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NET Society is unraveling the latest in digital art, crypto, AI, and tech. Join us for fresh insights and bold perspectives as we tap into wild, thought-provoking conversations. By: Derek Edwards (glitch marfa / collab+currency), Chris Furlong (starholder, LAO + Flamingo DAO), and Aaaron Wright & Priyanka Desai (Tribute Labs)
00;00;15;20 - 00;00;17;28
Aaron
Derek. Is the world falling apart right now?
00;00;18;01 - 00;00;41;09
Derek
It's definitely not coming together. I guess I guess I'll say. Yeah, it's a little crazy out there right now. I mean, we got, like, gold knocking on all time highs. You know, we've got, you know, equities that are trading very similarly to, to cryptocurrencies. We've got, you know, alien punks selling for 6 million bucks. We've got it's just it feels, a little garbled.
00;00;41;15 - 00;00;48;13
Derek
And the volatility is, is been like undefeated this week. So it's it's a little nutty out there.
00;00;48;15 - 00;00;56;24
Aaron
You know what I was thinking about this week? What happens if Bitcoin doesn't act as the Armageddon coin this cycle.
00;00;56;27 - 00;01;19;25
Derek
I mean, so this is this is it. Right. Like it's we we know this like markets like markets converge around showing points. Like they want stories that everybody understands and can agree upon. And the story of Bitcoin has been this thing is digital gold. It's scarce like physical gold. We we understand it's credible neutrality. It doesn't do anything.
00;01;19;25 - 00;01;41;05
Derek
It's a pet rock. And by virtue of these properties, it should exhibit a similar price pattern to gold. The problem is that it's trading like tech stocks. And it's and it's, you know, and there are certain periods in time where like it's showing outperformance relative to equities. And it's starting to exhibit some of these store value like properties.
00;01;41;05 - 00;02;02;05
Derek
And then in other times of crisis, like where everything goes to a correlation of one, it's dropping faster than everything else. And so, you know, I think like my view continues to be just like on the long over the long horizon of this asset class of crypto, more and more, this thing will start to kind of reinforce itself as a store of value like object.
00;02;02;05 - 00;02;16;23
Derek
That is comps to like, you know, in times of panic, it will exhibit similar properties to gold. But that's just not the case right now. And I hope at some point there's that collective push where where market start to price it. As such. It's just not today.
00;02;16;25 - 00;02;47;26
Chris
A different take here is that crypto builds up these stories. They have these the set of beliefs that exist in a bubble. And every time those stories and beliefs confront reality, they get obliterated. And so what if Bitcoin doesn't act like an Armageddon coin? Well, then it just falls back into every other set of metas and narratives within the crypto world that have failed to make the leap into, you know, the economy writ large.
00;02;47;28 - 00;02;51;24
Pri
There's no shortage of narrative. So maybe you could grab on to another one.
00;02;51;26 - 00;02;58;29
Derek
Yeah, it is like a Swiss Army knife in that way where it's like, okay, it's all right if it's not digital gold today. Because like.
00;02;59;01 - 00;02;59;28
Pri
But.
00;03;00;03 - 00;03;01;03
Chris
It's still this other.
00;03;01;03 - 00;03;03;05
Derek
Thing that we fucking love.
00;03;03;07 - 00;03;27;12
Aaron
Well, I think, I mean, I think the one knock on the store value argument is just, it's liquid, right? You know, in a way that that gold I mean there's, there's financial instruments that make gold more liquid, but there's a little bit of a, it's a little bit different in that regard. And I wonder if that may get tested a little bit or may make it the, you know, kind of platypus that all these digital assets are right.
00;03;27;15 - 00;03;45;00
Aaron
Like, you know, plaid, a plaid, a Pi. I don't know what the plural of platypuses they, you know, then they're hard to fit into. Yeah. Different animal kingdom categories, I guess that kingdom. But you know, they're weird. Animals have lots of different attribute attributes. Bitcoin always kind of felt like that. Ether kind of feels like that too.
00;03;45;05 - 00;03;54;17
Aaron
But it is an interesting kind of question. Just what happens if it isn't the Armageddon coin. And you know, what happens to kind of everything at that point.
00;03;54;19 - 00;04;25;18
Chris
Nowhere to run to nowhere to hide. I think one thing our space doesn't really fully incorporate is how these things can display different properties depending on the environment they're in and what the right situational posture is. And I look at the alien sale 4000 years, 6.5 million bucks. That trade is in my read of it. This person just booked a $10 million tax loss, which is a useful thing.
00;04;25;21 - 00;04;39;07
Chris
But what they're really doing is betting that it can get back to 3500 bucks for a thousand bucks faster than this alien can, you know, make that mark up through appreciation.
00;04;39;09 - 00;05;10;05
Pri
That kind of actually makes sense to me. I'm looking at the crypto punk charts now. If you look at like the top, whatever let's call called like five alien cells, they're all within like between 4200 eath to 48 to 8000. The first one's 8000, and then you're it's basically 4.85 all the way down to four. So it's like from that vantage point, it makes it, you know, some amount of sense, like looking at any cause that's kind of around the range of many of the, the prior alien cells.
00;05;10;05 - 00;05;11;11
Pri
If that's like what you're looking at.
00;05;11;16 - 00;05;28;09
Aaron
Yeah. That's a super interesting point. Can I ask another kind of look, maybe this is the Fear and Loathing in Crypto Land episode, but the other fear that I have, and I don't know if you guys saw this, but developer activity writ large across blockchains is down. Did you guys catch that? Like the number.
00;05;28;09 - 00;05;31;02
Chris
I've seen a graph or two. Yeah, yeah.
00;05;31;05 - 00;05;56;09
Aaron
But you know that. So like I wonder what that kind of means, right? Like in the quote unquote like meme coin supercycle seemed to like quell interest in the, you know, blockchain development. And, you know, it's gone up and down, but it's definitely like not on the upswing after that. So I wonder kind of what that means. Like my big worry with a lot of this stuff is I kind of felt this like around peer to peer tech, like post Napster.
00;05;56;09 - 00;06;16;23
Aaron
There was like a lot of excitement. Right? You saw like, all these other peer to peer networks because, LimeWire bear share. And then ultimately BitTorrent and then it kind of decayed quickly after that. And that's another kind of lingering worry that I have about the space right now. Like, are we in kind of this like decay period?
00;06;16;29 - 00;06;30;16
Pri
It's interesting that you feel like the causal force is mostly a lot of old meme coin stuff. I'm not saying it isn't, but I feel like there has to be something a little bit more than like just some six month long shit coin market that could, like, lead to that outcome.
00;06;30;21 - 00;06;46;22
Aaron
It's been more like, you know, 18 months, right? And I think it really burnt a lot more people. And and nobody walked away like a real winner there. I, I listen to some random podcast by that PJ Vogt guy. I forgot the name of it.
00;06;46;22 - 00;06;48;24
Pri
And my friends were actually randomly.
00;06;48;27 - 00;07;07;21
Aaron
Oh, yeah, he's great. But he, the, the episode noted that, like, only 3% of folks on Pump Fund made more than $1,000, which which is pretty low, like numbers. So like, that means most people walked away like losers, which I think is a little bit different than some of the positive, some games that happened before.
00;07;07;24 - 00;07;35;09
Chris
Well, the developer thing is also the failure of a game, right? Like think about it just in a big arc. On the one hand, you had a ton of engineers sitting around in these Fang complexes at a time when stock option incentives were petering out and it was no no longer really easy positive to be a cog in a big in one of these, Valley orgs.
00;07;35;12 - 00;08;09;17
Chris
And so they had incentive to come into crypto. Now crypto, right. Went and built a shit ton of infrastructure. Tried to build applications on top of those infrastructures, never got the levels of adoption and usage that were needed to justify them and existed in this like altcoin capital structure that was just full of high bloat. And so the incentive to make a governance coin, get it out there and cash out that way, all of that went pop at the same time.
00;08;09;20 - 00;08;19;11
Chris
And now we're sitting on all this infrastructure with nothing to do with it. And so it's not surprising from my point of view, that the developer activity is down because what was their reward.
00;08;19;14 - 00;08;42;05
Aaron
Yeah, right. They kind of it's a lot like the broad like the broad band build out. Right. Post.com crash. Right. There was over over investment in infrastructure. A lot of those projects kind of washed out. It took a while for like developer interest to kind of run back. And really what did that that was kind of this rewrite aspect of Web2.
00;08;42;07 - 00;08;53;07
Aaron
We don't have kind of like a new mechanic yet that folks geeked on and play around with. I'm actually still shocked by that. Like, where is the next, like ERC standard or equivalent?
00;08;53;10 - 00;08;54;11
Pri
Like next primitive?
00;08;54;17 - 00;09;04;28
Aaron
Yeah, like there's got to be something I actually spent some time with, like GPT 4.5, seeing if it could come up with some new ERC like standards. It came up with some good ones.
00;09;05;01 - 00;09;08;29
Derek
You want to you want to riff on them for a little bit. Would you want to share some?
00;09;09;01 - 00;09;10;07
Aaron
Yeah, let me pull it up.
00;09;10;10 - 00;09;11;17
Pri
Yeah. It was actually pretty funny.
00;09;11;21 - 00;09;36;05
Aaron
Well, one was I guess like a subscription token. Like I think you could definitely do that. Another one I, I tweeted about this a couple weeks ago. I do think you could have unchained royalties now with some of the ZK proofs. Like you don't need a separate blockchain for it, but you could have like a extension of ERC 721 that has like a enforceable royalty or not just a royalty, but like payments to different parties like before there was a transfer.
00;09;36;07 - 00;09;41;04
Aaron
I think that, you know, I think there's a couple others, but give me a second to pull them up. Wait.
00;09;41;04 - 00;10;04;00
Pri
While you do that, though, do you think that the AI coding activity has anything to do with the development activity just because? I mean, just like the vibe coding, anyone can kind of you'd think that more people would actually be the developer ecosystem would grow as a result of the AI coding, but I can't tell if, if just given the accessibility and ability to build DApps on chain or off chain or really do it.
00;10;04;00 - 00;10;22;15
Pri
Everyone has just fractured people's interest in wanting to build on chain, because now you could just build anything rapidly, anywhere. I don't know if that really makes sense, but I'm wondering if that has like a partial reason for a decrease in development activity on chain.
00;10;22;17 - 00;10;43;14
Chris
I think when you see plummeting developer numbers and instead of getting worried your your salvation or your bail out is the rise of the vibe coder to offset that, I'm not really sure it's quite had an impact. Yeah, but it's definitely in the mix. Is this thing looming out there that's going to be a big player, right?
00;10;43;17 - 00;11;00;12
Pri
Yeah, totally. I feel like maybe as vibe coding gets easier to do on chain, maybe that kind of creates, a nice opportunity for blockchain development activity. Who knows? But just some speculation. I don't know how good the vibe coding is for, for, like, smart contracts and on chain activity.
00;11;00;14 - 00;11;08;20
Aaron
I think it's I mean, I, I don't I think it's great to kind of like, prototype them and then you're going to have to go through that really careful auditing.
00;11;08;20 - 00;11;09;15
Pri
But yeah.
00;11;09;17 - 00;11;34;16
Aaron
I mean, we've seen even with some other I mean, many smart contracts related projects that the developers, they're well well intentioned, can't see all the different attack vectors. So I imagine, you know, if we've kind of crossed the Rubicon and these systems are, you know, top, top, top, engineers, I don't see why they can be helpful to kind of accelerate that.
00;11;34;16 - 00;12;00;22
Aaron
I think a lot of the folks that build smart contract based systems are not yet using these tools. You know, because they really are some advanced developers, not like, you know, more front end web, you know, mobile type developers. So, I don't know. Here's a couple that I thought was some somewhat interesting, like one was like a ERC standard that would accrue rewards in proportion to a user's activity or transactions.
00;12;00;28 - 00;12;21;22
Aaron
So the more frequently the user interacts, the more rewards that they earn. So kind of like it's an enable to to kind of keep track or read like transactional information like accrue tokens for the holder, kind of inverse of that, like one that would decay or lose value over periods of time, like on transfers or, or other, you know, interactions.
00;12;21;22 - 00;12;40;00
Aaron
It actually like lessens the amount of, of tokens that are around. That that was kind of two interesting. One or at least interesting ones. There was a subscription one which I thought, I know folks have talked about in the past, and then there was a kind of like a more mutable one between like NFTs and air here, CS, which I still think that there's something around that.
00;12;40;00 - 00;12;52;03
Aaron
And we looked at we saw 400 fours and 4 or 5 fours. Felt like a little rough, but it feels like that, if I had a guess, would be like the best area to try to see, like a new, a new standard of some sort.
00;12;52;05 - 00;12;57;04
Chris
I want one where, coins can split based on activity.
00;12;57;06 - 00;12;58;04
Aaron
Just what is.
00;12;58;04 - 00;13;20;22
Chris
Inflate inflation, inflationary coins that behave like ad tracking software. I want to put one coin out in the world. Something interacts with it. It splits into two coins. There's one of the person who held it, one to the person who interacted with it. The end of the day, you, you look up and you go, oh, wow, there's one coin now has 20,000, you know, units of it.
00;13;20;22 - 00;13;24;29
Chris
Therefore it must have done something useful. Just give me inflationary coins.
00;13;25;02 - 00;13;28;13
Aaron
You want the MMT of, of coins? Chris.
00;13;28;15 - 00;13;29;26
Chris
Yeah.
00;13;29;28 - 00;13;31;15
Pri
And then token.
00;13;31;18 - 00;13;33;05
Aaron
Erc MMT.
00;13;33;07 - 00;13;48;11
Chris
Is. There we go. But I don't know. Let's, let's wait for the world to settle down and the blockchain to figure out what it's doing, besides providing a token AI settlement layer to, Wall Street and then get weird again.
00;13;48;13 - 00;14;15;16
Pri
I think that's basically, I don't think things are going to get weird until that, that kind of whatever fintech fintech ification of blockchains actually happens, like once the stablecoin bill thing passes. And, you know, following that, a market structure bill, I feel like that's when people are going to be more comfortable doing something weird. I don't know, I thought I'd see more weirdness post Trump election, which we did see a little bit.
00;14;15;19 - 00;14;39;07
Pri
However, I feel like with just the market sentiment at the moment, no one's like trying to be experimental at the moment. So maybe when that subsides you see a little bit, but then at the same time, like you're going to have the Larry things of the world wanting to get that stablecoin build as soon as possible. And then at that point to your, to your earlier point about like the peer to peer music, we're going to have a little bit more of like that Spotify moment.
00;14;39;09 - 00;14;41;13
Pri
It feels like pretty soon.
00;14;41;16 - 00;14;57;29
Aaron
Yeah. Like the fintech, the fintech ification of blockchain feels like a bit of that. Spotify moment, right? Like sharing with Robinhood and all these folks that just being like, we're going to absorb all blockchain stuff and all tokenization, stuff like that, that kind of feels like almost like a Spotify, right?
00;14;58;01 - 00;15;17;29
Pri
It does. And I actually think part of why the timeline feels weird is because people cannot cope with that fact, like they don't like it, or they're like, they know something's happening, but they just know, like I think the it's it's not going to be your like fringe fund thing anymore. It's just going to be everywhere. And like, I think people are having a little bit of a reckoning related to that.
00;15;17;29 - 00;15;22;26
Pri
Like you're not in this self-selected group anymore. You're just like fintech.
00;15;22;28 - 00;15;24;27
Chris
Welcome to the co-op.
00;15;24;29 - 00;15;26;02
Pri
Literally.
00;15;26;05 - 00;15;27;22
Chris
I mean, man.
00;15;27;25 - 00;15;31;01
Pri
Like when your favorite band sells out, like that's what's happening people.
00;15;31;01 - 00;15;35;10
Aaron
Yeah, crypto is turning into a Dave Matthews Band. Is that what I'm hearing? Well, I.
00;15;35;10 - 00;16;09;09
Derek
Kind of remote, so I was I'm sure all of you guys remember this, but like, I was a big Napster and Kazaa and like, I would take my MP3's and put them on like Winamp and I would, you know, have all the Winamp skins and, you know, like part of my identity, like with the early internet, like, you know, building websites and, and like, pirating music was just like you were kind of on the frontier of this very obviously important technology and being able to kind of like, wielded it in weird ways and, and play around with it in weird ways and I remember when, my a friend of mine, showed me
00;16;09;11 - 00;16;31;07
Derek
Apple iTunes and, like, you could buy songs for $0.99. I could feel the cool leaving my body like it just was like this. Nothing about it made sense to me, but, like, it was so clearly needed to kind of, like, bring music online to kind of the masses. And I feel like, I don't know, I hadn't really thought that deeply about it.
00;16;31;07 - 00;16;54;11
Derek
But, when, when, as you guys have been riffing, it's like it feels very much like that moment where it's it's so clearly blockchains and and trust minimized finance in this database as an asset ledger for like moving value around. It's going to be used by everything. Like I mean, this is why all of us are still here is why we've been investing our time and attention and money and capital into this stuff for, you know, a decade.
00;16;54;13 - 00;17;05;04
Derek
But it also simultaneously feels like the death of something else. And I think that's interesting. I think that there's some like analogs here with that transition from early internet to commercial internet.
00;17;05;06 - 00;17;24;18
Aaron
Yeah. It was like that 90 degree turn though, right? That I think did catch a lot of folks in the in those P2P ecosystems caught them off guard. And it feels like something similar is happening here, at least to me. I like Derek is the weird that you're doing with, putting squiggles on every day items? I I've been loving that, but.
00;17;24;20 - 00;17;55;15
Derek
Thank you, dude. I appreciate that, man. Yeah. Oh. I'm, I'm I'm happy. Like I'm happy like it. I, I will say like it, it serves a couple of roles for me, which is like, I love playing around with new technology, but but it's helpful for me to learn the edges of that technology. If it's around, if it's like I'm using a vehicle of something I know very well, and I know the squiggle pretty well, and I understand the kind of the technology behind the squiggle and the brand of the squiggle and like what it means to people to to be part of that as a, as an owner of those objects.
00;17;55;15 - 00;18;17;08
Derek
And so being able to kind of take some of the, the best in class, synthetic intelligence that's out there and kind of use that as a vehicle to explore stuff is really fun. And then I also just because, like, I think, you know, as a product guy, I just love, you know, like, starting to kind of seed the market with ideas that I think are cool or, or territories worth exploring.
00;18;17;11 - 00;18;37;00
Derek
And this, you know, having the ability to kind of like use these tools to kind of like in, in like 20 minutes, be able to come up with like a product idea that I can just throw out into the world to like, hopefully generate some ideas around, you know, some cool surface area that founders or, you know, community members or whoever can kind of explore is like, it's very rewarding for me.
00;18;37;00 - 00;18;41;18
Derek
So anyway, I'm having a blast, man. I appreciate that you that that you're digging it. Aaron.
00;18;41;20 - 00;19;13;15
Chris
It's, it's funny because as we start talking about, like, the death of scenes or scenes that never materialized, right? This is actually remix culture finally being realized and coming to life. There was a time when everyone was talking up remix culture, Creative Commons. This was almost this was like pre memes. And so I can't quite remember when the date this maybe 22,006, the 2010 like just before mobile happened.
00;19;13;18 - 00;19;32;19
Chris
And then this idea of like remix culture being novel or interesting just completely disappeared as a talking point. It certainly started spreading and spreading as memes rose. But I mean creative AI and like what you're doing, Derek, really is a realization of all that remix starting.
00;19;32;21 - 00;19;33;08
Aaron
You know.
00;19;33;10 - 00;19;35;08
Chris
15, 20 years ago.
00;19;35;10 - 00;19;36;12
Derek
Yeah. I said.
00;19;36;14 - 00;19;56;10
Aaron
I vividly remember that, Chris, because I was at Wikipedia. Right? Which is like steeped in that culture, really an expression of that culture. Right. Like it was all these like acolytes of Lawrence Lessig and like all these other folks, I was super geeked on that at the time. And I feel like early like Digg and early Reddit, like, that was a huge sub thread that was a part of it.
00;19;56;10 - 00;20;10;21
Aaron
Like, how do we take media like improve it, enhance it, make it easy to do that? And the tools just weren't there. Yeah, I do think I completely agree with you, Chris. It feels like Derek you're able to play around with it. I do love the Lego. The Lego set was pretty sweet. I don't.
00;20;10;21 - 00;20;11;01
Derek
Know.
00;20;11;03 - 00;20;14;01
Aaron
Which one was your favorite. I know that they're they're.
00;20;14;02 - 00;20;14;12
Derek
All.
00;20;14;15 - 00;20;18;11
Aaron
They're all your favorite children. But if you had to pick one.
00;20;18;14 - 00;20;51;03
Derek
Man. Well, what, what I'll say is, like, I really liked the Lego one because I can, I am a I, I would buy that product. Like, I think what's really fun is just like with I, I don't listen. Founders have the hardest job in the world. Like, you know, all of you guys on this call have been founders, and you know, how much work it takes to kind of actually bring a product from idea generation to kind of early testing to getting early feedback and getting, you know, totally reamed on some of the early product decisions you made and then fixing them and then putting it out in market again, and then
00;20;51;03 - 00;21;10;06
Derek
creating that, you know, a flywheel that makes the product grow. It's like and then the messaging and the positioning, segmenting all of that stuff that takes to actually make a product work. And so I, I, I, I'm going to say this next part, but I just want to be clear that like, I have zero skin in the game in terms of actually commercializing or producing these products.
00;21;10;06 - 00;21;46;01
Derek
And I know how hard it is. But what I will say is like, I would buy the stuff that I'm posting, like I would buy this generative speaker box with like the, you know, the, the generative, you know, speaker covers like in a heartbeat. I would buy this Lego set that's like a generative version of, you know, my, a generative physical version of a generative digital objects, like very quickly because, like, that process speaks to me like I love the, the, the idea of being able to kind of generate something on demand using a blockchain for provenance and entropy, and then having a commercial web2 website by which to kind of like create a
00;21;46;01 - 00;22;05;03
Derek
toy around that thing that's totally custom and one of one of Zen. And maybe you know, the set. In addition, size is limited and giving away that is gifts or building it and putting it in my office like that, those behaviors really speak to me as as a tinkerer and like kind of someone, a collector and someone who wants to play with this stuff.
00;22;05;05 - 00;22;23;00
Derek
And so I think like that, I guess either my short answer is like, I love them all. Like, I really I think I'm, I'm, you know, playing around with stuff that I would make and build and, but while I, I also recognize like this, that this stuff takes time to kind of like bring the market, but I hope I hope somebody does.
00;22;23;07 - 00;22;44;12
Aaron
Well, this is my bull case for, you know, localized low cost manufacturing Derek like I don't I don't think I don't think you're alone. But since you don't have like a cheap like low cost and local place to like fabricate that Lego set, you don't get it right and totally. And let's say that there's like 5000 squiggle holders, right?
00;22;44;12 - 00;23;04;09
Aaron
They're still all there. You know, you probably could sell a thousand of those Lego sets right. And a thousand of those Lego sets could sell for 50 bucks each, and that's $50,000. You know, the amount of work that you would have put into that to generate that revenue. It's not a tremendous amount. Right. So yeah, and I just think there's a lot of creativity that can get unlocked from that.
00;23;04;09 - 00;23;20;17
Aaron
And I do think that we want more customization, not just in our digital world, but also in our physical world. Right. We all want to be kind of unique in different ways. And Etsy was a good example of that. And it's kind of also the evolution of of that piece too. So it's like kind of remix culture all the way down.
00;23;20;17 - 00;23;22;16
Aaron
Chris I think it's common.
00;23;22;18 - 00;23;38;09
Pri
Remix culture for physicals is I think, yeah, that's that's going to be huge. Just like people to take something conceptual an idea of and be able to like 3D printed of a sufficient quality. You know, I think that's going to be massive. I'm pumped for that.
00;23;38;09 - 00;24;10;01
Derek
Yeah. I'll say one thing on that. And then I'm actually curious to hear you guys riff on this, but I've mentioned this in like a little thread I had yesterday. But, you know, there are real trend lines that I think Mary really well with, like what blockchains and crypto can offer. And you just touched on one which is just like 3D printing and, you know, low cost, low cost manufacturing to Aaron's point, like, these are real things that are in, you know, as crypto and blockchains and, and some of like the testing we've done around, like how to create consumer products in these environments over the last 5 or 6 years, have like optimized
00;24;10;01 - 00;24;36;23
Derek
and continue to get better. In the meantime, the same things are happening kind of other sectors that I think pair very well with, with the fact that like humans are, are very tactile, like physiologically. And I do see like these trend lines coming together into a single branch online, which is just authenticity and transparency and provenance and scarcity programmatically starting to kind of inject into kind of like physical spaces around this stuff.
00;24;36;25 - 00;24;58;00
Derek
And I think it's awesome. And I think I'm not going to sit here and say, like, the next generation of crypto is just physical. But I will say it's like we're at like, you know, 1% of what is possible when these things start coming together. And I think there will be an explosion at some point as like these, these things reconfigure in ways that, can create these consumer payloads.
00;24;58;02 - 00;25;07;12
Chris
Well, we're resurrecting remix culture. We're resurrecting 3D printing. We've decided the blockchain will get resurrected. Let's go. Man.
00;25;07;19 - 00;25;20;24
Aaron
Yeah, it feels, but, you know, I was geeked on a lot of these sub threads at different points. Chris, it sounds like you were in part two or you were to Derek and I'm sure you were to pre, but it does feel like they're all a little bit closer than they were before. And like those were the good parts of the internet to me.
00;25;20;25 - 00;25;30;03
Aaron
So it gets me kind of bullish. Like it feels like this like cable like news era of the internet. It's over or beginning to fracture a little bit.
00;25;30;05 - 00;25;40;06
Chris
As long as that's interesting, as long as it gives us something to do. Well. RWA guy monopolize is, mainstream crypto. Who wins.
00;25;40;06 - 00;25;40;22
Pri
Often.
00;25;40;25 - 00;25;47;07
Aaron
As RWA man is apt to do. You know, what else does RWA man know what to do, Chris?
00;25;47;09 - 00;25;50;01
Chris
He territorial rises and settles. Yeah.
00;25;50;07 - 00;25;52;12
Aaron
And and tokenized securities.
00;25;52;14 - 00;26;25;01
Chris
No, I you know, I I've been making all these music videos and there's something really interesting right now around information arbitrage at a case making and remixing level. It actually reminds me a bit about like, there's a saying about novelists and writers, which is they don't really hit their stride until around 50, because that's the point in life in which they're accumulated knowledge and experience, like really gives them an edge.
00;26;25;01 - 00;26;53;20
Chris
And that's something they could translate, you know, into, into the writing. And like, I'm seeing this when I'm making these videos because I have like this. I mean, am older than most people playing with these tools. And so, you know, I've got this really like wide and deep sort of set of cultural knowledge build up that I can then pull into to match like, oh, this song sounds like this particular moment, this mood, this art style.
00;26;53;22 - 00;27;23;03
Chris
And it's very like Tarantino ask. Right? Like Quentin had this, you know, kind of famous quote, like, I didn't go to film school, I watched movies. And I do think there is this moment in time right now where the machines are capable of doing that taste making, pattern matching. But humans are. And then maybe there's this, like, tiny wedge of humans who have huge catalogs in their head that they're able to, like, reference and pull into.
00;27;23;05 - 00;27;33;04
Aaron
I think you're right, Chris. So you you didn't watch movies, you just watch the internet. And I am looking forward to your kill Bill volume two. Let me let me know how gory you can get with all your media.
00;27;33;06 - 00;27;38;25
Chris
Oh my God, I haven't done violence yet. And so I guess that one's still hanging around waiting for me.
00;27;39;02 - 00;27;41;00
Aaron
Yeah, well, we're here for it.
00;27;41;03 - 00;27;47;15
Chris
But I don't know. I just feel like a lot of arbitrage is there almost at the moment where they can be exploited.
00;27;47;17 - 00;28;16;07
Pri
I feel like I'm in the Uber that took that you always want to think about, like singularity and like what, what, what skills will matter. And like to me, I feel like pattern matching and cultural exposure, whether that be, you know, art, philosophy, math, like whatever. I feel like when it comes to just any sort of theoretical exposure to ideas, I feel like you almost want to be a generalist when it comes to this technology.
00;28;16;07 - 00;28;46;00
Pri
And, you know, just having awareness of these ideas can help, and being able to pattern match them can just get a better output. You almost need to know a little bit about a lot versus I feel like the boomer or even part of that, like being known as someone who could go deep into like one subject. I think it actually behooves you to just learn about everything that's emergent, but also like, understand history so that you can kind of pull that together.
00;28;46;00 - 00;28;54;27
Pri
And you don't need to necessarily go deep on each of those things. But like having a baseline understanding, I think will actually give you better output.
00;28;54;29 - 00;28;58;05
Aaron
The case for a liberal arts education through liberal arts.
00;28;58;05 - 00;29;20;02
Pri
Yeah. But even just like, literally like I've been like, obsessed not even to, like, hone my skills, but like, I've just been really interested in a lot of, like, watching TV around history and stuff lately, just because I want to be able to understand, like what's happening today or like what happened in the last hundred years, as to maybe like what happened, you know, at the turn of the century in Russia, like, how does that compared to now?
00;29;20;02 - 00;29;31;23
Pri
Like, I just feel like you the older I get, the more important I feel like having that context is to just understand the world, but then also even talk to the machines as well.
00;29;31;25 - 00;29;35;24
Chris
For you, getting history filled is one of the best developments of this year.
00;29;35;27 - 00;29;37;23
Pri
I'm like pretty history filled right now.
00;29;37;25 - 00;30;03;10
Chris
It's the best. I mean, it's great. It's absolutely fantastic. Like more of the space needs, hobbies, you know, like, I don't know, that was something that I kind of realized maybe a year ago. It was like altar cooked. The optimal posture is to sit on your hands. Therefore, you got to find other things to do in life to keep yourself entertained, but that are also useful and, you know, building yourself up.
00;30;03;10 - 00;30;27;25
Chris
Right. So you're not just wasting the time, you're just able to get your head in the space that says, making money isn't the only thing in life be this isn't the moment in time to make money. See, instead of climbing the walls and trying to make money and blow myself up, I should d do other shit with my time in history is a great place to spend it on.
00;30;27;28 - 00;30;28;12
Chris
Hey, Chris.
00;30;28;12 - 00;30;33;05
Aaron
Do you think that. Why do you think there's more interest in history? It feels that way to me.
00;30;33;05 - 00;30;35;27
Chris
Like I think so. Is history having a moment?
00;30;36;00 - 00;30;52;02
Aaron
I kind of feel like it is because, you know, like, even, I don't know, is it just the medium of, like, podcasting, but like, I, I was a history major in college, so I've always kind of enjoyed it, but I feel like I feel like it has more of a prominence now. And I don't think I'm self-selecting into it.
00;30;52;02 - 00;31;10;25
Aaron
Like I hear more people like exploring or interest in that. You see kind of more like podcast channels that are trying to understand different time periods and analogize them to the present. It feels like it is having like a little bit of a moment, and I wonder why that's the case. Is it just because we're going through volatile times?
00;31;10;25 - 00;31;12;28
Aaron
Is it, you know, something else.
00;31;13;00 - 00;31;29;13
Pri
I do think it might be. I mean, I don't know what the actual driver is, but social media has gotten people. I feel like there's all these like TikToks and other things on like random historical moments. It kind of reminds you of, like, you know, how millennials were really obsessed with true crime shows and that, like, blew up for millennials for whatever reason.
00;31;29;13 - 00;31;35;22
Pri
No idea what why? I feel like the same as like these like weird niche historical things for like Gen Z.
00;31;36;00 - 00;32;13;08
Chris
It's certainly in the air. I, I do think history lends itself well to certain media forms. Like Aaron mentioned, podcasting. My preferred podcasts are history and philosophy. I don't want market podcasts. I don't want technology podcasts, which I realize, like, I'm just being an absolute hypocrite because I host one of these things. But I want a break and I want a break that does feed me, but it feels like, I am like stepping away from the warp speed of today.
00;32;13;10 - 00;32;28;05
Chris
And so, like to me, like history and philosophy, it's a switch in to, the conflict of life, you know, versus, oh, my God, I need more Alpha. I need more Alpha. I got to stay on my fucking hamster wheel faster. I'm never going to make it.
00;32;28;08 - 00;32;38;06
Aaron
Yeah, maybe it's the pause. Do you think it's also like preservation of, like, Western culture in some capacity? Like. I feel like there's elements of that though, too. Like there's some positive sides of it.
00;32;38;09 - 00;32;40;10
Pri
The history is not limited to Western.
00;32;40;12 - 00;32;42;25
Aaron
Yeah, but it feels like there's an emphasis around that now.
00;32;42;27 - 00;32;50;19
Pri
I can't tell if that's just because like people are interested in that. But yeah. Yeah, it's heavily European swayed like right. I feel I don't know it's a good question.
00;32;50;23 - 00;33;15;03
Chris
Yeah I mean there are certainly biases right. Like age is because of our education system and what we were fed as children. Right. Like that's a that's a narrative that just locks and locks and locks and increases the relative importance of things. But yeah, there's history all over the place. And it's fascinating history. And I don't know, you know, look at your demographics.
00;33;15;03 - 00;33;43;23
Chris
Look at, America is home of the podcasting industry. America is filled with white European settlers, ancestors, yada, yada, yada. And then there's kind of like the classical age of the Mediterranean wasn't an exclusively white, you know, space at all. You know, it was very diverse. There are a lot of different cultures going on, but we can claim that as part of our heritage and that makes it another like, easier plug in.
00;33;43;26 - 00;33;52;11
Chris
Plus you just got a bunch of goats lying around. They're from your man Alexander, the Julius Caesar. And onwards and onward, dude.
00;33;52;11 - 00;34;11;18
Pri
Total goats. But yeah, I kind of wish we had more context on goats outside Europe. I'm sure there's just some incredible goats and like, Africa and even, let's call it Australia we don't know about, but I'd like to find them. I implore the listeners of this podcast to bring us some goats from other continent. I'm ready.
00;34;11;20 - 00;34;12;17
Aaron
I'm ready to.
00;34;12;20 - 00;34;23;00
Chris
You ever done, like, the whole Mongol hordes in the steps, like post game? Guess when they, like, started splitting off into, like, the Golden Horde and, a couple others. That was like a moment.
00;34;23;03 - 00;34;34;21
Pri
Yeah. I mean, Genghis was definitely go, but, like, kind of crazy, I post. I definitely want to spend more time there. Even with Genghis, I feel like I need to, like, spend a little bit more time on him.
00;34;34;21 - 00;34;42;13
Aaron
I want more South American, Central and South American history. Personally, that's, my wish list. If we're going to throw it out into the ether.
00;34;42;15 - 00;34;44;09
Pri
Aztecs are crazy cool.
00;34;44;11 - 00;34;55;27
Aaron
Yeah. I just feel like this whole hemisphere doesn't get the same the same attention that other ones do. But I'm assuming that there's some rich history that we can uncover and should be talking about.
00;34;55;29 - 00;35;19;02
Chris
We have some wildly rich history, like even in America, right? Like, look at, Mr. T in culture, you know, we I mean, like, God, I can't remember the name of the city. This is how weird it is. Right outside Saint Louis, we have one of the largest, you know, cities at the time, massive global city, I don't know, 600,000 AD somewhere in there.
00;35;19;04 - 00;35;30;27
Chris
And it's never taught. I can't name it. Right. It's absolutely insane. Sort of like the way we don't even give a shit about what has been in our backyard.
00;35;30;29 - 00;35;39;23
Aaron
But welcome to History Society, where we talk about North American history, and the future, remix culture on the internet.
00;35;39;25 - 00;35;56;19
Chris
It really teases historical remix culture. I want is I want to bring Mansa Musa back the, the Aztec, the no. He was king of Mali in the 14th century. Oh, yeah. Just man in the world. Yeah, a legend Mali.
00;35;56;19 - 00;35;58;10
Aaron
Allegedly. Chris allegedly.
00;35;58;10 - 00;36;17;07
Chris
Allegedly. We're getting into a legend here. When the guy made his homage to Mecca, he swung through Egypt like, you know, the whole thing. He did this big ass, like, three year tour. He gave away so much gold. He ruined the economy for ten years. Like how he allegedly the richest man in the world, homie.
00;36;17;07 - 00;36;20;15
Aaron
He was the Joe Biden of his time. Is that what I'm hearing?
00;36;20;18 - 00;36;34;20
Chris
So he just. He wanted to visit cause he wanted to, like, scroll through cities. He wanted to hook people up. And he did the point that called, like, fell all out of whack. And it took like a decade of the flash, all his gifts out of the system.
00;36;34;22 - 00;36;35;23
Aaron
Yeah.
00;36;35;25 - 00;36;43;26
Chris
Like, how was that not a meme coin? Well, because, you know, meme coin culture is an inch deep. Anyway, we should remix that dude.
00;36;43;29 - 00;36;46;24
Pri
Yeah, okay, I'll do it. Oh, wait.
00;36;46;26 - 00;37;00;18
Aaron
On remix culture, we didn't talk about the direwolf guys. I mean, talk about oh yeah, history and remixing. I mean, that was. Did you guys hear this? The screams, the baby direwolves. That was absolutely wild. I have no.
00;37;00;18 - 00;37;01;01
Chris
Okay.
00;37;01;08 - 00;37;09;25
Aaron
No clue what that means, but why are we doing that again? Like, why are we bringing back these long lost creatures? Feels like a bad path to walk down.
00;37;09;28 - 00;37;36;16
Chris
This is cosmetic, for starters. All right. This is like the phenotypic expression of direwolf characteristics on top of, I believe, a gray wolf species. They're not the same thing. And like, I got a degree in biology, so I got to like, spell this out. But you're not bringing back the direwolf you're modding. Like today's wolf to, like, look punked up Game of Thrones ish.
00;37;36;19 - 00;37;37;25
Pri
Oh, really?
00;37;37;27 - 00;37;38;17
Chris
Yeah.
00;37;38;18 - 00;37;39;27
Pri
Like, hey, that's kind of.
00;37;40;04 - 00;37;46;07
Aaron
So it's a mutant. It's just a mutant. It's not really a real direwolf. So we got we got this. Yeah, like a little bit.
00;37;46;09 - 00;38;01;24
Chris
They're different geniuses. They're not the same species. Like, these things could like, go and have babies with every day. Wolves. And that means they're like, we didn't bring back the direwolf. We just modded. Like today's was.
00;38;01;26 - 00;38;06;18
Pri
Okay, to be honest, I probably should have read more about it than the head. Like, I was like, oh my God, the direwolf.
00;38;06;21 - 00;38;14;01
Aaron
Yeah, I was I was with you. I was like, that's so cool. And I don't know how I feel about that.
00;38;14;04 - 00;38;32;17
Pri
I actually I'm curious. I mean, there was a project that that I saw that was actually, were like doing I don't know if you guys saw this on like, wired. It was like glow in the dark rabbit. And then they're trying to create a real life unicorn by, like, mixing the narwhal and, like, white horses. Like, I wonder if we do see, just.
00;38;32;17 - 00;38;33;29
Aaron
Like, why are we doing this?
00;38;33;29 - 00;38;35;05
Pri
And getting genetic.
00;38;35;06 - 00;38;50;29
Aaron
Validation? Let's take a step up. Why are we doing this? Like, why can't we remix crummy squiggles into Legos? Like, not remix long lost animals to to do this? I don't know, it feels a little too godlike for me. Makes me uncomfortable.
00;38;51;01 - 00;39;05;27
Pri
Yeah, it's definitely a little weird. I mean, I guess you could say that with some of these dog breeds. Humans invented many of them, and I just kind of. It's a that is true dream version of that, but it's not like it hasn't. There's no precedent for it.
00;39;05;29 - 00;39;22;28
Chris
This is what happens when economic uncertainty brings chaos in the global markets, to the point where we're paralyzed and have nothing better to do than get a little wacky, get a little goofy, and talk history on our podcasts.
00;39;22;28 - 00;39;24;14
Pri
Like I what?
00;39;24;17 - 00;39;43;23
Chris
What sort of future is Donald Trump stolen from our listeners, where we're supposed to be providing alpha to them? And there's no Alpha out there. There's this is there's alpha wolves, and there's us musing on how history is a fun thing when there's not else to do.
00;39;43;26 - 00;39;45;02
Pri
So true.
00;39;45;05 - 00;39;53;26
Aaron
Yeah, it does feel the world's like in a little bit of stasis. Just seeing how this all plays out. It's also hard to kind of keep your eyes off of it, but.
00;39;53;29 - 00;40;02;11
Chris
That's just like one person's outdated ideas are literally holding a world hostage right now. It's absolutely mind boggling.
00;40;02;13 - 00;40;05;23
Pri
It really is. I'm just like, wake me up when this is over.
00;40;05;26 - 00;40;11;26
Aaron
That's kind of how I feel like, wake me up after RWA man wins, and then we can, we.
00;40;11;26 - 00;40;17;28
Pri
Can build on something like cryogenically freeze me until, like, post recess. August, September.
00;40;18;00 - 00;40;21;22
Aaron
Can we eat, man? Like, just. Yeah, let's get it done with already.
00;40;21;25 - 00;41;01;15
Chris
Let's just get it over with, like. Yeah, the installation phase is boring us to tears. It really? By the way, I get a hot take of political following in your MSM New York Times Milk Toast class. Yes, you're going to start seeing the term market democracy appear. What's, this basically, if you take the position that these tariffs are stupid and that they're being done with one person, out kicking the power and trying to them that the only correcting force that's left, that's quote unquote Democratic is going to be a market revolt that brings him to heel market democracy.
00;41;01;15 - 00;41;02;12
Chris
Get ready for it.
00;41;02;12 - 00;41;09;26
Aaron
All right. Is that that's a natural corollary to the abundance economy. Am I going to have to hear hyper pretentious folks talking about that all day long?
00;41;10;04 - 00;41;35;15
Chris
I it just it feels like it's nicely packaged as a restorative balm for like, centrists out there that, oh my God, we've been so disempowered and we've been so helpless all along, and it's Jamie fucking Diamond and hedge funds and the giant slosh of capital that has to act as a balancing power market democracy. Get ready for it.
00;41;35;16 - 00;41;55;20
Aaron
It's the new fourth estate. Is that what I'm hearing, Chris, now that the media media has been blown up, it's kind of fair. I see it. I can see the logic to it. You kind of start to, but then at the same time you see like the traditional like the journal ran some like sad article, which is like Wall Street doesn't have much sway in this administration like tape taped conversations.
00;41;55;25 - 00;41;58;09
Aaron
So it is interesting.
00;41;58;11 - 00;42;00;28
Pri
Just the fourth turning you guys everything. If you look I.
00;42;00;28 - 00;42;03;09
Aaron
Was I was going to mention that before pre was.
00;42;03;10 - 00;42;14;27
Pri
Actually actually just make sense. Say it's just this is just part of the fourth turning. Like just sit back and wait for the turning to happen. And you just are a welcome participant in that.
00;42;15;02 - 00;42;20;19
Aaron
Wait. So astrologer pre what how many how many more moons do we have until this one is over.
00;42;20;24 - 00;42;38;26
Pri
I don't know I saw a really good YouTube video. I need to rewatch it on this. And I was like, all right. Yeah, this is what I'm going to stick to. I don't think they even know. I think it's just one of these things where it's probably started circa, I don't know, 2000 a like Iraq war plus 2008.
00;42;38;26 - 00;42;48;08
Pri
And it's just kind of going to take a little bit, maybe until like, the boomers fully give up to relinquish power, which is part of the fourth turning anyway.
00;42;48;10 - 00;42;55;21
Aaron
So it's 20 years cycles, right? So that means we got like three years left. I mean, we're at the end final throes.
00;42;55;23 - 00;43;02;14
Pri
The final throes. That's why it's so chaotic. Anyways. Let's move on before it gets too weird here. What else is going on?
00;43;02;17 - 00;43;07;28
Chris
I think we've established there's nothing going on, is there? Is Derek still going on? Yeah.
00;43;08;00 - 00;43;08;28
Derek
You guys, I'm here.
00;43;08;29 - 00;43;12;29
Aaron
He's been here. He's built another squiggle product while we've been on. Well, I'm.
00;43;13;05 - 00;43;18;01
Derek
I made I maybe five product designing while you guys are riffing.
00;43;18;03 - 00;43;28;21
Pri
By product as I think. But actually it would be like that actually you could see being like the next thing instead of, like, vibe coding, just like the vibe manufacturers.
00;43;28;23 - 00;43;33;18
Derek
I think Aaron and Chris have already kind of started. Don't you guys have like a weekly session where you're doing some of that?
00;43;33;23 - 00;43;38;16
Aaron
I do that every week. Chris, if you want to do vibe system design, like let's, let's do that now.
00;43;38;16 - 00;43;50;05
Pri
But we do that. We have been doing chaos coding once, once every other week with a couple members of the DAOs. And like, we started creating like a, a basically a metaverse. It's been kind of fun.
00;43;50;11 - 00;44;14;18
Chris
It I definitely getting the feeling that we're really, really close to the point where, like, this is something people should jump full into. I think a bit about, Marcus friend and Plenty of Fish, who was like the Edmund Hillary of like, solo unicorn founders. I don't know if you remember that plenty of fish dating site that like one dude ran for ten hours a week.
00;44;14;25 - 00;44;19;04
Aaron
That's like, Craig's List too, right? That was another I mean, I think that was like 2 or 3 people.
00;44;19;07 - 00;44;53;08
Chris
Yeah. But I do feel like the sort of arbitrage is in terms of, like the power differential. And if you can really wield these AI systems and you have this huge knowledge base in your head, the distribution and diffusion of that, like we're at this moment where it's almost, I think, the time to jump right in, because I think this window only stays open for a couple of years before the machines absorb the lessons of these early movers and bake them into their own functioning.
00;44;53;08 - 00;45;05;00
Aaron
Yeah, I can tell you, because I just track like the code generation that I'm able to do on a weekly basis. And like I'd say it's doubled since the end of the year last year on a weekly basis.
00;45;05;03 - 00;45;41;02
Derek
Can I throw out like a comment on that? I totally think you guys are spot on. And just like circling back and tying a bow around like that. The previous comments we had around remixing, I think everyone on here like understands like the power of UGC and like getting people to like getting, you know, a network activated around your platform or your brand or your product to kind of start like creating resonance with with remixes or with content that kind of relates back to the thing that you've built and you know, like as I've played around with this stuff and I've seen people like you, Aaron and Chris play around with this stuff and others,
00;45;41;04 - 00;46;02;15
Derek
it's so it's so clear to me how like, this is really just, it's not an incremental UGC. It's like a step function leap into how people are going to kind of interact with each other and in the, in the things that we collaborate on and the things we make in ways that are just like far more exponential then I think we're giving it credit for even today.
00;46;02;15 - 00;46;42;07
Derek
Like, I know, you know, you're you're everyone on this call is playing around this stuff. And our output, our creative output is probably ten x, what it was even a couple of years ago. And yeah, I just like, you know, like there's there's this, there's this, like, behavior shift around what it means to, to be a part of a brand or be a part of a product or be a part of a someone else's creation, that this technology really flattens and supercharges, that I'm still reeling and trying to figure out exactly what that means for for B consumer behaviors and, and maybe collaborative behaviors here in the not too distant future, like sonically or
00;46;42;07 - 00;46;57;23
Derek
visually or narratively or whatever that may be. I just feel like it's all, you know, this is like, it's getting like hyped up and supercharged and like this really interesting way. So I just wanted to throw that out there because it's, I think it ties nicely back to the remixing combo we were having previously.
00;46;57;25 - 00;47;28;03
Chris
It does. The missing piece to me is the coordination and consensus, like how these things actually get packaged up, consumed, but also exist as a conversation, right? Like we understand how memes are a way for like tribes to self-identify, for communities to form, but then those memes jump out past that and they become these information payloads that travel far and wide and everyone vibes off of.
00;47;28;05 - 00;47;50;23
Chris
We're not quite seeing that yet. For the heavier and more sophisticated I packages that, like, people are putting together, like I make music videos, I throw them on Twitter, I throw them on YouTube to do, you know, maybe a thousand years or something like that, right? And then they die and I don't really know what community that stuff should belong to.
00;47;50;24 - 00;48;15;06
Chris
I don't even know if a community exists. I make them because I like it, but I also make them because I have a larger world building project that they fit into. And so I don't care that they go out and they die because they have like a secondary purpose for me. But it is like very hazy how these sort of creations actually are supposed to like, fit in and in our collective meaning.
00;48;15;06 - 00;48;17;10
Chris
Making an enjoyment online.
00;48;17;13 - 00;48;23;17
Derek
Yeah, I think that's really well said. Prayer. And I know you guys are pretty deep on these topics. How are you feeling?
00;48;23;22 - 00;48;43;26
Aaron
I think it's all crossed, like Rubicon. I just think the speed, complexity, you know, I think the real challenge is people don't know how to use these systems yet, but it's kind of a Chris said before, if you know how to use them and you're not reading Twitter because I don't think that people on Twitter know actually how to use these systems, you can really get outrageously efficient output.
00;48;43;26 - 00;49;00;17
Aaron
And I think that's going to be the the story for the next couple of years. Right? I think we could debate how many years that is. But at some point the machines are going to get better and better. You feel it on a day to day basis where it's almost like they're filling in the gaps, like things that you didn't say or didn't instructed to do.
00;49;00;17 - 00;49;18;06
Aaron
It's already picking it up kind of intuitively. And I just think that it's just going to pick up more and more. But the output is it really is like going vertical like month over month. It's like, a high growth rate. Just just in terms of output and production like that, a single person can do so like and.
00;49;18;06 - 00;49;19;09
Derek
Yeah, it's that's pretty.
00;49;19;09 - 00;49;36;10
Aaron
Wild. Yeah. Like on a weekly basis there just to give numbers I'm able to generate, you know, in between doing all the other stuff that I'm doing for the days and tribute like 30,000 lines of code, your average developer would probably produce about 150 to 200 lines of code, like a day.
00;49;36;12 - 00;49;37;21
Derek
Let's fucking go.
00;49;37;25 - 00;49;59;09
Aaron
Right. But so like, then divide that out. It's like every week if you know how to use these systems. And I'm sure there's people that are better than me. So I know how to use them reasonably well. You're able to output like a year's worth of code on a weekly basis, so 52 years worth of code can get output by, you know, somebody with some proficiency on an annual basis.
00;49;59;12 - 00;50;02;17
Aaron
It's insane. Like the numbers start to become like in my inbox.
00;50;02;18 - 00;50;24;29
Derek
It's insane. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's I mean, dead internet theory applied and pulled up into the present and it's around and not just like, you know, the objects in the media and the, the cultural impact of what it means to kind of like be a part of the internet. But it's even like the products and the, you know, the, the platforms and the, you know, the, the businesses like everything.
00;50;24;29 - 00;50;31;01
Derek
It's just it's 20, 25 and I and, you know, I think we're we're knocking on the door of some pretty incredible themes here.
00;50;31;04 - 00;50;51;21
Chris
What's capable of like housing. And given these things utility. Right. I, I think about simulations. Right. Like, oh my God, they made all this shit. No one cares about it. Let me just invent a place where everyone gives a shit about it. And it actually gets some use. Like that's a self-motivated solution to, like, you know, avoiding yourself, just going out into the ether and disappearing.
00;50;51;21 - 00;50;58;05
Chris
But there has to be something more integrated and functionally useful. I have no idea what that's going to be.
00;50;58;07 - 00;51;25;10
Derek
It's a it's so when you say that it's actually funny, it brings me back to kind of the very first conversation we had here around standards and like people building standards and crypto and people going out on the curve and inventing and playing around and testing new standards. And the thought that crossed my mind, well, while we were having that conversation is is really like, you know, it's kind of like these, these generative AI systems where it's like, but a lot of people are like out on the curb right now playing around with this stuff.
00;51;25;10 - 00;51;57;29
Derek
But frankly, it's like a good chunk of it, say, 99.9% of everything that's been, that's used synthetic intelligence to create some sort of output is like, not useful. There's like no utility. And I think the question you're asking, or Chris is just like, at some point, what is the, the the kind of the, the utility or like the product utility, I should say, or service utility that actually, I don't know, in flux in the same way that like people are playing around with these standards and 99.9% of them are probably not useful or interesting from a product or service I.
00;51;58;00 - 00;52;15;09
Derek
But there will be one the you know, that that stands out that that allows kind of like an entire network to form around a of millions of people. And I think it just comes out of the I think it comes back down to kind of just like you know, human behavior and how we're conditioned and how we receive and use value.
00;52;15;09 - 00;52;37;07
Derek
And and maybe it's not even just us. It's like these robots, like at the end of the day, some of the the stuff that gets created with these systems are not meant for our utility or our product or service value, but for robotic, robotic and and synthetic folks who, who, who are, you know, mere extensions of human behavior that, that need some sort of like, payload value to, to operate.
00;52;37;07 - 00;52;46;15
Derek
Well, yeah. It's I mean, you're bringing up great questions. I don't really have a definitive response other than it's just a reminds me of some of the conversations happening around how people play with crypto right now.
00;52;46;17 - 00;53;04;02
Aaron
Yeah. But I you know, they're also great questions. What I've been trying to wrap my head around is, let's say every two quarters, though, it doubles 100%. Right. So by the middle of the year. So two months, it's now four x what I could produce before. And then by the end of the year it's eight x. Like what is that.
00;53;04;02 - 00;53;21;18
Aaron
Just like I have a hard time just picturing that much software in my head. And like where that where that lands to, like, I really do. Yeah. Like things that like, even last the fourth quarter of last year, that probably would have taken half a day. It's like, oh, okay. That's like one prompt. And we're like done.
00;53;21;20 - 00;53;48;10
Chris
I think one thing that's instructive is that five system design we did last week, the eight was really big, but it was big in a way that was Lego like and composable and that we were pulling a bunch of like existing systems or concepts and just remixing them and repackaging it, at a sort of breadth and scope that, you know, like, dude, I'm a product designer.
00;53;48;10 - 00;54;09;19
Chris
Like I build systems. That's what I did for a living. And I never had anything approaching like that. Cataloged. Yeah. To pull from. And it was like this kind of like crazy powerful moment. Or I was like, Holy shit. A this was way too easy. But B the number of things that we were able to access and tap into was absolutely wild.
00;54;09;19 - 00;54;30;14
Chris
And so I do wonder if it's these things are get are completely forgotten and like an object level. But when you get into like assemblages of systems that you need like this huge, massive surface area to be able to like draw on.
00;54;30;17 - 00;54;58;02
Aaron
Yeah, I think that's the power. I mean, this is what I think I said this last week where I'm like, not like I'm kind of bearish for like broad based experts, much more than like new upstart folks because they now can like, level up so fast because they have access to this broad wealth of knowledge that they would have had, would have had to learn from a senior person in an organization or a teacher or, you know, some other learned person and now which is there.
00;54;58;06 - 00;55;16;05
Aaron
So if you can, if you just know and can expand your mind to like, tap into those wells, it's vast. And I think that that's also kind of the story with how people are approaching these systems when it comes to suffer. They don't realize that they can do so much. They think they can only like get an a quick answer, like when they went to Substack on a technical question.
00;55;16;05 - 00;55;32;14
Aaron
Right? They don't realize, actually, no, they could pretty much a screenshot, an application and it can largely get built, you know, in an hour if they know how to do it and ask these like, narrow questions to the system and it and then it becomes like Talmudic. Chris where it really depends on like what you're asking it. Right?
00;55;32;14 - 00;55;55;07
Aaron
And like how often you're asking it and how much you're kind of pushing these systems to give you something that you think is useful or valuable. Like I really do believe, like going back to that ERC 20, you know, or new ERC standards, like if a group of really talented developers, like spent some time just like plumbing GPT 4.5 for thousand 10,000 ideas related to token standards.
00;55;55;07 - 00;56;06;09
Aaron
Like, I have a feeling that some really interesting new ones would crop up and they'd get, you know, the the token factories going again because they'd be useful and wild and and pretty cool.
00;56;06;11 - 00;56;15;08
Chris
America does not need $2 an hour wages to make toasters. America needs the token factories operating at full capacity.
00;56;15;13 - 00;56;17;01
Aaron
Absolutely.
00;56;17;03 - 00;56;37;01
Pri
On that note, welcome to that society where we're a podcast where it's me, Aaron, Chris and Derek discussing digital art, culture, history, history, and more. Just a quick disclaimer. These thoughts and opinions are our own and not of our employer. One podcast today.
00;56;37;07 - 00;56;38;19
Aaron
Yeah nice one guys.
00;56;38;22 - 00;56;47;21
Chris
All right. Next week we're going to talk about the rise of the Barkas. Right. Like what led to Hannibal. Yeah.
00;56;47;21 - 00;56;48;15
Pri
Should we create.
00;56;48;17 - 00;56;49;14
Chris
Some damn elephants?
00;56;49;14 - 00;56;51;24
Aaron
I think we're going to lose Derek. Then we have to, you know.
00;56;51;24 - 00;56;58;28
Derek
I'll do it. I'll sit and listen. But I may not have much to offer. It sounds interesting.
00;56;58;29 - 00;57;03;23
Chris
No, I know that society was great until three got history filled and we alienated Derek.
00;57;03;25 - 00;57;06;17
Pri
Yeah.
00;57;06;19 - 00;57;10;27
Aaron
And, you know, let's not go too deep there. But I do think a little.
00;57;10;29 - 00;57;13;29
Derek
No, I mean, I think it's fun. I think it's it's good stuff.
00;57;14;02 - 00;57;17;28
Aaron
Let's just make some squiggle Legos. I'm here for the Legos.
00;57;18;00 - 00;57;20;05
Pri
Legos is like the ultimate brand partnership.
00;57;20;05 - 00;57;23;08
Derek
Like, dude, I actually like.
00;57;23;11 - 00;57;32;22
Aaron
Derek, I like yours. I like your sneakers though, too. The sneakers actually were quite good. I don't know how many versions of that you came up with, but I think those were were wearable.
00;57;32;27 - 00;58;00;08
Derek
Thank you. Did the Jordan Elevens those are like the grail of the Grail for Sneakerheads. They're like the the sneakers that, Michael Jordan wore in Space Jam and yeah, I just I love the Jordan Elevens and they've got this patent leather feature on it. And so I was like, well, what if I just wiped out everything to make it as clean as possible and make the embroidered Jumpman leather white and everything white and use the patent leather for like this rainbow sheen.
00;58;00;08 - 00;58;06;26
Derek
And it came out so fucking good. Yeah it did. I was so happy with it. So yeah, thank you for saying that. I would buy those in RB.
00;58;06;27 - 00;58;12;22
Aaron
Yeah, I they look completely Marc. Like you could completely see people wearing them and like loving them. Yeah. All that jazz.
00;58;12;23 - 00;58;18;21
Chris
Derek I was a big fan of the, Kawasaki hydrogen horse squiggle. Let's go.
00;58;18;23 - 00;58;19;23
Aaron
Let's go.
00;58;19;26 - 00;58;23;27
Chris
I was just pictured to Bill Walton riding that. Chris.
00;58;24;04 - 00;58;27;13
Derek
Chris, you and I are going for a spin when you get back out here to the West Coast.
00;58;27;16 - 00;58;29;10
Chris
Damn right.
00;58;29;12 - 00;58;31;04
Derek
All right, crew. Good stuff.
00;58;31;06 - 00;58;50;23
Chris
Yeah. See you.