it will likely be useful to do so. As…

Nassim Taleb famously brought the notion of anti-fragile into our consciousness in his book by that name. I recently noticed that I have a conception of that notion that might bear sharing. I think this can be done somewhat quickly, so here goes. First as a caveat, herein I will…

It seems that an old conversation has begun again. After several decades of relative silence and in the context of the rising popularity of Jordan Peterson and the broader “Intellectual Dark Web,” the debate between Science and Religion has seen a glimmer of a return. I have long contemplated this…

Much ado has been made in the past few weeks about Facebook. After the recent Congressional hearings, we might be somewhat disappointed in the rather obvious gap between the challenges of adequately regulating innovative technology like this and the capabilities of our elected and regulatory representatives. Fortunately, I believe that…