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CURAT3D: A series of conversations with the people shaping the culture and technology of the new internet.
This series is produced by SHILLR -- the most trusted marketing, media & consulting firm in crypto.
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CURAT3D: Chris F. The Future of Digital Art
We're joined by Chris F., serial entrepreneur thought leader, art collector and creator. He is a member of some of the largest and most respected art collecting DAO'S in Web3, and his writing has a direct impact on some of the industry's best thinkers
We cover a broad range of topics from building consumer products in crypto, how the pandemic accelerated Web3, potential of generative systems, the role of museums in the digital age, and more!
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I think that the healthiest thing is for our space to have. Confidence in what we're doing is important and it doesn't need approval from other people. We've reached a critical mass where we should act with confidence and we should get out there and not look over our shoulders and not ask for mommy and daddy's approval because you know they're sitting outside their RV listening to the radio.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Curated, a series of conversations with the people shaping culture and technology of the new internet. This is a podcast series produced by Schiller, the most trusted marketing media and consulting firm in crypto. Before we jump in with today's guest, we want to make it clear that this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. I am your host, buna, and today I'm joined by Chris Heff, serial entrepreneur, thought leader, art collector and creator. He is a member of some of the largest and most respected art collecting DAOs and Web3, and his writing has a direct impact on some of the industry's best thinkers.
Speaker 2:Gm Chris, how are you on some of the industry's best thinkers? Gm Chris, how are you? I'm good and yourself, sir, I'm great. Yeah, it's going good so far here. It's weird. So I'm based out of Austin, texas, and it's really strange having some of these events like South by Southwest in your backyard and not just being a tourist I got to be a tourist in my city, uh, a few days ago, is what I'm trying to say Um, so it's really strange, kind of like you know, uh, going to a few events, coming back home, getting a little rest, doing recording a podcast, um, and potentially going back out again. So, uh, it's good man.
Speaker 1:Um, beautiful weather out here in Austin and um, um, it's been, it's been a lot of fun this past week. How about yourself? It's nice, uh, yeah. No, I'm doing good, you know, just trying to keep keep up with everything happening in the space. Um, you know, very busy out there right now and so I got eyes on, I got eyes on things and I'm not doing, not doing work I should be doing and, you know, gonna lock some of that down. But this is why we're here, it's for, you know, when the space comes alive.
Speaker 2:Totally, man, I feel, you know, I'd love to know maybe kind of a little bit of when you got into this space. But you know, I think I was telling you a little bit earlier I came in in 2021, you know, part-time time went full time right in the middle of the bear market here at schiller, uh, and this kind of comeback you know that we're experiencing right now. It's like this is kind of what I was waiting for. It's like, okay, this is sick, I've gone, I've round tripped my first cycle. Now, uh, or I've come full circle. So, um, yeah, dude, it feels good. It's hard, it's harder than ever to pay attention. Um, and yeah, it's in in the best way possible, though, no for sure.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, no, I've been in the space since 2017. You know, back then I was really, uh, one of those guys just flipping shit coins on on apps because there wasn't anything else to do. I was not a core dev, I I was not building intro tooling, and so I was reduced to speculating. And when that all melted down, come Christmas time, I threw whatever was left in ETH, just left it there and went back to the rest of my life. And you know, every six months or so I'd check in because I'm a consumer guy, I do, I did. You know consumer tech, uh, consumer apps, and so I just check in every six months and you know, see where eth was, and I'd be like, oh, still primitives and tooling, all right. And you know, at the end of 2019 I checked in and there, you know, some of the early DeFi stuff was going and I was like, oh wow, I guess it's time to start paying more attention. And so I spent the end of that year and the beginning of 2020 just trying to get my head around what's a maker vault? How do I interact with dApps? I mean really basic stuff, just trying to understand you know how these things worked and then at the time you know I was, I had taken some time off from my last startup, but I was. I was getting a niche to build again. I told my whole network, hey guys, I can't do the startup life but like you need a higher gun. You know I'm your Huckleberry, I'll come in and I'll build something for you. And then a week later covid hit and I was like, well, that's out. And so you know, the the great thing was the.
Speaker 1:The ethereum space didn't quit, uh, because, you know, it was distributed virtual.
Speaker 1:It was set up really well, um, before that and I just, you know, slid my way over there and I was actually lucky enough to um get connected with the lao, uh, you know which was tributes first out, and I joined some of those community calls ahead of, uh, you know, it launching.
Speaker 1:I'd like the vibe of it and I didn't have a network right, you know, I didn't know people in the states and so I thought it'd be a great way to, you know, find some peeps, um, and I had no idea, you know, that, like, that first group would end up being my group, or you know just how amazing it would be and and how many different things we we end up branching out to and so that's uh, you know that's kind of how I got into the space and you know it was. It was a really interesting period because there were just so many concepts to get your head around, so many things to evaluate everything, you know, that was emerging at the time, like, I mean, defy liquidity fools, um, you know, we on the nft side we did super rare, we didn't have a gotchi, you know. So there were some early nft projects that sort of got our head heads around that over the summer, um, you know, which led to the formation of Flamingo in the fall, and the rest was history.
Speaker 2:That's incredible, man. I mean, it's cool to hear some of those kind of early days around, because even when I came into the space, super Rare was still pretty new. I came in early 2021. So Super Rare was definitely, definitely a thing, but it was still very much. It was kind of like there was like Rarible, there was OpenSea, and then there was, you know, superrare, and Foundation was also invite. Only, you know, that was also kind of around the time that I came in as well. And it's really interesting to hear that because, like today, we have, you know, if, if you look at right now in 2024, we have Magic Eden, we have OpenSea, we have SuperRare, we have Manifold. Now we have Transient, now finally getting some of their smart contract tools available to the public for people to use different environment.
Speaker 2:Um, and kind of like what you said is uh, when you came in, you know, there was only really, you know, for the most part like speculation and shit coins and liquidity pools were just starting to come around and defy was just starting to bud and there wasn't really anything visual. And I think for me, that was really what I was missing when I first came here. Um, you know, is that I didn't really understand crypto. Uh, as far as, like you know, the blocker for me was like what do I? Okay, this is great, but like, what the fuck do I spend it on? You know, like I, I didn't quite understand that concept and once I saw pictures I was like, oh cool, like tokenized art, digital objects, like makes sense that we need to own those because we're not going any less digital as a society, and so that was like one of the first moments that like really clicked for me. Um, but it was really cool to it's, it was great to hear kind of that.
Speaker 2:You know that short, you know that the intro of like how, how you kind of found it, um, and kind of how the conviction maybe just grew once the tooling started to get a little bit better, um, I would, I, I question, I have is, like you know, being I want, want, maybe want to jump right into this like, because there was an article that you wrote around, um, and I've really enjoyed a lot of your writing.
Speaker 2:It's really how I got to know you and I found you through fungible and um, uh, the writing specifically on building products and like and how, like, right, and I think this is like a few months ago, uh, but it was like right now may not be the best time to build consumer, consumer products and crypto, um, and I thought that was a really fascinating uh article and correct me if, like, the verbiage is slightly wrong. Um, I'm just pulling this, pulling this from my memory here, um, but would love to kind of maybe have you expand on that and if anything has changed um from that article since then, because it's something that I really, I really resonated with yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:So I guess the first thing to say right is that was coming from my perspective. It's not to say you shouldn't be building in consumer crypto it's why I wouldn't to find product markets that to be able to iterate your way into a good product you know to, to have enough um interactions and feedback to, to be able to refine that experience working against you know, some knowledge of what people want and don't want. And so you know, I think, that one of the lessons of our space is is timing matters, that you know we're blessed with this incredible, you know group of builders, this incredible entrepreneurial spirit, and you know, sometimes it feels like everyone in the space is making something and no one's actually consuming anything. And so you know, you just need to know when the environment is right for what you're doing. And there are just certain things because the timing has been better earlier for, you know, say, defi, or because we live in a hyper-financialized environment. People look at the sheer volume of all this fake internet money that you know A flows through these systems because we create on these systems and thinks, wow, this is massive. And then, you know, you start to peel that back and you start to translate that to wallet, and then you know, you think about, well, you know, I carry six different wallets that I work out of. You know, and I'm probably on the light side when you start getting into.
Speaker 1:You know the people who do, uh, airdrop farming or defy, or you know some of these other activities, um, or you know people who are just hardcore and on and very protective about their op sex, um, and you know then, when you're in and I was writing that in the bear, um, so you know a lot, of, a lot of people weren't around at the time as well, and you kind of get down to. Well, you, you know, are we building consumer apps for you know, maybe 500,000 people on mainnet and is that enough? And so it really that tweet was kind of about like having situational awareness and understanding, and so, just for me, because I tend to do best when systems get bigger, um, I like to, I like to make things cheap and plentiful, and so, just, you know the particular, you know my bag of tricks doesn't really line up and and you know, that's not to say other people can't be doing consumer crypto. I, I think a lot of like the emerging stuff in the social finance fire arena. Um, you know, starting to treat, um, you know, hyper-financialized gambling as a form of entertainment and you know I'm not talking like the straight on, you know deedden gambling stuff, but but things like crypto, the game, you know where you can do like this sort of like episodic content, reality tv on chain right, like that's an example of a spot that's just opening up for this space and I think will do very well, uh, you know, for the next year or so.
Speaker 1:But when you talk about, you know, maybe reproducing some of the Web2 stuff or the mobile OS stuff, right, or you know, just everyday consumer, we don't have the scale yet to operate, and so you know that's really what that tweet was about. It was about understanding who you are and knowing whether or not the environment is right for you know that's really what that tweet was about. It was about understanding who you are and knowing whether or not the environment is right for you know a particular thing and look, plenty of people can force it, but I'm an old man at this point and you know I'm not going to try to do that. So that's where that tweet was coming from. I got you man?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was one of my main takeaways. Is that like it's a? The landscape here of my main takeaways? Is that like it's a the the landscape here it's? It's got breadth but it doesn't really have depth.
Speaker 2:You know, um, and it's hard to get something that last year where you know it'll spread far and wide and you align incentives appropriately, and, uh, but some, you know, the next shiny thing comes around and all of a sudden, you know what you built just doesn't matter or it becomes obsolete so fast. And there's like a from a non-person perspective, there's like a beauty to that. But also, I can imagine if you built something and spent a lot of time and then for people to just quickly change their, just to quickly move to something else, it has to be a gut punch and it has to be incredibly de-incentivizing to want to actually build. And so I guess and I think we chatted about this a little like a week or so ago on that space about kind of these, you know constellation of networks, you know this constellation of things that are popping up. Do you think that, like, just from your perspective?
Speaker 2:I and I ask this genuinely because, like, sometimes I spend so much time here that I don't. I don't have enough time to like spend in the traditional world outside here. As far as like what's being built, some of the new products, do you think that like the far and wide um and kind of like episodic moments um, maybe not episodic, but kind of like the breadth versus depth is going to be like the new meta for a while of like just society in general? Like how we build products, like is does, like the rest of the world still mimic this? Is the rest of the world on track to mimic the way product is built here? Or are we just kind of like in this little like twilight zone, like this weird moment in time where, like this is kind of like a it works for the time being but it won't in the future?
Speaker 1:yes and yes. So I think both. The society is speeding up and, you know, as we become a fully networked society, we we start moving more internet speed and that speed is definitely around flows of attention from things that you know, from thing to thing. Um, you know people in writing about the death of monoculture for decades at this point and they were doing it against the lens of traditional broadcast media and old distribution models and you know sort of lamenting the loss of a thing. But when you bring that over to the internet and start looking there, you know it's actually more of the native form that we don't really want to be homesteading.
Speaker 1:You know there's a reason Second Life didn't become Facebook. We have that already and I think when we're living digitally we're looking for something else, and part of that is, you know, the ability to join these flows of attention and flows of information and and sort of glom onto something in a very rabid manner for an intense period. You know a short but intense period of time. You know, get what we can from it at a speed at which you know wasn't provided to us. Say you know, get what we can from it at a speed at which you know wasn't provided to us, say, you know, when you had to wait every Sunday for Tony Soprano to pop up? Yeah, and so I think some of that is embracing native forms, but then it's also, our space is very accelerationist and it moves at an even greater speed than than internet speed, and that's that's fascinating, um, you know, because I I think we we do act as a hothouse where, you know the future is being formed and that gives us sort of maybe an outsized influence on how that future should behave or what the right values are for it, when things you know either do cross over out of our space or the space, you know, the rest of the world comes to understand what we're doing. Um, and so you know the other thing is like in our space, the optimal strategy is still to be far and wide and an inch deep.
Speaker 1:The way the reward mechanisms are distributed, the way that, um, you know our space thinks that money or tokens and you know, and financial alignment is marketing and product marketing and communications and building a customer relationship. They don't really understand what they're doing is, or maybe they do understand and you know they just don't care. You know that, like, straight incentives are fine, as long as those incentives are on and EV positive. But once they're off, you know you need good product at the end of the day, and so we just run around from thing to thing, you know, looking to hit home runs, and we're not wrong to do that. I mean, you know you're allowed.
Speaker 1:You know, to make a pretty healthy living off being a participant. You know, which is an opportunity that you know no other space really affords you, which is an opportunity that no other space really affords you. But at the end of the day, that eventually has to wind down, or it can certainly be an important part of the stew, but you're going to need more than that. You're going to need to provide value to users, and so that part of the practice needs to come on, and I think you know this space one day won't be 500,000 generalists, right, which?
Speaker 2:is kind of what it is today. Yeah, I that statement hit. Yeah for sure. Yeah, a lot of generalists here. There's a lot that you mentioned there.
Speaker 2:That was super fascinating and I think it's almost kind of helped, because there's part of me that just gets so exhausted with the speed at which this moves and being in here full time and understanding where the attention flows and where to spend my time and how to spend it properly. Actually, there's moments like where I pop my head out to just like go to the grocery store or like go do something normal, where it's like man, this feels like an effort, like this feels just like a completely different world, um, and I just always wonder, you know, like for people that are maybe resistant towards it, or like not there yet, or uh, whatever the case may be, um is to be the future of how everything is built, and there's a sense that, for me, I'm like wow, is there going to be anything that helps us cope with the speed of this in the future? And there's part of me that's very conflicted on that and there's part of me that enjoys it. There's part of me that doesn't, where I just feel exhausted after spending 16 hours between Twitter and Warpcast and Instagram and Discord and all this other shit and protocols at the end of the day. Which brings me to a thought I've been having a lot and, yeah, I'm happy this is coming up, because, on one hand, you have people like.
Speaker 2:Something I've noticed is that there's a lot of people building products. There's like two camps. There's like we need to build products and protocols and new means of value creation for like, only for crypto people Like. It's like if you're building, if you're like trying to cater to the masses, then you're doing it wrong. You need to cater to your own audience. But then there's another camp that's like building consumer crypto, and I think we're seeing we're starting to see that happen quite a bit with or at least the start of that happening with L2s, where people are starting to be able to build things like frames and apps and and all this new. You know, uh, all this new, all these new ways to make it a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Uh, meet everyone else outside of the industry where they're at um, and I'm personally of the camp where I think like both are right. But like do you, from your perspective as like a product guy, like, do you think that there is really one place we, you know, and this is a bit binary and black and white thinking and a black and white question, but and I I bet the answer isn't that, but you know what camp is really uh, right here, because if we're only building for crypto, like I, I look at like some context. I look at like making crypto so kind of ridiculous that people can't not pay attention to it Cause that's kind of how I was onboarded. I was onboarded by like the $69 million people sale and I'm like what the fuck is you know an NFT? How? How did you buy a picture on the internet?
Speaker 2:Um, what's this culture? Like I was really hooked by that. But uh, and I went and read a few white papers and figured it out, but most people aren't going to go read a bunch of white papers. You know we need to meet them where they're at. I guess that's the long roundabout question of like, do we need to meet people where we're at, or meet people where they're at, people who are not participants, or do we just say fuck it and just keep building, for, you know, the people who are currently here and engaging with the protocols much more?
Speaker 1:Right, I more right. I mean the answer is both, but you're not looking for me to say both. You're looking for me to say one or the other, and of course, I'm going to have to say we need to be natives. Um, you know, there's a lot that is net new about operating on chain, about having this permissionless, distributed global ledger currency state machine that's composable, that anyone can walk into and have an impact upon. That's net new, sure, and it deserves to be treated in a way that is net new, because if we just want to be skeuomorphic and we just want to, you know, replace something that is already an existing product stack, but, you know, make it more financialized, or create alignment through token incentives, or create alignment through token incentives, then we're not really pushing our design patterns and we're not discovering what we can do with this thing. And so I think that the healthiest thing is for our space to have confidence in what we're doing is important and it doesn't need approval from other people, and that we should push as far into what is possible that hasn't been done before, you know, such that when that other group of people who you know are trying to, you know, bridge worlds, who you know, see all the benefits and affordances that you know digital property ownership brings.
Speaker 1:Or, you know, aligned incentive value between services and users. You know, having a secure, trusted computing environment that's sufficiently decentralized. You know, when people want to bring the Starbucks loyalty coins onto, that they should have a whole corpus of native products, native thinking, native approaches that they can study and can pull from where appropriate so that you know they can act as that. You know, second wave behind the vanguard to, you know, adopt and shape people who aren't willing or ready to make such a radical shift, or, you know, just simply don't want to give it the time. You know there's benefits to both, but the the more crypto native approach has to lead the way, because if it doesn't lead, then best practices and you know, emerging uh, things that we can offer to people that they've never seen before, once they've gotten comfortable, won't exist.
Speaker 2:Fair. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and that question came a lot from you know, when I get asked, you know, I'm at that phase where people are asking again, which is again like gigabullish. But I find myself increasingly at odds with like trying to understand and like meet people where they're at. You know cause, like I think after being here for so long I'm not gonna say so long but after just completing a like one cycle, uh, it gets harder and harder to you know, like really meet people where, that when they ask me about it, you know, um and I I just take I take the more art approach, you know, and I about, you know again, art, video games, those are the things I know the most. But I just I constantly wonder, you know, and maybe this is just like a weird way that I think about it, but you know I and I'm not sure how everyone else found this space, people probably were less dramatic but I just wonder, you know, about the day where the world kind of shifts towards the products that, or shifts towards you know what we've been building here for the past. You know, well, if you look at Zoom out like a decade, you know, like the last decade. You know what's it going to. You know what's it going to take for people. You know what's it going to. You know what's it going to take for people.
Speaker 2:You know because, uh, I'm like my life was not really going, at least professionally. I was at a pretty low point in my career and I was like very just hungry for something new. And it's like what happens when that happens at scale, is that going to happen, you know, when people are just very unhappy and they're just searching for something new, or is that? Is that what it's going to take for other people to find this? Because it's hard to make people curious unless they have an incentive to be curious. It's hard to make people. It's hard to. People aren't going to try something until they have a good enough reason to do so with their already busy lives.
Speaker 2:So it's a lot of where that question comes from. It's like, are we going to go towards another financial collapse, you know? Uh, or is there going to be some catastrophic failure somewhere where people like wake the fuck up and they're like, oh shit, like, um, maybe this is way better than what we have? Uh, maybe what we've had before, um, I don't know. I'm just spitballing here and kind of on a caffeinated ramble, but that's like what I think about constantly. It's like what's that like? What is that catalyst? And I think I'm okay with being patient because I think the more you know, the more time we have before quote unquote the masses come, the more opportunity there is to you know selfishly, like you know, have have a, have a wider slice of the pie, but but also you know, in line, in line with the conversation, just to build you know more, just kind of double down on building what we've been building and and finding where we can really take this.
Speaker 1:Hey, like there, there's no good answer, right? I mean, only time is going to show us what it was that got the space over, and it's even possible that the space doesn't get over, right? We don't know that for sure. I mean, we could all be like ham radio operators right now and you know, or cbs with when that was a thing back in the 70s?
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't think so. Yeah, right, I, I don't spend my time here to end up in a niche hobby, but that is entirely possible. It's weird because, you know, people like to think maybe a little too binary in their views of the world. And I understand why. Right, because we have so much information to absorb and we only have so much processing time in our head. But we live in a world of overlays. You know, I still listen to the radio when I drive around um, that's wild.
Speaker 1:I haven't listened to that in over 10 years the radio still exists, there are still djs, they still put music on and you know a lot of my driving is I live in new york, so you know, know it's running my son to Little League. I'm only driving 15 minutes and the radio works. So you know these things don't go away, we just lay more and more on top of them. And it's really about you know how people are living and what this whole selection you know of different technology stacks, how it fits into your life. And you know, as time goes on and we do become more and more fully networked society, you know the need to have programmable money, interacting with programmable media or programmable objects, right Like that's going to become increasingly important. And so you know whether everyone shows up tomorrow or you know whether three decades from now this stuff just kind of sits silently under the hood. You know, in partnership with you know, ai or you know whatever like the next stack ends up becoming. You know it remains to be seen.
Speaker 1:And look, we're, we're a big enough group of people, we, we do enough volume. Um, you know to prove much of this out at scale. And so you know well, I do say hey, look, you can't go build a you know mainstream consumer app today. Like there's plenty of things, you can't go build a mainstream consumer app today. There's plenty of things you can be doing in this space and it continues to grow and time will be the arbiter of how important it will be. But we've reached a critical mass where we should act with confidence and we should get out there and not look over our shoulders and not ask for mommy and daddy's approval because you know they're sitting outside their rv listening to the radio fair point, yeah, and I think a lot of where that's yeah, that's a, that's a very fair point.
Speaker 2:and I I think where a lot of that comes from is I remember how kind of doughy eyed and bright eyed I was when I came in here, you know, in 2021. And I think 2023 definitely jaded me a bit. You know to where it's like there's that PTSD, oh, it will. So a lot of these are coming from like this, like fear and PTSD. I'm like fuck, like, is this really? Uh, is this really a thing? I mean, I know I just survived, but, uh, it's almost like this fear of this, like fear of letting myself become excited again, if that makes sense. Um, and I'm sure you've been through that in a few cycles uh, where it's? You're like okay, like my conviction is clearly there. Uh, there's it clearly doubled down? Um, you know, obviously, or else I wouldn't be here. I'll say, just be a psychopath who just enjoys pain. Um, you know, obviously, or else I wouldn't be here, I'll just be a psychopath who just enjoys pain, you know. But the more and more I have these conversations, the more it's like okay, you know it's because you're right, like we've, we've.
Speaker 2:Clearly, the space has grown. You know like institutional capital. You know like regardless of how you want to measure growth, like there's a lot of ways to measure it, but especially most recently, we had the ETF and a lot of institutional money come in. That's pretty bullish to me and just the amount of people that are still here creating and collecting art and finding new ways to do that and building tools for artists to discover new ways to make new work. That hasn't gone away from both the product side and from the government side as well. There's two different areas that I looked at there, so I guess it probably would make sense and I want to transition to more of the art side as well, because you are a member of the Lau and Flamingo and what you guys have done is just absolutely incredible. It's really great to it.
Speaker 2:You know I had a had a chat with ben roy the other day or it was a couple months ago on, when we did a podcast and um. We were talking about dows and um. That was like the first. You know flamingo is like the first um, and correct me if I'm wrong like I'm not quite sure what the lau is, if it's just a fancy word of saying Dao or if there's something to that. But what y'all are doing is like really one of the use cases for a Dao that I'm like, wow, this makes sense. You know this like because Daos, I think, struggle with getting people to vote, you know, and that's not just a problem with Daos, it's just a problem in general.
Speaker 2:It's not sexy, governance is not typically sexy.
Speaker 2:Daos is just a problem in general.
Speaker 2:It's not sexy, governance is not typically sexy and things that people want to keep in mind. You know people want to do a lot of. So I just wanted to say, you know, it's cool to watch from the sidelines from Flamingo or watching what Flamingo does, and maybe we'd just love to know, from your perspective, what role you know do you play at Flamingo and like, how do you guys make decisions like on what to, on like what to buy? You know, um cause and I'll I'll add some more context is that you know a lot of people here look for signal. You know a lot of people here look to people who have great taste and culture, and Flamingo is definitely, you know, full of that Um, and so I guess, from your perspective of people who have, and so I guess from your perspective of people who have, who are great tastemakers, who have a higher you know, who are a little bit more cultured, like what, what makes something worth, you know, allocating a large capital, a large amount of capital towards so there's a lot.
Speaker 1:There is a lot For the people who are dying to know what the LAO stands for it's Legal Autonomous Organization, and so it's a play on the original DAO, the one that was hacked and led to Ethereum forking. Way back in the day, aaron Wright, who is the founder of Trib tribute labs, which is originally open law. He wanted to create um, a compliant structure. You know that that operated on the same principles but could operate in the us as a delaware llc gotcha, and so that that's kind of where the legal part. But now that we've like scratched you know that itch for like all two of your listeners who really needed to know that we can move on to more funner things. Um and flamingo. Flamingo is probably the funnest thing any of its members do on chain, and I think that's a big key to its success. Is we all freaking love it. It's. It's the best call of my week. It's.
Speaker 1:It's a group of people who geek out head to toe on all aspects of nfts, on chain culture. You, from simply appreciating the art like we certainly are appreciators you know we tend to have a very savvy mind around how these things behave, and you know, I think, that exists on two levels. Right, like we love just exploring the game theory, understanding, you know, these sort of emerging patterns of behavior that have been taking place in the space and we can we can often spend half our call just walking through the dynamics of a certain thing, or, you know, debating um. You know what a store of value is, how that changes, what are the certain properties of it, but we also certainly like to get into the actual trading of it. Now, we tend to be a buy and hold sort of warehouse operation and so you don't see us very busy on the sell side. But you know, when you own tens of thousands of digital objects and you've been doing it, you know since 2000, you start to run into unique problems that other people don't deal with.
Speaker 1:And so you know, like looking at, like the attention barbell of how NFTs are valued, where you know early on if they happen to break through, you know they go through this period if market conditions are right, where you know they appreciate in value and you know they get up to maybe you know some frothy floor, but then they have to hold that. You know some frothy floor but then they have to hold that. You know they have to hold, hold that value through this sort of long middle period where that attention starts to fade, where there are other bright, shiny things, where what we come to value may change and it has to get to, you know, that other end of the barbell where people can appreciate these things as objects of significance. You know that things that have like cultural importance attached to them and you know, come into the space wanting to acquire something that you know they've heard about, that you know is a brand new concept to them, even though you know it's not. Maybe we've been holding for three years. Or, you know, in the case of, like you know, say, punks that have existed for, you know, almost six years, at this point, um, you know that's the unique thing that flamingo has to think about at scale is how how do you navigate the life cycle of these things and how does that change your collecting? You know, if you don't want to end up with a thousand sappy seals in, you know, sitting in a vault, that, um, you know you don't actively trade right.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, flamingo, I think, by virtue of being early, by virtue of creating a great group of members who have interests all over the place and, having worked together for so long in a very high trust environment, you know where, when someone comes to the table, you know with a thing that maybe you don't have personal interest in or you're not deep enough in, and you know to know to trust that person and and to give them, uh, you know, collectively, you know sort of give that person, um, you know, the green light to go out there and and and act on our behalf and and that that's really powerful as well is.
Speaker 1:You know we all tend to, I don't know, be very loose and trusting and you know, have that relationship where we're big enough as a group where you know no one's the boss of swimming, you know like, and we're all people who you know have, have had that responsibility in other parts of our life, and this is something we come to for joy, and so we tend to work very collaboratively, uh, in a way that just was so refreshing. You know, after having been through the you know rigmarole of working for 20 years and in late neo neoliberal corporate america, you know, um, it's just great to walk into a room like that where none of those power dynamics exist.
Speaker 2:That's incredible, man. It's cool to kind of hear yeah and the and the and the, and the vibe definitely shift when we talked about that and you can, you can hear, um, you know like the, the fun part, like I think that's like the best part about this is that you know we've, you know like the fun part, like I think that's like the the best part about this is that you know we've, you know collecting art's fun, like examining culture's fun, and it sounds like, yeah, it sounds like something really special, man, and I appreciate you like kind of giving a little bit of insight and, behind the curtain, of like how you guys function on a high level, because I've even noticed that within just some small moments in Schiller, where it's like, you know, a lot of us have like great taste in culture. Uh, and there's been times where, um, someone's made a recommendation that you know maybe me or you know you know a few other people uh didn't have on their radar, and that ends up, whether it's an interview, whether it's curating them for like an art release or whatever the case may be, um, it ends up becoming something really special and it's uh building, you know, kind of having that foundational layer of trust of like man, like there's. There's so many things to capture our attention here and, um, it's impossible to have an in-depth knowledge of every aspect, um, especially when it comes comes to culture. But but it's cool to kind of hear that and I guess one of the questions I had for you just that I've always, you know, because you're a deep thinker is and this may come out of left field but terraforms.
Speaker 2:I recently fell down the rabbit hole of just listening to 113 Spaces, you know, probably for the past, one, three spaces, um, you know probably for the past like four or five months, um, but really started to, I guess, have the confidence to try to think about some of the concepts he talks about, um in the space and just really trying to trying to do my best to understand, uh, terraforms, um. So I want to ask, from your perspective you guys own like a few hundred of them.
Speaker 1:You know, uh, what? How would you explain terraforms, um, from your perspective? Okay, terraforms are networked, runtime art that uses, you know, smart contract space, distributed, commute, the affordances of creating art for the chain as a native medium. You know, that's my like fancy. I have to say I know what Terraforms are. Answer, because, if not, you know I'll get scolded online. I mean, one thing about the Terraform folks is they take their Terraforms very, very seriously and I respect this.
Speaker 1:Um, you know it's, it's a 3d hyper castle, um, the each parcel looks very pretty, it flashes, it's dot matrix. You know, all the, all the code that you know is in one one. Three involves brain, uh, has to get manifested in a symbolic nature that we can relate to, and so, you know, we've got these pretty flashing grids that happen to be able to change and be programmed if you want them to. Um, and so you know, that's one way of looking at them, another way maybe of thinking about it, and I don't think we've quite gotten there yet. But with um, the upgrade and satellites and broadcasts, you know, are terraforms moving towards a subscription on on demand?
Speaker 1:Um, you know, maybe a push model of generative art that, you know, does make better use of the space versus, you know, art blocks, which, you know, pioneered the pull model of, you know, generative outputs that are inert, dependent, free, have no external dependencies. Are we going from? Art blocks equals Bitcoin and terraforms equals ETH? And that because they exist as programmable smart contracts right, they're capable of syndicating out generative art and, you know, instead of having to, you know, saddle on up to the Dutch auction honey, we got more art blocks coming. You know, can we now exist in this mode of discovery and joy? You know, when we find our antennas picking up, you know something from their mad minds as they continue to iterate out that project.
Speaker 2:Gotcha Okay, that's a great way of describing that. That's not even close to what I would. I'm still working through that myself, even close to what I would. I'm, I'm, I'm still working, working through that uh, myself, and it's you bring up, but you bring up a couple of great points, um, and something that I've heard, you know them talk about a lot, and that's, I think, just to circle back to the very beginning of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the community around, uh, terraforms is incredibly, uh, is incredibly passionate and incredibly precise, and they've, you know, a lot of people study it very deeply, and I think that's something for me that was like my favorite. Let's call it a side quest, you know, especially like during during the bear market, when there wasn't a whole lot of interesting things to pay attention to and people were generally just, you know, uh, yeah, not, you know, generally speaking, there's a lot of great people that we're building, yeah, not, you know, generally speaking, there's a lot of great people that we're building, uh, but the vibe was just horrendous. Uh, to be here full-time and terraforms was something that I could really sink my teeth into, and it reminded me of when I first came here, of, like, I don't really quite know what this is, but I have a feeling, uh, that I'm just gonna follow and it like makes sense and it and it's challenging me to think in a lot of new ways that I haven't been challenged in before. And I find it really interesting because I missed out on a lot of the early art blocks. I didn't really dive into generative art until last year when we launched Prohibition, because I think for me the biggest thing was I didn't want to get involved purely for the financial aspect. Um, of course, it's, like, you know, always a thing and, uh, it's, it's the challenge of being here is that, you know, do I really enjoy this or is this just making me money type of thing? Cause I didn't really, from a visual perspective and a code perspective, I just hadn't wrapped my mind around that.
Speaker 2:I was still very much, uh, you know, like I, I spent a lot of time interviewing photographers and illustrators and you know, like I spent a lot of time interviewing photographers and illustrators and you know, in more traditional mediums, more things that I could grasp or wrap my head around, and so I find this really it's kind of weird timing that, you know, the moment I get into generative art, you know, we've kind of, we're kind of crossing into this like new frontier of like what generative art could be and what runtime art could be in network art and systems art. Um, those were, you know, concepts, were right. When I started to learn about generative art, I was like, fuck, this kind of like turned it on its head of like, oh man, like now that there's, it's, there's a, there's an even deeper layer, um, to this that I just completely missed, um, so it kind of makes me, um, you know, ever, ever since I've been studying them and looking at them, it kind of makes me wonder, you know and in the beginning I wasn't too confident to say this, but I think you know I am now but it just like a lot of what we, what was valued, you know, from Artblocks, engine and from the early 2021 days. I feel like Terraforms has kind of opened up the collective conscience of like, okay, we haven't really had a new medium of art in a long time. And this feels like computers as the medium and systems as the medium and the world, computer as the medium, just introduce new levels of thought that, if I'm honest, make my head hurt sometimes, but it feels exciting.
Speaker 2:Again, you know it feels, it feels exciting to like for me personally, to kind of undo what I think I know or, like you know, undo you know, some of the like. You know it's like we primarily value things on their visual component and I think this has really challenged me to be able to appreciate terraforms not only at the visual level because they are visually like, I just love to look at them like that's the best part and one of my favorite parts but to look like, you know, 69 layers deep to conceptually what you know, what like, what is this you know and how is this opening the door and what art will be created as a result of Terraform's kind of slamming the door wide open. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent and it's important. Right, like what one, one, three is doing by hosting seven, eight, 42 hour Twitter spaces, going on and on and on about this stuff. Right, like he is opening minds, he's expanding you know, the realm of what is possibility is just by being out there and preaching like that and putting such importance on it. Um, you know, everyone has their part to play, everyone has the thing that they're extremely passionate about and you know him viewing this, right, like programming as an artistic medium, I think is an important frame of reference for a lot of people. And you know people, people, you know, as we get into like sort of archetypes and cultural programming, you know the, the torture genius, artists or the person so far ahead of their time, um, you know that is an important, relatable archetype. Um, you know that helps people, you know, maybe get comfortable with. You know, a whole whole range of possibilities or like all the affordances of this new medium.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, and, and so I think what, what, what's going on there is is really important and, you know, opens up a lot of minds. But also, I think that's one of the best things about this space is that we're operating so far out on the information curve. We're really kind of at that bleeding edge of emergent ideas. That's what gets me in the Like, that's why I get out of bed and why I show up is because it's constantly challenging you to, you know, expand your conceptions, to, you know, evaluate things that you don't really have consensus around and think critically. That stuff's catnip for me, and so, you know, I can certainly appreciate, like Terraforms doing that in, you know, in the form of network digital objects that people can relate to, because you know, like, my catnip is thinking more abstractly in networks and in systems, right, like that's the way my brain's wired and it's kind of it's a more unique position that isn't as common.
Speaker 2:And so you know, we need this whole spectrum of ways to approach you know this, this emerging landscape, yeah, and you, you said a lot of interesting things there and we can, yeah, uh, take this, you know, take this uh a little deeper, but it's, yeah, it's, it's flung the door wide open, like I think one of my favorite phrases is like tupperware art and like that really just stuck with me. I'm like, damn, it's kind of brutal, but it's also very honest. You know like what, what is? Uh, you know what, what is? What is an artist, like a capital, a artist mean? What does Tupperware art mean? And it doesn't really need an explanation. I think if you just sit with that for a while, you kind of understand. Or at least that's what it was with me. And yeah, that was one of the things that gave me a lot of hope during the bear cycle was having someone kind of just so unapologetically, just kind of beat the drum. And you know, I, I think you know I've heard, definitely heard some fair criticisms on, you know, people that are maybe on the outside or like talking about uh, you know the way he talks about it kind of it can, it can be. Some people think it's like condescending at times, um, and I've definitely thought that in the very beginning, but also at the same time, like I've seen him be challenged and being welcome to be challenged and having some thoughtful debate, and I think that's really healthy. And I look at a lot of my favorite artists. You know a lot of. You know one of my favorite bands in the world is tool. You know that is my favorite band in the world.
Speaker 2:But you look at maynard, you know he kind of has a very similar uh, you know he kind of has a very similar aura. You know where he like he loves to create and he's good at what he creates, but he doesn't give a fuck about, you know, like the fans in general. You know like he loves what he does, uh, but even in the vip shows he never like when we do soundcheck like part of the vip show is getting soundcheck, um, he never is there for the soundcheck. Like like part of the VIP show is getting soundcheck, um, he never is there for the soundcheck. Like he could care less. You know, um, and he doesn't really like meeting people and he doesn't really like he's loosened up a little bit over the years but what I'm saying is that people have grown to appreciate that that's just who he is, you know, but he's, he's unapologetically himself and he knows, like what he's good at and what he's not, and people love him for that.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's kind of like the way I've approached you know. Approach that Like if you're not, if you don't have some level of like delusion about yourself or like you're not delusionally bullish about yourself in a few aspects, it's kind of hard to, it's kind of hard to sell it, you know, like it's like if I'm, if you're not bullish on you, how can I be bullish on you? Type of mindset is the way I look at that and I think that it can definitely for people who are, just like you know, new to that, it can definitely be a culture shock and use the simple sense of that word. But yeah, I think I really appreciate the level of curiosity as far as, like you know, what he's done and what he's allowed people to do, enabled people to do. There's, there's nothing, yeah, it's been like the one thing that I've, yeah, that I've just I guess I've really appreciated and so I guess, maybe, maybe on that on that beat, as like systems as art, as network, you know network, maybe on that on that beat, as like systems as art as network, you know, network art, um, you know, in an ever increasing like you know like, and this may make sense, it may not make sense, so just bear with me here a little bit.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, this podcast is audio only, you know, um, and video and visuals are so dominant in our culture and I'm constantly at odds with wanting to do video, not wanting to do video, and really I find a lot of value in just audio and I think it's a very primal sound. I think just looking at things that aren't necessarily super, super pretty forces me to really be present with whatever I'm consuming and I kind of look at that as like code based art, you know as well. Or, like you know, looking at, maybe not, the beauty is not necessarily the visual, the beauty is the concept. Um, I guess it's really what I'm going towards and I'm making it. Maybe I might be making a weird abstract connection there, um, but I guess you know as a result, I guess you know, as a result of this, you know, maybe in the next couple years because I see 1.1.3 doing this with Terraforms Do you see anyone else kind of making systems art as well?
Speaker 2:I think Han is a great example as well, but I would love to kind of know have you seen any other artists kind of taking this and running with it? I guess is the question I'm looking for, because I'd be really curious to know, because I think it really just challenges what we think is valuable. Is it visual, is it the code, is it the concept? Yeah, I guess there's a lot there, but would love to know maybe have you seen any additional artists that are kind of pushing the boundaries in a similar way?
Speaker 1:My favorite show last year was AGH. I think that was in December, maybe November, but that was Kim Assendorf, andreas Geissen, leander Herzog and they, you know they're very much in this camp of creating runtime art that you know is digitally native is hella amazing to look at, but it doesn't exist until you execute it right is hella amazing to look at, but it doesn't exist until you execute it right. You call the art, the art runs. You don't hang the art on the wall, you don't print out a picture of it, it's not designed for a specific screen resolution, right, like what they're producing is thinking digitally native. And you know how to represent that stuff. I mean in browser, right, whatever form browser happens to take, have gun will travel, you know, create generative art that fits and forms to screen and is not something that you know you're storing as a file or printing and putting a picture on your wall. And I think you know there's Terraform's, because maybe he's so system oriented in his thought and you know like is working one giant ongoing project, uh, the pair of them, whereas you know ass and orf geysin like they're working more within the constraints of long form generative, um, you know they're sort of like binding themselves to an algorithm. And you know the beauty of that sort of work is how can you create an algorithm that has enough, you know form to it and definition that you can see.
Speaker 1:You know 500 pieces, whatever the number is, and go okay, that's all the same algo, but at the same time, you know, provide that level of diversity across it. You know that's a very fine you know fine tightrope to walk it and that that is sort of the you know the beauty of what that that whole side of the house is doing is. You know it is a form of simulation to some degree. It's like how can I button this thing up to the point that you know it then can produce enough identifiable iterations that you know it keeps people engaged but you know stands around the same sort of you know, visual ID, you know that it exists as its own draft. So, like I would say those. You know we need people sort of planting that level of maximalism. And you know just being digitally native, being runtime first, and you know like that's a debate that slurs up every. You know that's a. That's a debate that slurs up every. You know three months or so depending how you know itchy
Speaker 1:people get is the the formalist versus native schools in the gen art branch. And look, we all. We need both. Right like to to be, you know, monolithic in our taste and our values. Isn't what, like working in a prolificness network is about, but like I fucking loved when there's a vanguard willing to, you know, take a position, really embrace it and just push forward, you know, with a lot of confidence about what they're doing, because that's how we advance and progress. And so to see that show, to know that, know that they were the ones who put it together themselves, they were doing it in a way that wanted to express their shared values and what they're working towards. I just thought it was incredibly inspiring and I will say Crush was my favorite drop last year by Andreas. It was just amazing.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to look that up because I think I was not around for that man. Yeah, but yeah, I couldn't. Yeah, it goes back to the very you know kind of the first part of our conversation around thinking in black and white and I think is, uh, that's probably if I, if I had to nail down a level of you know, uh, nail down a feeling or put words to a feeling, um was when I first came here, was that that's the way this felt. This felt like, uh, in a world that's just it's, it's kind of trying to grapple with how fast it's moving or people are trying to grasp uh, grapple with how fast it's moving. And I think, if I'm just my opinion of like that's kind of why we've become a lot more, or like why a lot of people are trying to bucket things in black and white and like this or that, instead of like a kind of like we were just talking about, like an and or a permissionless approach where it's there's a lot of overlap, there's a lot of different ways to think about things. There's a, there's an area where both can exist and it goes. It goes back even further to something I you know and, uh, some people may cringe, and you may cringe as well, but you know, uh, I still found it really valuable.
Speaker 2:When I first started creating content, Um, I was a big consumptive. I consumed a lot of Gary Vee, you know, and like I still, uh, it's easy to clown, you know, I don't know a lot of people in crypto have clowned him, but he really introduced this thought of like this is a big fucking internet, you know, Um, and there is enough. There's enough for everybody here, and it doesn't have to be a zero sum game, Like there's a lot of this or that and this is a very, you know, it was a dominant way of thinking for me back 2017, 2018. And I've kind of still carried that through and that has remained kind of timeless for me, where it's like, you know, it's real easy to want to go, to want to draw like back, and you know, to like, go back, to like what's comfortable of like trying to bucket something and put a label on it and not allowing it to be multifaceted or not allowing multiple trains of thought to happen at the same time.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's just something that I think that you know, as we evolve, there's been a few things that have just stood out for me, and this is this is one of those where it kind of challenges that you know, just kind of that headstrong nature of you know someone who really believes in something and it and it challenges me to to to bust through that or shatter the thinking of you know, uh, someone who really believes in something and it and it challenges me to to to bust through that, uh, or it shattered the thinking of of you know, um, you know, trying to just be super simple, you know, or trying to just be super comfortable, because if I look back at what great art is and this is just coming from someone who you know, uh, I became an accidental art collector as a result of spending so much time here is that, when I visited a lot of great museums and I've learned more about art history, is that a lot of like great art really, it's at its core. It helps you see the world in a new way, you know, and that's what I think that this does. Do we want more of the same? Do we want to just like clamor about more of the same? It definitely had, you know, definitely had a lot of this art definitely had its time. But this, to me, introduces a new way of looking at it, a new way of seeing Um cause, to me, like systems at systems is art.
Speaker 2:If you would have told me, like systems art and code-based art is something that, like I would be interested in, you know, even just joining the space three years ago, I would have told you you're absolutely nuts. You know um, and even my parents, like you know, my mom's, like I don't, I don't view code as like art. You know, and that's you know, that's just her perspective. I look, she looks at it very differently, um, but I think that, uh, yeah, the the long-winded, roundabout way way of making point is that to me, this type of systems art is helping people see, maybe kind of what you know initially. Going back to the thread of our initial conversation around, you know, constellation of networks, you know it starts to open people's mind into like, okay, like, how does this help us see the new world that we're kind of like stumbling our way into?
Speaker 1:If that makes sense. It totally does Look. We are constantly in search of meaning, right Like that's what it is to be human is to try to make sense of the world. And you know we operate on two levels as human beings, right Like there is the biological self that is going to die, that is basically unbounded by the limitations of our biological self, and we constantly live in that duality of physically I can only do certain things, but mentally I can go all sorts of places, only do certain things, but mentally I can go all sorts of places.
Speaker 1:And you know that irreconcilable difference of those two selves leaves us constantly hunting for meaning and constantly hunting for new ways to relate to the world. You know such that we're always like seeking out expansive thoughts. We're always seeking out new ways of looking at the world. And you know our openness to what is new kind of depends on, like, where we are. You know generationally where we are in our lives. You know what's the importance of meaning making and how do we value that relative to all these other things.
Speaker 1:And so of course, your mom, you know, is going to have a hard time getting around programming as art, but you who are in a different stage of your life. Like you're, you're more open to that and it's great that it's there to you know, plug into that big brand of yours and and munch around and say like, is this something that I can, I can make more sense of the world with? Because you know I need these sort of um communal myths and and pieces of cultural importance that signify where we are in a place in time and and you know the sort of cosmic trajectory we're, we're all on. You know it helps. You know evolution and progress helps give some comfort to that. You know immortal, sacred self to know like we're part of a bigger thing and this bigger thing is getting better every day.
Speaker 2:Really like the way, yeah, I really like the way you put that um, kind of that cosmic search. You know, um, and I I look at this as, like there there's moments, you know, I think I think in a lot of different ways and I'll, uh, in a lot of different ways. You know, we're we're going through a massive shift as a species, just as a, as humans as a whole, and I think there's times where I'm like, fuck, I really liked reading about change in history books, you know, but like, I don't necessarily enjoy being a part of the change sometimes, uh, but then there's this aspect, you know, that's usually the, usually the, the, the afterthought, but the most part it's it's incredibly exciting to be a part of a massive shift in the way we're operating. You know, like that, that digital and physical self, it's we're starting to become more digital, we're starting to unlock the mind a little bit more, starting to unlock what's really possible, how we view the world, what makes sense, you know, new ways of seeing and, again, like it's, it's stressful at times, but also, you know, it's kind of really cool and I think what really drove me it, what it's what really excited me about technology in the first place. You know I was.
Speaker 2:I was the guy who bought, who watched the first iPhone keynote and went and stood in line and paid $500, $600 for the 4 gigabyte, no 3G, no App Store iPhone, and it was kind of this like utopian feeling of like, wow, the world's going to be changing and this device is going to change the world, and I think it's safe to say that it absolutely did. Um, and I think that that's really what we're on, like what we're experiencing right now, just in a way, in a much different way. Uh, financially, we're seeing, you know, a new guard of, uh, like you're seeing, like you know, uh, a lot of wealth transfer happening currently, right now, with just the crypto general, but also, you know, immortalizing culture, uh, on chain and being able to, um, you know, not pan to. I know we still do it as a whole and it's something that I think we we definitely, you know, uh need to consistently be be mindful of, but, like you know, we don't have to pan to like greater institutions. As far as the art side to become valuable, like you said a lot earlier, is, like we, there's enough people and there's enough unity here that we've created something so valuable that institutions have come to us.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, you know, you look at the Tashin book. You know there's a lot that I'm going to bring this up Cause I, you know, uh, I bought it and I fucking love it, but at the same time, people I think were missing out or looking at it in a very weird way of like, oh, we're looking for validation from them and it's like I think the really important thing is that they saw what we were doing and thought it was worth a good use of their time and resources to build a four foot about, about what we've been building here. Uh, and Tashin's one of the best, you know, the most renowned publishers in the world, um, you know. So I think that's something really cool that you know, while we pander for attention from, like Christie's or Sotheby's or bigger institutions, like it's easy, you know, like if you look at the subtleties, it's like these people have come to us, you know, and that's kind of a really cool thing to be a part of, and I think people oftentimes can miss that. But there is a side of the space that people do, you know, still just seek and crave validation from larger institutions as a whole. But it's really interesting, I think, about this kind of we're on the same beat here is I really am curious like what, um, the future kind of looks like, with, you know, systems art becoming more prevalent.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, runtime art becoming more prevalent. You know what are. You know, like, what are museums going to look like, uh, in the next, you know, five to ten years? Um, is are there. You know, like, what are museums going to look like in the next, you know five to 10 years? Is are there? You know how will this work be primarily consumed? Will it be, you know, online, through our browser?
Speaker 2:And do we not just, do we just, stop going to museums as much? You know what type? Is there a way to put this culture into museums? Is there a new way to like build a museum? And, if so, what would that look like in the context of what we're building here? How do you make this physical? But also, you know, how do you, how do you physically show what is happening here, and does that even matter?
Speaker 2:You know, cause I I'm of the, I'm of the thought, like I I've always been, you know, like I've always just been an experiential person where I, you know you do things for the experience, like art as an experience is something really new to me, and I think that's what this really has opened up is finding unique and fun ways to like, interact with the art, to become part of the art, and I think that's what blockchain and systems art has allowed people to do. And so I just I wonder, you know, in the, in the era of, you know, spatial computing that's that's currently, that's currently knocking on the door, that's currently out what this really looks like and what role institutions play and does it? You know, do they just end up? Do we just end up fucking building it ourselves, um, and they come in or do? Is there a way to? Um, yeah, is there a way to kind of build a new type of museum? I guess is the the through line to this entire ramble? Um, and something I've thought about a lot yes, what?
Speaker 1:what is a museum? I mean, you know, a museum is an overlay, the same way the radio is an overlay, right, they're not going to go away, they're not going to disappear. Will their importance matter to in the same way? You know that it has in the past? I don't think so. You know, museums by and large are relatively recent phenomenon, or at least the proliferation of museums, right. Like we need to go back to, at least in America. You know, the accumulation of capital by the robber barons in the late 19th century. The reason, you know, we have such a large museum culture here in America is partially because we had an inferiority complex as a new nation to Europe. But it's also because, you know, people like Frick accumulated just huge amounts of physical objects, artuary, etc. Etc. And then they died and their family didn't know what the heck to do with this stuff. Uh, you know, and so like, let's not like, treat museums as the sort of hallowed things like you got to realize at a certain point.
Speaker 1:You know, in in, in the arc of the ultra high net worth individual, they discover that philanthropy is a form of power that you don't need more capital. What you need is influence, networks, or you know you're on what, like ernest becker calls uh an imbracality project, where you have a need to be remembered, uh after after you died. And if you look around and you know what were you known for? Um, you know you were known for I don't know. You know consolidating the supply and distribution of um. You know industrial Coke used to make steel. That's not a great memory of you. You know industrial Coke used to make steel. That's not a great memory of you. You know that you crushed a bunch of workers in Pennsylvania and so you're going to build a big, you know a big building with stick your name on it and fill it with things that you know you found important.
Speaker 1:And so, look, I'm not knocking museums, right, but I'm also I don't want to put them on the same sort of pedestal other people do, because, at the end of the day, like these institutions, you know, despite what they say, their mission is, despite what you know, the values they project outwards. At the same time, they were formed for, you know personal motivations. They were formed for you know maybe less knowable reasons. It might be simply, I mean, look at the Medici family at a certain point, like you know, who on earth wants to keep all this stuff.
Speaker 1:You know, I was in Florence over the summer and it was such an amazing last summer. It was such an amazing city, I absolutely loved it. But, like, the sheer scope of stuff floating around that city is staggering. I mean, how much artwork of the Madonna was commissioned, you know, between the years 1350 and 1620. And a lot of this stuff, like they had to dig up, you know it was just found sitting in attics or, you know, stuck in the corner of warehouses for generations until, you know, some family member just got really curious and started rummaging around and then they, you know, they realized, oh my god, all this stuff, like what the hell are we going to do with it?
Speaker 2:and so, you know, museums, um, certainly serve a great purpose, but they're also sort of fetishized object collections that may have been a little more accidental when you actually get under the hood of how these things came to be that's a perspective I haven't heard and appreciate you sharing kind of the yeah, the history behind that or like what, why they were formed, and I, you know, I I think a lot of things though like there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that were never like a lot of things, I think if I were to say, you know, uh, there's a lot of things that probably weren't started by the best of intentions, but becoming something, you know, becoming something, and but I really like your perspective around, I just I look at what really stuck out to me. There is just like putting things on a pedestal, and I think it's just human beings, it's hard to not put things or people or, you know, whatever we enjoy on a pedestal. It's really to not put things or people or whatever we enjoy on a pedestal. It's really hard not to. And I'm going to make the nerdy movie reference and I'm sure Fudgie will clown me for this just because I've recently become obsessed with cinema, and I guess I've always have been, but recently I've been going a little crazy watching some of these different movies.
Speaker 2:But if you look at why Frank Herbert createdune messiah and all the other dune books, it's because, like you know, on an individual level, it's not necessarily the best thing to uh like idolize and worship a messiah. You know, like you can see the consequences of of of that play out in the second, you know the second book, so I haven't read the third one. That's really that's actually on my on my list right now. But you know, the way Dune was perceived is that Paul is this, like you know, hero that was propped up on a pedestal in the Messiah that's going to bring, you know, a paradise to Arrakis Um, but in Messiah and and and Dune, messiah, like you see a very different side of that and you really kind of see what happened post drinking the water of life and pre water life and post His mindset completely shifted into a less noble cause, and so I think I look at that to bring that back to what you were saying is it's easy to kind of put these institutions up on a pedestal, but I really liked the way you just kind of reduced uh, museums to be like, yeah, they just really wanted to to find a way to be remembered to, to be remembered by something, and they were just kind of realizing like they had too much shit and wanted to figure out a way to display it. Um, I think that's really, that's really fascinating.
Speaker 2:So maybe I guess, if I'm thinking here, you know the, because the thing that I enjoy, I guess, about museums is that they provide a place to like be quiet and think and learn and like look at the past, and I think that's really, you know, as I mentioned a little earlier, when I was walking through the MoMA a couple NFT NYCs ago, that was one thing that really stuck out to me was just kind of having a place to consume art history, and it was really cool.
Speaker 2:But again, I think the through line to this conversation is that it's great to appreciate them, but it can be dangerous to overhype, be dangerous to over, uh, overhype them or put them on too high of a pedestal, um, because I guess the permit, you know, the permissionless nature of what we're building is kind of, you know, it goes, it goes against that ethos, um, it goes completely against that Um, and if I'm, if I'm, if I'm being real honest and this is, uh, I think we've seen a microcosm of you know what people are, you know what you had mentioned there, of like, people want to have something to be remembered by and they wanted to slap their name on a museum and slap, you know, fill it with a bunch of cultural objects that mean a lot to them.
Speaker 2:I think we've been seeing that a lot with, like some of the early, a lot of people's just dialogue around a lot of the early art blocks, collections and them being like historical and like over romanticizing it.
Speaker 2:And you know, just that was something that I learned in a one, one, three space as well, or just kind of. I didn't necessarily learn, but opened my perspective to was like damn, like what are we really celebrating here? You know, like what? Like it's not that this work isn't important, but like what are we? What are we really celebrating here? And I think people who maybe have a lack of um, what am I, what am I going to call it? A lack of, I guess, courage to think a little different, to break from the pack, to explore a new way thinking, they just want to find comfort, uh, comfort and safety in some of these digital objects that were produced just about three years ago, like two to three years ago. So I think you're kind of like seeing a version of that play out digitally as well when it comes to people just hoarding around these objects.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, I don't consider myself a collector. I I think of myself as a minimalist, as a piece around my basement completely filled with stuff. But, um, you know, to exist is to be like complicit in contradiction. So I'm gonna imagine I'm a minimalist, as I, like you know, walk through my like house that you know it's got kids and a wife and and pictures on the wall and all that stuff. But we're gonna pretend I'm the guy who just has a mattress on his polished concrete floor and nothing else. Um, but I'm, I don't consider myself a collector, you know. But now I probably have like 800, 900 NFTs God knows how many, you know and I spend a lot of my free time helping to build, you know, the largest NFT collection in the world.
Speaker 1:And so it's a tricky one, right? Because you talk out of one side of your mouth and then you look at your actions and you're like, no, I'm an object fetishist, but we have to navigate through this world. And so and part of that is the stories we tell ourselves to justify our actions and those stories don't need to be consistent. We can be a whole spectrum of behaviors. We can consider ourselves, you know, in an idealized world, to be a minimalist. And then you know, we I mean, look, flamingo kind of sorted out a lot of the early store of value theory around digital objects. Right, we've helped craft a lot of the narratives of the importance of these things in the space. We've made a few particular vibes. Or we, we've taken some editorial stances that canonize, you know, the, the importance of these things and the stories people are telling themselves. And so, like I'm certainly knee deep in that whole thing, I think the I don't know like I always look at it first and foremost as I'm a participant, right, like I am here at a moment in time that matters in the space that I actually still have agency and impact in, and that's something unique and special. I can't influence politics in the US. I, you know I can somewhat influence consumer behavior in the prepaid wireless sector.
Speaker 1:Right, it comes to like an emerging culture or a way of thinking, like this is one of the few places right, just by showing up every day expressing my values, sharing my thoughts, um, converting ethan to objects.
Speaker 1:Right, like we all have, uh, outsized impact as participants in shaping the future of the states and from that lens, it's important for us to celebrate, to lionize, like to build up a communal myth around the importance of these things, because, even though we're traveling from attention flow to attention flow in network space and we're jumping around, jumping around, we do need to lay down mile markers.
Speaker 1:We do need to lay down points at which, either we return to um, because we can't live on the bleeding edge constantly, we're going to drop dead, right, we need to return to things that are comforting to us, but we also need to lay the way for other people as they come into the space, right Like we are building a bit of a network museum, right Like a distributed, decentralized set of stories that exist, you know, across main net, you know are starting to exist in other chains, and we need to be able to point people to those things and we need to give them context for what we, as participants, chose to place importance on at that moment in time that's a yeah I that well said.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, it's. I think you touched on a few of you know, um, a few of a few points of what we talked about earlier around, um, kind of kind of the kind of the challenge of like being like building the ship as you're or building the plane as you're, flying it, um, and not really knowing you know what what piece goes where next, uh, and kind of figuring that out in real time. It's exhausting. So it makes sense to have, yeah, I mean, and I I do it all the time, like, I do it all the time with, with things I fall back on culturally, you know, I still like, whether it's uh nostalgic, whether it's yeah, whatever stories I tell myself, like, I uh again fall back to a lot of those things to kind of find I think that's really where cinema has come, come played a big role for me. It's almost like a comfort zone of like disconnecting and disassociating with the space for a little bit, just to like get lost in a world, you know, just to get lost in a story, um, and I think we have moments where we, where we can do that Um, you know to, yeah, that makes sense to to kind of like help people have some points of reference when they come in here. Uh, cause, everyone.
Speaker 2:The reality is that, you know, as the more, the older I get, is that life is literally just a bunch of stories. You know, and and, and the stories we tell ourselves are incredibly important. The stories are what's passed down and the stories are what makes something interesting and, um, a horrific case. You know, usually the stories that we tell are some of the ones that, um, you know, were maybe a little bit outside of the norm, um, that were a surprise, that, um, yeah, that were memorable, but at the end of the day, it's all. It's all just a bunch of stories, uh, and that's really what gives a lot of meaning, and if we don't have that, then there's no fucking point. Um, so, very well said, uh, and I, I really appreciate that that point you just made there. Um, I, we haven't even dude. I, we haven't even dude, we haven't even touched ai. Uh, we haven't even touched the convergence of, of ai. It's all been product and and blockchain and culture. Uh, you know, and I recently, um, it's kind of, is a mix of all of those.
Speaker 2:Uh, but your article, um, uh, around around meme culture and around ai uh tooling or like the ad space and how the deck you know, like Dex tools, is like the current, you know, place to find cultural memes and cultural relevance and stores of value and where these like financialized narratives. We haven't even really gone there and maybe we don't, but you know, one thing I wanted to highlight on is you spend a lot of time making music and you recently produced yeah, you just recently. You're kind of diving headfirst into that realm. I would love to just kind of maybe touch on that a bit of like why you know what's the curiosity for you to do that. Is it just, you know, like straight up, because you want to like make music or like you've never been able to before? Is it scratching a certain itch that you haven't been able to scratch in a while? Um, would just really love to know, maybe, what you're exploring in this realm of ai music it was completely accidental.
Speaker 1:Um, so we can start with there. I came to ai music the week of christmas because I'm spending a lot of time looking at how ai, generative ai systems can be used to enable networks, media, long-form narrative storytelling. In a way that's native to what we're actually doing and as part of that it's exploring all the various tools and it's also this idea that text can exist as a base layer that you can render everything else on top of right. And as ai gets more powerful and has this ability to transform layers of information into these new views, right like text will always sit there at that bottom layer and then you'll use what's in front of you at that moment of time and to transform that into a view. And so, as part of that line of thinking, I wanted to figure out I have this world building project called Starholder where I do a log, speculative fiction, and I'd say maybe a quarter to a third of it I've written myself, of it I've written myself and the rest is all been co-created with GPT. Um, you know, through this process of like guided prompting, um, and you know free association and kind of being a little looser and faster and being able to to hit a broader canvas of ideas or work at a faster pace than than writing fiction. Um, you know, in a traditional way enables me to, and so I wanted to render up one of my stories into a video. I wanted to see what that transformation looked like and you know, so I created this chassis for storytelling. You know, I rendered a bunch of, you know, image sets in DALI, I ran them in Runway to kind of bring some motion into it and then, you know, just use a text-to-speech engine to do the narration, uh, of the story. And so I was in this ai storytelling project and I got to the point where I needed music and I was like, oh, my god, how am I gonna? Um, but you know, we've been following, uh, what's happening over at dailiesxyz and AI short form video for a while now, and you know they're using it and I'm like, okay, what tool are they using? They're using Suno. All right, let me mess around with Suno and see what it's like. And I just fell down the rabbit hole, um, but it's like, and I just fell down the rabbit hole, um, and so you know, I spent. My wife was out of the country, uh, during that stretch. She took her mom back home, um, and so it was just, you know, me, the kids, I had a lot of free time at night and this is, you know, what I got drawn into Um and it.
Speaker 1:It works in a more accessible medium, you know, than fiction. Um, it's funny because, you know, I am a creator, I like to make things, but the, the stuff I, you know, I find more fascinating isn't an easy medium, um, for our space. I don't deal in still images, and so, you know, I have this weird, um, weird thing where I am a very creative and can be a productive person at times but, like, I do stuff that no one really gives a shit about because, um, it's not in like a preferred form of speculation, or you can't really consume it in in five seconds. Um, and you know, it's kind of ironic that music sort of sits in that same spot as well, like, I guess that's just, you know, either a unfortunate coincidence or maybe it's, you know, subconsciously intentional on my part, but, um, I like being in a relatively unexplored terrain. I liked the sophistication of the tooling, that it was actually a lot further along than I had any idea, and then it is something that I don't have to be very attenuated about going into it, and that's a big difference versus the visual stuff because, you know, in a past life I did run an in-house creative agency amongst like a bunch of other things I did.
Speaker 1:But you know, that's like selling telecom right, and so producing posters, posters, layouts, messaging, hierarchies, um it it's a very sort of, you know, strict approach and so, on the visual side, I I tend to have this like level of specificity and what I'm looking for. That, um is a little hard with the AI tools, but when I come to something like music, I can just flow and I can have so much fun with that. And you know it is writing like I I'm not making music. I'm having a conversation, you know, with an AI engine in which the words I write, you know, get, get translated and expressed into music and I can, I can work quickly, I can cover a bunch of different concepts, but I can also just walk into it kind of musically, knowing a place I want to try to explore but be a complete blank slate otherwise, and I find that very liberating and freeing and, um, yeah, it's just something I like to do at like 11, 30 at night, when the rest of my house goes to bed. It's like, either I'm gonna play around at pga 2k on my playstation, yeah, I'm gonna video game golf, I'm gonna make music, um, but as I've like spent more time with it, right, like dude's joy, and being able to put out product this quickly, there's joy in being a one-person creative shop that delivers this level of polishing, sophistication.
Speaker 1:Um, it's incredibly freeing for me because this is what I used to do for a living. Except I had to do it, you know, in a way that justified costs, right, I had to build and design product. I had to tell stories. I had to do it, you know, in a way that justified costs, right, I had to build and design product. I had to tell stories. I had to, um, you know, pay designers and creatives to to do all this, and so it all had to be justified and really like to me, part of this music thing and I love music, by the way like it's, you know I've, um, yeah, I've always been around music. I've got a huge working knowledge of it, just from being an old guy at this point um, but to be able to, to combine, like the fact that I do have opinions, I do have taste.
Speaker 1:I am looking for a certain thing and I can kind of evaluate and have enough confidence in what I'm after, um, with, you know, this set of tooling and the seed with which it works. Where I'm on a pace right now where I can, um, I can make like an eight track, 25 minute album a week if I wanted to. I've kind of figured out that's like the right format, that's the right sizing for me. I was getting a little too big earlier but if I can do, like you know, eight to 10 songs that you know I'll clock in at like two and a half to three and a half minutes, so you know, and have a few that maybe are just one minute and I can put together this shorter form thing.
Speaker 1:I just I love it. You know it's fun and that's why I do it. But I also do it because my world needs music. Right, I'm building a world of star holder and, like I want to fill it with a bunch of different, you know, media types and modalities, such that when the time comes and the technology is there, right, we'll be able to pull all of that into more immersive experiences, you know, that are multimodal, that are multimedia, and so I'll have the soundtrack to my own stories to you know that you know anc might be exploring in a simulation. Um, I was literally about to go there.
Speaker 1:So part of this, yeah yeah, I mean a lot of this is really weird for me, because I do spend a bunch of my creative time essentially using machines to make media for machined, not entirely sure where that's going to go, and knowing that machines don't have the same set of subjective values or joys that we do and that, ultimately, all of this is trying to create something that humans will appreciate. It's not in a form yet where people will be able to get their heads around it, and so one of the beauties of being semi-retired spending half my week in engaging ways in which I can make some money is I get to spend my other half of the week just being really far out there and doing things that that I don't know, you know, get me out of bed man, I really I, I really, um, I can appreciate the, the like.
Speaker 2:I love how you've kind of found the, the. I guess you're what really uh, can you? What you can really nail down or what really brings you the most joy is like the music part, but it's a, it's a much, it's a greater part of this, this bigger picture, and I think that's something that, um, it's real easy to like get lost and I I noticed that just what, especially because I've spent a lot of my time around creators the past couple years and, um, it's easy to like not want to try new tools because the vision of what you're trying to execute is not like the tools can't quite get it there just yet. But the way I look at this is that, like the, the tools right now are the worst they're going to consistently be. This is the worst it's ever going to be right now, like it's only going to exponentially improve in. The rate at which we've seen this technology grow, specifically around AI is just is astronomical, and it's kind of. It makes my head hurt at times to see how fast this has really accelerated or how, yeah, just how fast it's accelerated over the past just six months to a year and I can. What this reminds me of is there's a.
Speaker 2:There is a talk that I went to at South by Southwest here just a couple days ago, and we're kind of entering in this new world where they basically showed this 10 minute story that they were telling and it was produced by they hired this creative agency. There were some guys that were using a lot of AI in the video creation and the way they were crafting the story. Was one of the dudes who, like I can't remember his name, but he basically played a big role in in the original lord of the rings trilogy, uh, movie series and, um, what I'm getting at here is that I think that outside of kind of like the runtime art that we're experiencing now, like what people are going to be looking for is like immersive simulations and immersive experiences, and like that's like things where you can interact with the world around you in a lot of different ways. Like you're creating the soundtrack to the world you want to, that you're that you're creating and, uh, it means a lot to you, but it but it also gels with some of the writing. Um, it gels with some of the imagery. It gels with some of the imagery it gels with you know what you're, what you're currently building, uh, or with the rest of what you're building. And it's what I picked up on is that there's not just one thing, it's a lot of different things and you're your own.
Speaker 2:You know, uh, creative studio and um, I think people are gonna want, in time I mean, this might be a, I might just be, you know, don't. I don't know how right or wrong this thought is, but it's just what I believe it's that um, I think people are going to want. I think people are going to get tired and jaded of, like some of the speed of social media. Um, I know, at least I am. That's why I kind of seek escapes, you know, um, through different forms of art outside of here, um, but I think people are going to be want, uh, people are going to want more immersive worlds, um, especially with, uh, you know, the Apple vision pro coming out and I'm sure a slew of products are going to be built, you know, in the next couple of years as a result of that Um, because I think it's slamming the door wide open to, to what we're about to um, or where we're headed um, as a society, as a species technologically, um, and I think people are going to want to um have different, unique and interesting and exciting ways to uh interact with art. And I think the, the TL, the, the long. The point I'm making is that world building and story building um are going to be um, that's just like my prediction of, like what we're going to be most excited about. Um, and I think that, you know, while, not while right now we have big clunky, you know, ski goggle headsets, that um, that are incredibly advanced um, it's only going to get smaller and better Uh, and people are going to want to start craving more of that, at least from what I've seen um in the world that I envision, um, you, you know, especially as we go more and more, yeah, digital um, and so I can, really, you know, I, I, I enjoy the fact that you just find you like either you can either play video games or you can make music, uh, and I have a friend that's in a very similar but one of my, one of my mentors I met a while back.
Speaker 2:He does, does, he does a lot of similar stuff. He's been creating music with AI and has absolutely been geeking out about it and bringing, finding new ways to make new sounds and new and new forms of media. So yeah, long winded way of saying like that's really fucking cool and I and I can, I can, I can respect and appreciate that just like need to live kind of like in the edge of what most people aren't really trying to consume just yet yeah, look it's, it's how I'm wired, it's where I like to be.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, I I work through kind of these self-motivated processes of discovery, and just how far out on the information curve can I get, you know, it's just that's environments that are suited really well for me. But I also tend to think that I have the ability to be two weeks ahead of everyone, and it's not always, it's not always, it's not consistent. I'm often, you know, I miss, I miss shit all the time, right, but I can get a hold of something ahead of the curve and I don't know if, you know, I'm two weeks ahead of everyone or if I'm a year ahead of everyone. But like that, that kind of like gets me by in life. Um, you know, and and I'm glad I live in interesting times because you know it's an advantage for me now, had I lived in a different period of time, right, maybe I wouldn't have made it. You know, maybe if I was part of, like, the silent generation post-world war ii, you know I would have been the pain in the ass that, uh, you know, couldn't sit down and file their TPS reports every day. So, you know, I'm extremely lucky and fortunate to be in this situation.
Speaker 1:But I also think it's important work and it's something I do believe deeply in. You know, if I can get like philosophical for a second, if I can get like philosophical for a second right, like you know, there's a Hegelian dialectic right. Things swing from one side of the pendulum to the other and then, you know, they sort of find consensus in the middle ground. That middle ground then becomes, you know, the, the trad consensus view that we then need to react against and and that's how we evolve right there there's that basic concept, um. But then you know, we can jump over to mccluhan right and mccluhan's thoughts on media and how the tools shape us as much as we shape the tools, and realize that you know we're in this very important period of time that is tantamount to the revolution that started with Gutenberg's printing press.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you look at what Gutenberg did, he created the situations for the Enlightenment and for the elevation of the self right that we used to live prior to gutenberg, in this age of communal oral myth that didn't have any form of ownership other than collective ownership, by moving, you know, towards books and into this form of one-on-one communication of ideas and like broadcast communication in which you couldn't push back at the author, you just had to consume the author. Right, we've been living that point like all the way up until right now. You know the idea that there's only a handful of media companies and they choose what we can consume and we just sit on a couch and passively consume it. Right, the beautiful thing about being in this network environment now is we have a, we have an opportunity to upend that whole, you know, dominant media distribution narrative from one of passive consumption of scripted um, you know scripted content and views into something that's an active, active participation and, like shared group, unscripted telling of our communal myth. Right, we can both go backwards into, like you know, an old modality of, like tribal meaning making, but we can do it in this digital world where, like we're you know, by this digital world, where we're like we're, you know, by operating digital physics, we're not bounded by those you know the sort of constraints we used to have and I think it's really important that you know we're able to live a public life of meaning making.
Speaker 1:You know Hannah Arendt talks about this in the human condition that you know, we have a private life and we have a public life like.
Speaker 1:That's how the ancient greeks ordered their world.
Speaker 1:And, you know, in your private life, you, you provided for your biological needs, you took care of your family and you tended to whatever the business affairs.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, you ran your farm, your oil press, etc. But when you were done with that, or, more accurately, when your slaves and your women were done doing that work, that you just kind of oversaw, you then went out into a public life in which you debated ideas, you debated values, you formed the meaning of your society, and we don't have that secondary part anymore. Right like I can't walk out into the town square and, you know, change the fate of new york city. Yeah, um, but we can do that in digital spaces, right like we, we do have that ability in our space and we just haven't gotten to the point where we figured out how to adapt long-form narrative and communal myth-making into that active agency, open up that accessibility to kind of tell these communal stories, to, to live out myths, and in which we want to express agency in a way that you know wasn't possible before man that, yeah, I, I didn't even really think about.
Speaker 2:I didn't really think about that when it comes to, I guess, before you know, before the printing press, and kind of how there was these, yeah, like all the way back to the Greeks, like even further back, that the idea of two separate lives, you know, and kind of how people operated in those worlds. And you know as much as, like, guess, I, I as you know, oh, granted, it's not like on on chain, but, like you know, x is primarily where the crypto space, uh, lives and it's really where, um, I've had a lot of serendipitous, like moments where I've met a lot of great people like yourself, um, and I've built, been able to build a reputation on it, um, and kind of, like you know, the the town square of X is very, yeah, I know they're trying to rebrand it, they're trying to make it to be the town square of the internet where people can, I guess, come to communicate ideas, or people can come to share that, and I think we're yeah, you're right, I think we're in the process of figuring that out, because I think there's I mean, I can't tell you the last time I watched the news, you know, like I can't tell you, the last time I sat down and just passively consumed that Uh, and I stopped that a long time ago because it just it was um, it was, for it felt like more entertainment versus actual value that was being transmitted. You know, and I no-transcript, but there has been a lot of value in allowing people to publish and allowing people to speak their own minds and allowing people to kind of have that, and there has been. It's not all bad, I guess is the point I'm trying to make. But I guess that's also what's really exciting about both of the forefronts in which we've been talking about for the past two hours narratives at a lot different speeds and allowing us to really explore a few new ways of seeing creativity and like what's possible between the relationship between humans and machines. I've always kind of felt weird for, you know, for thinking like that, but even you know, back back back before a lot of this really came to fruition, I just I always kind of felt like a weirdo or an outcast of like just being so enthralled with technology or like having a relation, a relationship to it that a lot of other people didn't and I feel like this world is finally. I didn't really feel like that world was for me, like kind of like what you were talking about earlier, like I, I can't imagine, uh, living in a different day and age right now. Like, there, there's there's like with my interest in like what I, you know, like what, what makes me, what makes me happy and what, what gets me out of bed in the morning, like there's no fucking way that, um, I would have survived, like in, you know, being like this age and like, say, like the forties and fifties, you know, um, there, there's just absolutely no way.
Speaker 2:Um, and I think that it it lends, it's easy to get overwhelmed and I think it's easy to get, um, you know, consumed with fear, consumed with, you know, uh, uncertainty around like, kind of like walking through a societal change, like we are, uh, whether it's, you know, covid kind of showing us that you know, hey, like working from home is still like working distributed, you know, has its challenges, but it's, it's pretty, it's pretty efficient.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, or the uh, or the rise of digital communities that we can form around tokenized art or systems art and long-form AI that allows us to just unlock a new level of relationship with computing that I don't think we've really had in the past before and I think it just comes together in this beautiful, chaotic messy. Um, right now, the only really place to truly consume a lot of that is just through, you know, through the blockchain and through, uh, through Twitter, you know, and through, uh, some of the rest of these programs like chat, gbt and um and some of these other ones. But, um, yeah, man, uh, I, I think this is probably like a great place to to end it, man, um, we've been we've been riffing for quite a long time and this is, this has been a great conversation, chris.
Speaker 1:No, thanks for having me on. This has been really fun. Um, you know I love having the opportunity maybe to blow out some of these thoughts that you know don't particularly translate well on Twitter and no one reads anymore. So you know I'm not going to spend like time, you know, writing 20 page essays on stuff, because you know I do enough things that no one pays attention to. I don't need to do more. And so I love having these sort of forums where you know, maybe someone at the gym you know, because I guess some of the stuff you know, maybe someone at the gym you know, because I guess some of the stuff you know that's in my head that needs unpacking a bit. So thank you for having me. Totally, man, yeah.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that, yeah, and yeah, this has been awesome and I it's very much. Why I started this in the very beginning is just to have introduced a little nuance, because I think twitter and you know wherever other people you know twitter and webcast always a place where people are spending their time. I think it's just literally where context goes to die. You know, um, and uh, it's one of the reasons I really enjoy doing this. So, um, appreciate you just like riffing on on a lot of these topics and I've, like I said in the very beginning, I've always admired uh, there are a few people that pay attention to what you write and I'm definitely one of them Um, because it's, uh, it's, it's great that people are kind of challenging, um status quo and introducing new ways of thought and, um, yeah, just literally just a big fan boy of a lot of what you do.
Speaker 2:Um, so it's been, yeah, it's been a treat to be able to, to be able to sit down with you for so long and and just unpack a lot of what what's in your head. Um, yeah, that's what I enjoy doing. So, um, I guess I'm going to do a traditional podcast thing. Um, I know you're a big you're. You're a big book guy. Um, is there any book? Uh, right now, just whatever comes to mind that you'd recommend um, someone checking out.
Speaker 1:Well, I am involved in a year-long read of the power broker by Robert Carrow right now, which is the, the story of Robert Moses and how he shaped a New York City and the country at large by really refashioning our infrastructure, you know, creating parklands, the reason we have expressways, all of these things. He was an early mover and shaker behind. But it's also the story of power, right Hence the title the Power Broker. Also the story of power, right, hence the title, the Power Broker and what that does to a person and the impact of, you know, a particular person's locus of power on a large group of people. And so I'm about a third of the way through. My book club basically reads 100 pages a month. The way through we are. My book club basically reads 100 pages a month, gotcha, um, and so so far it's absolutely fantastic. I mean, the writing in it is phenomenal.
Speaker 1:The, the history you learn from it, uh, is really in depth, like you know, even though it's about robert moses, he was such a central figure, um, you know, across so many different things that you know I'm learning about Albert Smith, you know, early governor of New York, and he was this Tammany Hall guy right and everyone expected him to be, you know, like the Irish immigrant machine and graft and corruption, and you know he, he ended up transcending that and doing a lot of good and that's how Robert Moses got wedged into all of this is, you know, albert Smith realized how useful Moses could be in, you know, achieving populist objectives like creating a park system, you know, and that political symbiosis between the two.
Speaker 1:And a spoiler alert, because I've already been spoiled on this fact but like moses is gonna dump al smith overboard, he's gonna hitch his wagon to fdr for a little bit, he's gonna shapeshift his way through power. And so you know, just being on an epic read of that level and how well written it is, I would totally. If anyone needs like a 1,200-page book, if anyone wants to feel like you know, tackling one of the, you know, the Moby Dick of nonfiction.
Speaker 2:So far, so good man, I may take you up on that, because I just finished and I didn't. It was all an audio book, but I listened to the book that the Oppenheimer movie was based off of. I can't remember the exact title of it, but that was a very much a. I think that was a 26 hour audio book.
Speaker 1:Drive cross country doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I'm no stranger to that. I, I became just wildly obsessed with that movie when it came out, um, and just wanted to consume every piece of media that had anything to do with oppenheimer. Uh, last year, um, it was a big, it was a big side quest of mine as well, um, so, yeah, no, I, I got that bookmarked. Man, I appreciate that and that's yeah, looks like a dense read. Let's see. It's 1300 pages. That's yeah, that'll take you guys a while, um, so, um, well, cool man, uh, I again, chris, I appreciate you. Is there any, uh, as far as like, people that want to get in contact with you? Is there any place that you'd have people go um and you sort of like social media platform?
Speaker 1:yeah, just follow me on twitter. Sick, that's where I spend my time. I'm, uh, at chris f, underscore zero x, though sick man, well cool, look me up on the bird on the um. And then, you know, I pop up on podcasts or you know all those spaces that people ask me to. But other than than that, you know I I don't have a lot of main character energy around me at this point in my life. I've been, I've been that guy before. I didn't really like who I was when I was that person. Now I'm this dude and so you know, find me on Twitter and you know, sometimes you get really interesting, thought provoking stuff and sometimes you get nineties music.
Speaker 2:That's me I love that dude. Um, again appreciate your time, chris and uh, hang out for just a little bit while this finishes uploading. Um, but again appreciate you for coming on. You have a great yesterday yeah, sure no problem.
Speaker 1:So you,