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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;16;03 - 00;00;19;11
Aaron
So, Chris, I heard your. You're moving to Miami.
00;00;19;17 - 00;00;32;09
Chris
You know, Aaron I tried, man, I tried. New York's agree to see in the world. I just can't handle this woke AI Sharia law, mind virus we got going on here anymore? What?
00;00;32;11 - 00;00;34;14
Aaron
What are you talking about?
00;00;34;16 - 00;00;43;20
Chris
My liberty. My freedom. It's being. It's being impinged. No, I need to get out of here. I need to get down to Miami, where everything is wonderful.
00;00;43;20 - 00;00;47;20
Aaron
I felt Miami's now, like, even more expensive than New York. Did I read that right?
00;00;47;22 - 00;00;59;27
Pri
I actually saw that. I actually saw that, too. I also saw, like, Ken Griffin literally bought an entire I saw that he bought, like, condos and like a whole building. Like, he just like, bought every condo in this one building.
00;00;59;29 - 00;01;26;18
Aaron
That was a wild story. Pre did you dig into that? He was doing like I just on the. So he bought them all under different LLCs. There's a rule which I didn't realize. But if 80% of the buildings owned by I guess one or related party, they could force the remaining 20% to sell, which is kind of like a, you know, a standard kind of corporate law, like drag along type.
00;01;26;18 - 00;01;48;10
Aaron
Right? You know, he started with like small bids, you know, over asking then larger bids. But if you were in that like last 20%, you'd walk away. I think with just like the fair market value, the property is like a lot of really weird dynamics related to it. And then there was like some one or like a handful of brokers that were like coordinating the whole thing.
00;01;48;13 - 00;01;52;02
Aaron
Super weird. I feel like that should be like a reality show.
00;01;52;09 - 00;02;00;02
Chris
Isn't the plot twist, though. Now he's hung up with some sort of permitting issue. And so whatever he wants to do with the building, you can't.
00;02;00;05 - 00;02;01;21
Pri
Oh, is that what happened?
00;02;01;24 - 00;02;12;02
Aaron
Yeah. I didn't get to see where it landed. I just kind of heard the acquisition strategy. I'm just like, is he. Was he like that fixated on this? Was this like somebody on his team, like, you know, like had it.
00;02;12;03 - 00;02;16;10
Pri
Well, I was I was like, why are you doing this? Is it like, is it corporate housing?
00;02;16;11 - 00;02;37;26
Aaron
No, I think it's like just a beautiful property. The at least what I, what I heard and read was that it was really they want to build a bigger footprint in Miami, which is understandable. They do want that freedom, Chris. And and this was just like a really nice place to do that. Like it was like visually stunning and I think good location etc..
00;02;37;28 - 00;02;39;10
Aaron
Oh, whatever.
00;02;39;11 - 00;02;49;17
Pri
Yeah. Miami is on the up. So wait, Chris, where are you going to go? Like Coconut Grove, Miami Beach, Surfside brick.
00;02;49;20 - 00;02;54;09
Chris
Put me downtown in the glass tower, seal me off from everything.
00;02;54;11 - 00;02;57;07
Pri
Star Island or whatever.
00;02;57;09 - 00;02;59;19
Aaron
I don't even know what the word. You're saying.
00;02;59;21 - 00;03;05;08
Chris
I need to spend $40 million an acre. Put me on Star Island, please.
00;03;05;12 - 00;03;10;21
Pri
Isn't that what all the billionaires are? Is it Star Island or what island is it? It's like literally.
00;03;10;23 - 00;03;19;07
Chris
I believe there's several of them at this point. Yeah. Star Islands. Gosh, it's where Tiger Woods, Phillips's Range Rover now.
00;03;19;09 - 00;03;25;23
Pri
Oh, yeah. There's I forget where like Bezos had Co. But there's like and like Zuckerberg.
00;03;25;23 - 00;03;33;00
Aaron
But is that where all the capital like fled to. They just went to Star Island. I don't know. Miami real estate.
00;03;33;06 - 00;03;42;04
Pri
No it's not like star. There's like a couple islands. I'm like blanking on their names. But Fisher Island, that's another one that's like Wasp Pier, though, I feel like.
00;03;42;06 - 00;03;51;29
Chris
Yeah. Isn't there one like Man of Mana, Pauly or something? It's where Larry Ellison is plunking down a hundred million to to buy. Like the the lot next door. It's pretty.
00;03;52;00 - 00;03;55;22
Pri
Is it Palm Beach or my me I like, feel like I like like.
00;03;55;25 - 00;04;06;03
Chris
Who cares? Doesn't matter. Big big flat nothing. That's one day going to be just a giant swamp again.
00;04;06;05 - 00;04;07;24
Pri
Are you bearish New York?
00;04;07;26 - 00;04;11;13
Chris
I'm done. No, I fucking love it here. I was being smart ass.
00;04;11;16 - 00;04;15;03
Pri
I don't know. Aaron is a little skeptical in the future of New York. I just.
00;04;15;07 - 00;04;33;22
Aaron
Like it's a little bit like New York's a little bit like crypto to me. Like I have confidence in it, but I don't see the other side. Like I think if you look at like what AI targets, it's really those will target first. I would say it's a lot of these like high end white collar jobs. Right. Law, finance.
00;04;33;24 - 00;04;57;13
Aaron
There's a lot of software engineering to in New York. And you know, a burgeoning, you know, tech sector just from like IBM all the way down down the line. And it's not I'd say like as aggressive as San Francisco. And so I do wonder, you know, if over time, you know, maybe, maybe some of the luster leaves New York.
00;04;57;14 - 00;05;14;14
Aaron
Right. You know, we've had folks like David Sachs predict that Miami may pass New York as a finance hub, or even Austin may eclipse SF and tech over time. I don't know, I could see it right. Like I didn't think I would see that a couple of years ago, but I can definitely see it now.
00;05;14;22 - 00;05;22;09
Chris
This is all like a lot of unnecessary neuroticism. You're living in two high stakes world. You should you should just be like out of burrow maxing.
00;05;22;15 - 00;05;25;23
Aaron
I mean, if New York is not anything, it has to be a little neurotic.
00;05;25;24 - 00;05;31;09
Pri
Yeah. What happens to the you know, what happens to the outer bro? Like I don't know, right?
00;05;31;10 - 00;05;36;26
Chris
You literally don't know, because the whole existence of them is an entirely new concept to you.
00;05;36;28 - 00;05;37;26
Pri
That's true.
00;05;38;02 - 00;05;40;09
Aaron
Yeah. But look like I mean, I think.
00;05;40;11 - 00;05;41;23
Pri
York's resilient. I don't.
00;05;41;23 - 00;06;01;20
Aaron
Know, New York is resilient, but it's super resilient. But like a lot of the capital base like outside, I think finance post AI is just assuming that there still is finance. Although I just heard Elon give this like very long hour and a half economist podcast where he continued to pick up that thread that there will be no like money in ten years.
00;06;01;20 - 00;06;30;09
Aaron
But so let's assume that there's still money in ten years. I'm not there yet. Elon on that. Although I'm reluctant to, like, completely dismiss his predictions. He's pretty good at that. I think finance should kind of like contort itself to that. I have a harder time seeing like advertising, law and accounting and like some of those other important secondary industries, like really making that that same adjustment you're already probably in hit your radar.
00;06;30;09 - 00;06;42;15
Aaron
But there was like a there's a great firm Quinn Emanuel like partners already like leaving to spin out like AI native boutique law firms. So if that happens everywhere like what happens to like quote unquote big law.
00;06;42;22 - 00;07;03;08
Pri
The media and all will exist is just going to be smaller, right? So there's gonna be less people, which means like less tax, smaller capital base. But I will say, like, not that this means much, but it just feels like New York. That has been slowly happening in New York in general. Like a lot of the people that are here, I don't even know if they're like contributing that much to the tax base.
00;07;03;09 - 00;07;10;14
Pri
Like they're just like around doing content creation. Like, I see it everywhere, like.
00;07;10;16 - 00;07;13;03
Aaron
Content creation. I already feel it. I mean, I.
00;07;13;03 - 00;07;13;11
Pri
Really.
00;07;13;11 - 00;07;35;00
Aaron
Feel it. It's got good vistas. Yeah. I mean, on the on the flip side, right. Like I'm no AI Duma. I do think that people will probably work less like that's where it will land. Like instead of having like 50% unemployment, like some, you know, doom, slop, like to predict, I think people just work less. Maybe it's two days a week, maybe it's two and a half days a week.
00;07;35;01 - 00;07;51;03
Aaron
And so living like in a place that other people want to live, which New York has done a good job cultivating and building could mean that it's good for the city, too. So I don't really know where I land on it, but it's something I just can't see the other side, unfortunately.
00;07;51;05 - 00;07;58;09
Chris
Like worrying about the Stamp Act or the Klein of like our merchant Clever fleet or the power of the railroad Trust.
00;07;58;10 - 00;08;02;03
Aaron
Like Chris, I'm still worried about those things. Those are important moments.
00;08;02;05 - 00;08;09;15
Pri
Yeah. Get better. Get, get get some more stuff to worry about. New York's going to be fine. Thank you, I needed that. Hope you.
00;08;09;22 - 00;08;12;10
Chris
Carry what is going on in your corner of the world.
00;08;12;13 - 00;08;45;29
Pri
I guess I'll share what I like. What I started reading yesterday, which is kind of cool. Have you heard of this? Like it's called like the Letter to Posterity by Petrarch, who wrote it later in his life. He he was kind of like this, like kind of storied leader in Italy. And he basically was writing it to the future, like basically addressing readers who weren't or who haven't been born yet and like telling them about himself.
00;08;45;29 - 00;09;06;11
Pri
And he like, he was exiled. So he talks about his exiled. And then he was like talking about his parents, like pushing him to do all these things and abandoning classic literature. And a lot of people say that his work was like the seed to start the Renaissance. And it was kind of like the birth of individuals speaking on text.
00;09;06;11 - 00;09;16;14
Pri
So I've been kind of I'll share it in the in the show notes, but I guess that's like one interesting. I think I've been kind of reading about kind of trying to go back in time.
00;09;16;18 - 00;09;19;27
Aaron
Yeah. Why is that jumping out to? Why is that calling to now? Pray?
00;09;20;00 - 00;09;21;22
Pri
I saw it in the show notes of another.
00;09;21;22 - 00;09;24;15
Pri
Podcast, actually, and.
00;09;24;17 - 00;09;54;26
Pri
I'm actually writing my next piece on spiritual technology, spirit, tech and consciousness. And my whole thesis of this article is at the endpoint of longevity is actually just spirituality. Like especially with what you were saying about AI and how everyone's just going to be working like two days a week. Obviously we talk about consumerism going up and like people getting more into collecting and trying to understand the world around them, both like human created objects, but like physical Earth objects.
00;09;54;26 - 00;10;15;22
Pri
But then I also think people are going to obviously want to improve themselves. And like you already see with like meditation apps and all this stuff like that has grown so much. But I think like spirituality, understanding the cosmos and understanding our like the human race as being like the small blip of everything that happens across the universe.
00;10;15;28 - 00;10;38;05
Pri
I just think that's going to be something that people care to think more about and like what that means and how we were created. I also just watched this like documentary, like docu series on Netflix about the universe, and it was really well done. Morgan Freeman narrates it, but that just had me thinking. And like I've been seeing more people talk about spirituality and I'm like, it's kind of like that.
00;10;38;06 - 00;10;42;13
Pri
Like, I wouldn't be surprised if, like, the longevity health pros just like pivoted to that.
00;10;42;14 - 00;10;51;09
Chris
So you're on your cosmic aka like you're just walking around being like, My God, we're all made of stars and isn't that fucking crazy?
00;10;51;11 - 00;11;09;03
Pri
No, I think it's going to be something that other people actually hear about. Like, I think I might believe in astrology, question mark, but it makes like, I don't know, I think I think there's I didn't realize I was so woo because I'm pretty much a rationalist, but I think I'm becoming more woo woo.
00;11;09;05 - 00;11;35;13
Chris
I think it's perfectly fine to go through phases where you embrace the woo. I think it makes life a little goofy, a little funner. I haven't really had a moment in the woo in a little bit, but I understand what you're saying, because sometimes this stuff lines up in ways in which you're just like, well, you just kind of hit the nail on the head, right?
00;11;35;15 - 00;11;42;26
Chris
Like, I'm a Taurus. I'm also a fire dragon. And I, I match both of those things. What do you mean by really?
00;11;42;26 - 00;11;45;00
Aaron
Well, what the hell is a fire dragon?
00;11;45;06 - 00;11;50;01
Chris
Like what? It's my Chinese zodiac. I was born again.
00;11;50;04 - 00;11;52;25
Pri
I'm trying to.
00;11;52;27 - 00;11;59;21
Aaron
See now. It all makes sense. Now I have no clue. What? How do I even look up what I am? I want to be a fire.
00;11;59;23 - 00;12;15;10
Chris
This thing called the internet. I had my palm read once in my life. It was at a corporate party, and the palm reader told me, reading my palm, that I would start a company and it would be like a child to me.
00;12;15;15 - 00;12;16;22
Pri
What?
00;12;16;25 - 00;12;40;06
Chris
It was dead right? So I've never had my palm write again, right? Like I don't I don't want that. Like, hey, I kind of want to I want to be one for one with a dead ass hit on it. Right? And two, like what? What if it happens to be two for two? And then I got to be like a like in the palm reading, you know, like, I don't want that burden in my life.
00;12;40;07 - 00;12;42;26
Aaron
I'm a metaphor, by the way.
00;12;42;29 - 00;12;44;03
Chris
A metal monkey.
00;12;44;07 - 00;12;45;27
Aaron
Metal monkey. Yeah.
00;12;46;00 - 00;12;49;27
Chris
What is that? You're real into Snider and twisted twister.
00;12;50;00 - 00;12;56;09
Aaron
Always. Yeah. You know, if it's if it's not warrant. I'm not listening to it, Chris.
00;12;56;15 - 00;12;59;19
Pri
A metal actually kind of sounds based. I'm not going to lie. That's pretty cool.
00;12;59;20 - 00;13;06;05
Aaron
Yeah, it's pretty good branding. This is good branding on the Chinese zodiac. I never knew I was a metal monkey.
00;13;06;07 - 00;13;10;08
Pri
The irony is, you literally hate monkey art.
00;13;10;11 - 00;13;17;18
Aaron
I'm not interested in in primate based artwork.
00;13;17;20 - 00;13;20;02
Chris
You're not at the intersection of digital culture.
00;13;20;02 - 00;13;29;03
Aaron
And I just doesn't, you know, maybe maybe because I'm living it every day. Guys, I don't I don't need represent that in my art.
00;13;29;05 - 00;13;33;28
Pri
And I feel you on. That was just a funny tangent, but what were we talking about. Oh yeah.
00;13;33;29 - 00;13;43;01
Chris
Yeah, yeah. We're we're in the. Woohoo! What? All right. Let's stay in the woohoo because I think Aaron's going to start squirming here and.
00;13;43;04 - 00;13;45;20
Aaron
There a couple couple of weeks now Chris don't worry.
00;13;45;22 - 00;14;16;15
Pri
No no no no. This has been a recent phenomenon. I can't wait to share my piece with you. All I like need to really work on it this weekend. I think. I think anything like I mean anything from like breathwork to meditation to yoga, I feel like is one side of inner spirituality. But then on the other end and like then you have like astrology and whatever, I mean, then you have like drug induced spiritual awakening, to which I feel like the longevity crowd has already, you could say, dabbled in.
00;14;16;18 - 00;14;39;27
Pri
And then you layer in like biological computing. And you know what? We can, like, learn about our genes and all of that. I think, like, there's going to be this crossover of like science and you could say Lulu tech, where people will start leaning into that a little bit more. I mean, this is adjacent to the whole like Catholicism is back, like there's like all these Christian.
00;14;39;27 - 00;15;03;29
Pri
I was like looking at all these apps, like there's all these like spiritual like apps and Christianity apps and religious apps. But I think it's going to be more about like the human understanding, like people with AI are already contemplating what it means to be human. So I just see that further compounding. I don't really have much else to say beyond that, but that's kind of like it kind of also aligns with some of the dream technology stuff.
00;15;04;02 - 00;15;21;23
Pri
Like I've been seeing a lot of really, really smart scientists start thinking about like these like BCI devices where you put them on your head, you go to sleep, you can start mapping out what's literally like objects in your dream. Like there are people actually doing this and building technology around this and even like the meta brain stuff.
00;15;21;24 - 00;15;31;27
Pri
Like to me, it's all kind of connected to like inner self. So I think like people want to understand what's going on inside a bit more.
00;15;32;00 - 00;15;57;19
Aaron
Well, I think the AI labs also want to understand this now. I mean, then that's what's probably pushing it a bit like, I think the questions of conscience, you know, I mean, there was that interesting post from anthropic, which it's hard to fully give credence to because they overstate so many things where they talked about the, you know, like the private mental space for the models when it's like churning through a turning to a request.
00;15;57;19 - 00;16;16;18
Aaron
So, you know, they were kind of intimating without calling it that. It's like proto consciousness. So I bet like a lot of that research class is super fascinated about that and would love to like, learn more about those pieces. So I wonder how much of the spiritual tech is just like a quest to understand the mind better?
00;16;16;21 - 00;16;50;27
Pri
Yeah, I mean, I think it is. That's why it's like some it's like this weird woohoo blend of understanding the mind better. But there's also like real science available to start doing that. And then I, you know, the the obsession with space right now. And it kind of went down this like this is like again a little bit of a tangent, but I kind of started looking at the Christie's and Sotheby's market around, like, I think they're calling it like natural objects or natural discoveries in these like different departments.
00;16;50;29 - 00;17;15;21
Pri
And they have primarily like crystals, like healing crystals. And then, you know, meteorites and other space objects that are really beautiful. But like, if you look at the growth in that market, that's all. It's almost like doubled since 2022. And part of that is just like, you know, people are going into space more. It's you know, we hear about space every day in the space IPO.
00;17;15;21 - 00;17;37;29
Pri
But I think people are going to start like wanting to really understand what's outside of Earth more and like which is going to innately have us question like our place in the universe. But that's another like side thing that I think is also part of it is like just just as as we explore this next frontier of space in a more meaningful way, it's going to that.
00;17;37;29 - 00;17;44;00
Pri
Plus, AI is going to lead us as humans to look more inward.
00;17;44;02 - 00;18;07;18
Chris
What forms of space rocks are you bullish on? Are you not into moon rocks? Because pretty soon everyone will have a moon rock? Because we'll just be up in the moon all the time. Are you thinking further out? Are you thinking you know what? This asteroid is bound to return in the next four decades. And if I can get a piece of that one, like, where are you going with this?
00;18;07;20 - 00;18;16;17
Pri
I mean, the dinosaur stuff is like part of that whole thing. And like, fossils is also something like that. Market is that market taught, the fossil market.
00;18;16;20 - 00;18;32;09
Aaron
It's so funny because whenever I read that, I just think during like the, the last great bull cycle, and there was all these folks that reached out because they wanted to set up DAOs to buy like dinosaur bones. And it was like, this is so bizarre.
00;18;32;11 - 00;18;42;11
Pri
Remember that the guy who is starting the dinosaur fund? Yeah. And he wanted to use that. Like then they would donate it to like, universities for research as part of that fund.
00;18;42;12 - 00;18;47;12
Aaron
Yeah, it was like post constitution too. But like those assets have kind of appreciated.
00;18;47;13 - 00;19;12;06
Pri
So I mean, there's a lot of like I've been looking, you know, the the main Hindu god that my family follows is Shiva. We can move on past this, but a lot of like the if you look at like like it's called like the lingam like, like and there's like this meteoric stone that it's really represented by and that's been, you know, people have been following that for I guess, centuries now.
00;19;12;07 - 00;19;40;01
Pri
It's like like this, like cause it's like this cosmic embodiment that people that's kind of represented in this, like Hindu god. And there's also like gender and there's like this like masculine feminine thing with this like type of meteoric stone. And so anyways, I just, I feel like we feel like look into history sometimes and like, I don't think those people were like those people.
00;19;40;03 - 00;20;03;23
Pri
Humans back then were like, totally wrong about everything. And so when I'm thinking about, yeah, I'm definitely on like this, like cosmic Arc, I think when I'm thinking about that, I'm like thinking about everything. I've been exposed to it. I'm like, I wouldn't be surprised if this all sort of reroutes again, just given where we are today and like where humanity will go.
00;20;03;25 - 00;20;06;13
Pri
Not to get too weird on this pod here.
00;20;06;13 - 00;20;21;10
Chris
I'll I'll rein it in a little bit. Or maybe I'll just go actually, even even further out. I like which way Western man here. I'll start with maybe a little about seeing history for a second. Are you familiar with Bailey's?
00;20;21;17 - 00;20;22;14
Pri
No.
00;20;22;17 - 00;20;59;09
Chris
All right. So sales is like the first Greek philosopher or like one of the one of the very first, like, it's pre-Socratic. You know, they're kind of operating in cults at the time. And so sales has got, like, all sorts of wild ideas and, you know, one of one of which is everything is made of water that, you know, if you start breaking everything down, he basically comes up with like a proto concept of atoms.
00;20;59;09 - 00;21;31;17
Chris
And this dude's operating in the sixth century BCE. Now he happens to pick water, right? Like a lot of the early philosophers are very much element oriented, and that's all they can really think about. But yeah, if you want to like, just kind of like get into that universal tradition and, you know, people being directionally right a gazillion years ago and just not having the language to really get that idea in a good form.
00;21;31;18 - 00;21;33;23
Chris
Baileys is a good one for you.
00;21;33;25 - 00;22;06;20
Pri
I'll check it out. I have been thinking about water more. I'm like, there's no way, like just the moon in cosmic connection to like, humans and how we're like, whatever, 70% water. Like like there's no way that the moon and where we travel in space, like, isn't affecting our bodies and all these things. I'm not saying anything new, but I just think that, like, we should be thinking more about what people were saying and these myths that were created around certain things in a more serious scientific fashion, and we might have the ability to do that now.
00;22;06;23 - 00;22;15;23
Chris
We might. We'll see. We'll see. Perhaps everything gets in one model release from now. Yeah. You never know the.
00;22;15;26 - 00;22;17;08
Pri
All the maps are solved.
00;22;17;09 - 00;22;34;00
Aaron
There we go. Now we're on it. Yeah, we're just cranking through all the math problems. So next up, some of these deeper questions. Did you see that the. It was some meteor that crashed into like a new Jersey house in saw this and they found within.
00;22;34;02 - 00;22;35;04
Chris
Your problem?
00;22;35;10 - 00;22;35;25
Aaron
No.
00;22;35;26 - 00;22;36;06
Pri
Did they.
00;22;36;07 - 00;22;42;13
Aaron
Sell it even better. No, they didn't sell it. I'm staying away from those landmines.
00;22;42;15 - 00;22;47;11
Chris
Was it's auction price its own math problem? And if you solved it, you got to buy it.
00;22;47;12 - 00;23;11;26
Aaron
No. Instead, it was much more banal, which is they just found ingredients for life in that meteor. So it wasn't that, you know, like it was all there. But I guess the fine folks at Imperial College London, like, evaluated the meteorite. It's called the Hillsborough meteorite. And yeah, it had like some elements that would be necessary for, for life on it.
00;23;11;26 - 00;23;23;05
Aaron
So maybe there's some real science kind of sitting behind some of those earlier, you know, more primitive religious concepts.
00;23;23;08 - 00;23;36;00
Pri
We'll listen to a podcast that went through concepts from history and tied them and rooted them into real scientific grounds. Today, I think that would be interesting or even like a documentary of that.
00;23;36;01 - 00;23;59;26
Aaron
I think a lot of that stuff, you know, like people were just I mean, you see something absolutely insane. You're you're you're on TV, all you got is the fire to look at, like, you're a smart brain is going to really turn on that for a while. So it's not surprising that we kind of like, you know, develop clues to figure out, you know, more advanced scientific concepts over time.
00;24;00;03 - 00;24;02;28
Aaron
But I'm glad you're on your spiritual journey.
00;24;02;29 - 00;24;21;14
Pri
Yeah, maybe. Maybe I'm becoming more religious, like, oh my God, no, but I'm writing that. Yeah, I'm going to write this piece. And I think it could be interesting, but maybe not. What I'm saying is not really novel, and this is what people believe for a while, and it's just hitting me right now. But it's like the AI space stuff is really driving it.
00;24;21;14 - 00;24;23;09
Pri
But I think it will for other people too.
00;24;23;13 - 00;25;05;21
Chris
Now, I think this is a perfectly good this is like a summer, our side quest, you know, this is like a great time of year to to just kind of head off in a different direction. You should you should run down the whole rabbit hole of like esoterica, Gnosticism, the whole heretical knowledge of, you know, the first couple like the basically from early Christianity to the Renaissance era, there's all sorts of folks who get off the off the beaten path, and they have to start speaking in, you know, hidden, hidden numerological codes in their in their words.
00;25;05;21 - 00;25;56;16
Chris
And, you know, they got some real flights of fancy there. Like, it's a good it's a good, like interesting little fertile ground. But let's, let's come a little more grounded here. I do believe there's, there's a space for digital animism enabled by AI that I think, from a consumer product perspective, will most closely resemble kami. You know, the Japanese concept that all sorts of objects in nature or infused with spirits, and probably the easiest manifestation of this would be to kind of look at the whole, like, studio jubilee catalog and like, you know, they're sort of interactions with nature and, you know, the Cat bus or the little dust mites that have personalities, you know,
00;25;56;18 - 00;26;43;08
Chris
a rock, you can talk to that sort of stuff, right? Because once you get kind of this infused and diffused AI like AI in embedded objects scattered throughout your house, it's very easy to start pulling in, you know, via like environmental orchestration via like, you know, sort of this mesh topology, you know, flavoring different things in your house and imbuing them with personalities, quirks like little, little subtle tells in which, yeah, you could kind of bring back that whole like, magical notion of the world is enchanted and that the objects that you interact with, right, are more than just functional, that they're expressive, that they have the spirit inside of them.
00;26;43;08 - 00;27;10;14
Chris
And from a like a technical capabilities thing. Right. Like this isn't hard to do in probably about ten years. Right? Is that, you know, so many different things. It'll just be a little SDK and there'll be a little, you know, a little stack, you know, a mic, a speaker, a network connection. And you can just say, look, I want my toes to be friendly.
00;27;10;15 - 00;27;35;18
Chris
I want my coffee maker, be grumpy. I want the lights in my house. Always aware of environmental. Cuz like music, like weather, like time of year. And I want them to coordinate their the color tones and the warmth and the luminosity that you know in, in ways that just make my whole ambient setting more conducive to whatever I am in the moment.
00;27;35;19 - 00;27;48;29
Chris
Like that's not going to be very hard to do. You know, we're probably like ten years away from like being able to get that into, like a consumer type package and then slowly, you know, distribute it outwards.
00;27;49;02 - 00;28;17;25
Pri
That's really interesting. It's kind of I mean, I mean, that's the interesting part about AI is like, you are kind of breathing life into it, into everything or anything you want to breathe life into is kind of now possible. Aaron mentioned this, but he was like, it's kind of like the resurgence of like resurgence of this, like IoT device thing where like everything is connected and like, you know, things in life, but that, like, didn't fully take off, like IoT ended up just being like a smart fridge, kind of.
00;28;17;25 - 00;28;36;20
Pri
And then like an Alexa device. But like, I think what you're speaking to is like true IoT. I was reading some like MIT, like, what's the future? Like if you broke down the future of tech and seven categories, one of them was literally called pervasive computing, which I kind of like that. But pervasive computing, in their words, is like integrating sensors.
00;28;36;22 - 00;28;44;09
Pri
IoT processing powers seamlessly into everyday objects and environments. But I feel like that's basically what you're getting at. Chris.
00;28;44;11 - 00;28;48;09
Aaron
Yeah, and I think the rope robotics is going to push that.
00;28;48;12 - 00;28;52;04
Chris
So you can't do it like that. That's a huge driver this. Right.
00;28;52;06 - 00;29;15;21
Aaron
Well, but yeah, I think there wasn't a driver before. Right. It was all kind of like, oh, you can optimize your supply chain or something. You can make your far more efficient, which are important, don't get me wrong. But they're not like the same driver as, as like oh there's now pervasive robotics and it will make it easier for them to interact with the world around them if everything is larded up with sensors.
00;29;15;26 - 00;29;39;00
Chris
Yeah. Like, hey, I was in telecom during the time when they tried to make IoT happen. I unfortunately had to devote a couple quarters of product roadmap to serving our masters and trying to sell IoT. It was it was the wrong place. It was the wrong time. It was, hey, we have excess capacity. We have these 5G networks in which we can have edge computing, right?
00;29;39;01 - 00;30;02;19
Chris
Like so. The telcos were ready to turn this into a business line. The rest of the world wasn't. And that was like the real flop behind IoT. However, I think the other issue, right, it was the Internet of things and who cares about things? I think it should be called the Internet of Woohoo, and I would w I think it's going to have she.
00;30;02;26 - 00;30;09;23
Aaron
She's already bought her internet connected doorknob so it screams ouch. Every time she squeeze it squeezes it.
00;30;09;26 - 00;30;19;19
Chris
Isn't that going to be fantastic? Like do you do you want your do you want that thing to be able to scrunch in a little bit? Do you want to want like a haptic tactile response when it goes out?
00;30;19;22 - 00;30;23;04
Aaron
I don't know, probably not. I do it, I.
00;30;23;04 - 00;30;23;29
Pri
Probably.
00;30;24;01 - 00;30;25;13
Pri
Is that.
00;30;25;16 - 00;30;37;10
Pri
Is that is that Japanese concept like how toys story was born? Like, wasn't that the original? Like, am I making that up or like that concept like gave birth to Toy Story the movie?
00;30;37;10 - 00;30;39;26
Chris
I don't know, that's a good question.
00;30;39;28 - 00;30;41;16
Pri
I feel like I read that once.
00;30;41;19 - 00;31;13;04
Chris
It wouldn't surprise me. And it's also a very fancy way of saying, we want to we want to copy what the masters doing over there, you know, instead of just saying, yeah, well, we got to make an American CGI version for me as a movie. They can be like, oh, we were inspired by the Japanese concept of kami, in which we can, you know, infuse digital animism into inert objects to create compelling stories in which we reframe the subject object point of view and cast ourselves back into the wonder of what it is to be a child.
00;31;13;09 - 00;31;14;20
Pri
Yep. We celebrate.
00;31;14;27 - 00;31;18;15
Chris
Oh, it was apparently five movies strong and going sellable.
00;31;18;17 - 00;31;34;22
Pri
Yeah, the new one is about iPads taking over toys. I kind of want to see it anyways. Not to to to to lose sight of the conversation. I do think that's going to be more of a thing. I like the term pervasive community computing, but I actually internet of who is kind of better.
00;31;34;23 - 00;31;38;20
Chris
Like why isn't your MetaMask seed phrase just like mahjong Kyle's?
00;31;38;23 - 00;31;41;26
Pri
That'd be so good.
00;31;41;28 - 00;31;50;25
Chris
Oh, you ever play mahjong? Have you have you has that quadrant of the world been unlocked to you yet, or you still got your hustle culture concerns?
00;31;50;26 - 00;32;12;16
Pri
Yeah. I mean, I will say it's very cool amongst, like, Brooklyn moms and like my friends who live in country, who live in the suburbs and are part of country clubs like mahjong night is definitely a thing for them. But I haven't done that yet. I'm still mentally not not quite there.
00;32;12;20 - 00;32;15;17
Pri
With my peer group, but everyone's into it.
00;32;15;22 - 00;32;21;10
Aaron
Is that the the horseshoe theory, where retirees and and.
00;32;21;13 - 00;32;22;10
Pri
Millennials.
00;32;22;12 - 00;32;26;04
Aaron
Millennials kind of unite around mahjong.
00;32;26;09 - 00;32;43;29
Pri
There's also young people like at like playing mahjong at like WSJ and stuff like there are like mahjong nights for young people. I just haven't done that yet, to be quite honest with you. I'm just like not a game person. Like, I know it sounds crazy, but I just like, don't really care about, like, I'd rather just have a glass of wine and chat with people.
00;32;44;05 - 00;32;47;01
Pri
I don't know if I need to, like do anything.
00;32;47;03 - 00;33;08;13
Chris
Games are right in their place and time. Family game night is a great like. Get the kids around the table. I'm going to be at the beach next week, going to be playing a lot of cards, a lot of games. It's definitely like a hey, we're we're out somewhere in which it was a very limited amount of things to do, and we've done nothing all day.
00;33;08;13 - 00;33;26;11
Chris
And so, you know, and it's dark out at 8 p.m. let's play some lets them play some games on a screened in porch. Yeah, I also do one puzzle per year and I always do it out of the beach. You just set it up, you nibble away at a bit by bit. People come out to visit you, they work on it somehow.
00;33;26;11 - 00;33;29;15
Chris
Seven days later, you got a completed puzzle.
00;33;29;17 - 00;33;31;18
Pri
Maybe I.
00;33;31;21 - 00;33;35;17
Aaron
You're missing. This is what? This is the void that you can fill in your life.
00;33;35;18 - 00;33;39;19
Chris
This is the slower life. This is what happens when you're outside Manhattan.
00;33;39;22 - 00;33;40;01
Pri
But to.
00;33;40;01 - 00;33;43;01
Chris
Be honest, not escaping the permanent underclass when you're not.
00;33;43;01 - 00;33;57;25
Pri
My family. Knowing my family never played games, I remember I wanted to do like, family board game. I think my dad played like two weeks in a row and he was just like, yeah, I'm good. Like like we were not like a a game or a family except for, like, I like, liked video games.
00;33;58;00 - 00;34;12;20
Chris
Pretty. You need more Midwesterners in your life. Like you'll you'll start playing hearts or spades or trumps or something. And then like four hands in, they'll get bored of it and they'll turn to you and they'll say, hey, let's play euchre.
00;34;12;26 - 00;34;14;12
Pri
I don't even know what you're saying. Right?
00;34;14;12 - 00;34;18;26
Aaron
At pinnacle, there's so many of them. Yeah, yeah.
00;34;18;27 - 00;34;41;15
Chris
Like there's games Midwesterners can play that has like a ten x degree of complexity and difficulty over your usual, like drink and beers on a back porch playing cards. And they'll only, like, try to talk you into this when you get a really good buzz going. And you actually could use far more cognitive skills to pick the game up.
00;34;41;17 - 00;34;57;14
Chris
And then they're like, oh, it's super easy for hands, and you're still completely fucking lost. And you're still like trying to explain to you how this one little exception rule allows you to swap all your cards in. No, put your thumb on the table and no one else did. And you're just like, kill me.
00;34;57;17 - 00;35;05;12
Pri
Yeah, I'm like tapping out at that point, but that sounds fun. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I guess, I guess I need to look forward to that.
00;35;05;18 - 00;35;12;06
Chris
I don't know what if all you millennials just miss these simple pleasures? What if you never went up the lake and went camping and, you.
00;35;12;06 - 00;35;22;04
Pri
Know, no. My friends love camping. They like, love doing games. Like, I think it's more of a me thing than other millennials love that stuff. But anyway, I.
00;35;22;04 - 00;35;51;01
Chris
Haven't camped in years. I, I stopped wanting to go camping. We used to camp a lot when the kids were little, and I got on this run where we'd all go out, you know, a group of us, you know, five families, whatever. Set up a campsite without fail. Never like five trips, six tips, and no, the largest, like, extended family cousin showing up at four in the morning, sort of.
00;35;51;03 - 00;36;12;10
Chris
Groups always next to us, you know, until you never. You're never sleeping because they're just like, oh, cool, someone just brought an even bigger fucking speaker, you know? And it's like, oh, look, it's a job I really, really hate. And oh, look, it's four in the morning, you know, like that. That tended to be like my camping experience.
00;36;12;10 - 00;36;15;27
Chris
I just was like, you know, I'm too old for this shit. Enough of this.
00;36;15;29 - 00;36;17;15
Pri
Do you think.
00;36;17;17 - 00;36;19;27
Aaron
I mean, I when I was young.
00;36;19;27 - 00;36;41;10
Aaron
I was in Boy Scouts, so definitely did a fair amount of that. Not so much anymore. Yeah. It's fun. I mean, like, getting out to nature is great. I think my desire to go camping in the northeast has gone down since that, like, tick is around the one that, like, bars you from eating any red meat or creates like some sort of allergic reaction.
00;36;41;10 - 00;36;46;05
Aaron
So I don't know. I'm happy saying in my my urban corridor.
00;36;46;08 - 00;36;52;12
Chris
I believe that's the same tick that gives you Lyme disease. Aaron. It's like a, it's a wonder tick of like horrible shit to catch.
00;36;52;15 - 00;37;18;18
Aaron
Yeah. Like I don't want either of that. So the hikes not worth it to like see the nice vista in upstate New York or wherever, wherever you're going to go to go camping back to the land, getting all pre. I mean, I do think just because it was circulating around and I know you saw it to that really nice article from New York magazine about Hans Moravia.
00;37;18;26 - 00;37;41;02
Aaron
Did you guys see this? I think there's like elements of that too, because I think we're now seeing that we're about to eclipse, you know, human intelligence on an individual basis. Right. In the next couple quarters. You're like getting into that debate is not worth it. But, you know, it's not going to stop after that. Right. Like we're just going to build more compute.
00;37;41;03 - 00;38;02;04
Aaron
We're going to, you know, have a system that's more intelligent than all of humanity at some point. I mean, this is what Elon was saying to the economist. You know, he he pegs it at ten years. You know, maybe he's off by, you know, a half decade, a decade, or maybe he's not. And just what's our place in kind of that, that soup, you know.
00;38;02;07 - 00;38;28;00
Aaron
And then within that period we probably will get recursive robotics like we're, we're robots are building robots. And like, what the heck happens then? Is it like, you know, what the the doom stoppers want? Is it like a Terminator two doomsday? Is it something more optimistic? Like, I think that people want to start figuring that out just to put a bow on a on the spear tech.
00;38;28;02 - 00;38;29;07
Aaron
But I bet.
00;38;29;07 - 00;38;34;27
Chris
That's Duma, though. Feeling like you're getting apocalyptic, which.
00;38;34;29 - 00;38;41;06
Pri
I think that is going to be a part of like the inner Spirit spirituality quest.
00;38;41;10 - 00;38;41;16
Aaron
Yeah.
00;38;41;16 - 00;38;46;23
Chris
And to walk into the helmet of machine Hades and somehow survive. Well.
00;38;46;23 - 00;39;07;19
Aaron
That's this guy. I mean, these were old books like 1988 and I think the early 90s, and I think he may I didn't do the research on it, but I think him and Chris, while we're kind of thinking on the same vein around that time, and I don't know if Moravia like or Moravec sorry, not Moravia. Moravec. You know, if he kind of inspired Rei or vice versa.
00;39;07;19 - 00;39;12;21
Aaron
There was some dynamic between the two of them. But, you know, he's he was.
00;39;12;24 - 00;39;14;15
Pri
Really familiar with him, like, I.
00;39;14;15 - 00;39;39;15
Aaron
Like I was not I think like a slate of research afterwards. And he seems like a really interesting person. The one thing that like, jumped out to me, I just got to find the reference. He, he, he wrote this second book in 1999 called robot. He was a roboticist, and he announced the eventual conversion of everything in the universe to an expanding sphere of pure computation called the Mind Fire.
00;39;39;16 - 00;40;02;17
Aaron
And number one, awesome branding mine fire. Number two. Like what? Like what? What's going to happen? This guy is crazy. Yeah, but I think so. I looked that up and I was like, well, what the heck's of mine? Fire. It's pretty much like, you know, like some sort of, like, machine based system that just builds more compute and like, expands out into the into the cosmos.
00;40;02;19 - 00;40;12;22
Aaron
And like our, you know, mere intelligence just gets like, eclipsed. And I guess we're, like, living on the pet farm or something like that. Yeah, so.
00;40;12;23 - 00;40;13;28
Pri
I do I want to read that.
00;40;13;29 - 00;40;25;01
Aaron
Maybe we should look into like, yeah, maybe we should look into like some spiritual tech to make sure that we're not. We're not just like a zoo in, like, the vast mine fire that's going to get created.
00;40;25;05 - 00;40;55;29
Chris
Isn't this, like, just like Leibniz's, you know, monads, which are just dailies, were all water. Panpsychism, like, these things are recurrent and they come about, you know, like you can these aren't new concepts, but they're always repackaged concepts. You know, transhumanism, right, is largely like a Christian eschatology, except we are the makers of our own, you know, immortality.
00;40;56;00 - 00;41;22;29
Chris
I, Trent, semen ism is interesting because, well, hey, look, wouldn't we all love to escape the biological self and, you know, just kind of focus in on the sacred self protected by this, you know, whatever. Like this carrier in which, you know, it's not going to be subject to the ravage of ages. And, you know, the fact that we do all die, like, yes, it would be great to escape like that limitation.
00;41;23;01 - 00;41;45;19
Chris
But, you know, it's also like, well, are we just stuck for ourselves again? And, you know, that's kind of one of these things to be human is sometimes you do have to sucker yourself, right? Like you do have to believe in certain things in order to, you know, materialize them in the world. Like all that being said, like if we get transhumanism right and I ain't dying.
00;41;45;26 - 00;41;51;16
Chris
Well, I'm going to start becoming a major simulation theory person because it's just a little too convenient.
00;41;51;21 - 00;42;15;21
Aaron
So this is where I found it interesting. This Hans Moravec and I may pick up the books, but so he argued that we just get eclipsed as a species and didn't seem to care, as he didn't seem to be sad about that. It's it's curves. While that's a little bit more like we should merge together, and I think more of a actually thought humanity would just be like uploaded into digital minds.
00;42;15;21 - 00;42;34;18
Aaron
And that's like the remnants of it, like our genes and biology just get eclipsed at some point. And I think hers, while is kind of like the, the one that kind of sees like a fusion. So maybe that's a battle that we'll have to we'll have to reckon with at some point. I don't know, I'm on.
00;42;34;24 - 00;43;01;10
Chris
Well then also I think plugs into simulation theory. Right. Like that we're just living as echoes of, you know, we were a bootloader species. We were convenient, were being preserved for our role, you know, as, like the formative substrate for whatever comes next. But like, yes, you're just living in a simulation, you know, within some machine entity. And this whole whole life is a hallucination.
00;43;01;11 - 00;43;25;19
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, and it could be that or it could be, you know, once you're in a digital form, we've seen a couple there's some interesting startups already trying to do this, like trying to upload small animals minds into into the cloud, pretty much. But, you know, maybe maybe that once you're able to interact with this more advanced intelligence, you could keep up.
00;43;25;20 - 00;43;31;14
Aaron
Maybe, I don't know. I don't know exactly how that would work. That definitely feels like that's like bleeding edge research.
00;43;31;16 - 00;44;00;11
Chris
Yeah. I do come from like a pan psychic tradition. Like a bit of my woohoo. Is that like, consciousness isn't localized in the brain, right? That consciousness is an assemblage of subsystems. All that which have like memory sensing, you know, action capabilities, etc., etc. you know, there's like 5 or 6 things all of these kind of possess, and then you've got like a hundred of them sitting inside your body, your gut, your mind.
00;44;00;12 - 00;44;26;02
Chris
You're this, you're that and that, like their whole set of interactions coordinated through the brain, is what gives rise to consciousness. And so the idea like that, you know what? You can just make a copy in my head and upload it. Like I ain't really buying that necessarily. Now do I think, like given a long enough timeline, like should my whole life, isn't that play out that you can replicate that right.
00;44;26;02 - 00;44;39;11
Chris
And synthetic form. Sure. But you know, that's like that's a really, really tall row to hoe. And we don't even know what consciousness isn't it yet. You know, that's like a century scale problem.
00;44;39;16 - 00;44;52;19
Aaron
Now it's going to be a, you know, mythos ten problem, Chris, or you're just like prompt in what is consciousness? And it's like, boop boop boop. Here's the answer. Challenge all my assumptions. I mean, I post.
00;44;52;22 - 00;45;04;04
Pri
Tech is I think consciousness is like easier for people to digest than spirituality. But don't you feel like spirituality is what you're saying with what you think consciousness is like? It's this like.
00;45;04;06 - 00;45;07;28
Aaron
No, I think, I think consciousness is like a biological thing.
00;45;08;00 - 00;45;10;01
Pri
Yeah, but I think consciousness is.
00;45;10;05 - 00;45;10;16
Aaron
Maybe.
00;45;10;21 - 00;45;11;01
Pri
I don't think.
00;45;11;03 - 00;45;22;00
Aaron
That they're there, which I just kind of like would grossly simplify. And I don't intend to do that. Chris, just like, you know, the complexity of complex interconnected systems, right?
00;45;22;01 - 00;45;37;01
Pri
Yeah, I agree, but I think like, okay. Yeah, I guess I would say that I think spirituality is kind of like an understanding of one's consciousness, which is like connected to not only your brain but other parts of your body as well. But it definitely has a more science.
00;45;37;02 - 00;45;42;22
Aaron
You're sending a quite boomerang. This is that was logic there.
00;45;42;24 - 00;46;17;12
Chris
Yeah, I'm with three on this one. There is something magical, right? Something spiritual about the simple fact that like our subjective interior. Right. Like who we are, what we walk around as an identify as is so poorly understood and yet is so powerful and capable and enduring. Right. Like there's just that like thing where there's a huge gap between what we're capable of and how we can actually explain those capabilities.
00;46;17;12 - 00;46;39;22
Chris
And that has that has plenty of room, right, for all sorts of spiritual dimensions within it. And I actually don't want it reduced. I don't want that problem solved. Right. Like, I do want to feel like I exist and operate in this state of grace that is just kind of outside my comprehension, because that brings wonder into the world.
00;46;40;00 - 00;47;04;18
Pri
Right? And I think, I think that consciousness is more maybe instead of calling it spiritual tech, I should call it consciousness, because I think I agree with what you were saying, Chris, where it's like, I think that maybe there's slight differentiation, but there are two sides of the same coin because there's kind of like this cosmic randomness and spirituality to like all of this, actually, what consciousness is that I think like the longevity is Max.
00;47;04;18 - 00;47;22;00
Pri
Maxie, people probably want to better understand consciousness, but like in reality, it's also spirituality. You know, that's true. We would actually like justify being interested in that. So it's like preventative medicine versus longevity. It's just like a marketing thing. But they're like kind of the same thing.
00;47;22;03 - 00;47;31;06
Chris
You know, I think someone needs to start normalizing woo woo. We need to like the woohoo prize. We need research grants for woo woo.
00;47;31;08 - 00;47;35;13
Pri
No. We just call it consciousness and it's totally chill. We'll have plenty of grants.
00;47;35;16 - 00;47;40;11
Chris
It is the big problem. It is the big question what makes us tick.
00;47;40;13 - 00;47;59;05
Aaron
Well I'm also, you know like I keep on thinking back just because it was fresh this morning, I was spending a lot of time like what's let's assume like we're not in this kind of, I guess, more of deck. I got to remember how to pronounce his last name. It's a little bit of a tricky one. More of, like, a doomsday scenario.
00;47;59;08 - 00;48;15;20
Aaron
Like we're we're just completely eclipsed as a species. But let's say like Elon's right and there's no more money. Like what? That what does that look like? I keep on weirdly thinking about NFTs when that happens. Is that like when crypto punks, like, really shine? There's no more money. There's just like artifacts that people collect.
00;48;15;24 - 00;48;18;22
Pri
I do think I do think like collection is going to be huge.
00;48;18;22 - 00;48;23;10
Pri
Especially that's why I was even thinking about like terrestrial or.
00;48;23;12 - 00;48;25;24
Pri
You know, non terrestrial.
00;48;25;28 - 00;48;57;02
Pri
Things and human created objects. Like I think people are really gonna start. I mean, I think also even like a computer created objects too, but like because there's going to be scarcity and like fossils and human objects that I could see people that actually grow in quite a bit. And the growth around like sports collectibles and other kind of more objective human collectibles has, has objectively, humanly human gender, like sports is clearly a human generated thing.
00;48;57;03 - 00;49;15;14
Pri
Like I think like people want to watch sports, they want to go see it more and they want to collect the objects around it. I think that's going to just continue, which is why I was mentioning even that like fossil thing. So I just I think people are going to want more objects that represent life, human life or life before humans.
00;49;15;21 - 00;49;28;16
Chris
Let's let's get back to the money thing for a second. Because, Aaron, when you say that, right. The one of the most influential books I've ever read is David Gravers Debt the First 5000 years.
00;49;28;17 - 00;49;29;23
Aaron
Yeah, that was a good one.
00;49;29;29 - 00;50;13;17
Chris
And good one. Turned my thoughts around about what money is and what it to actual purpose is because he ultimately argues, right? Money is really just a form of social coordination and like enforcing morality through, you know, the obligations of debt and putting people into subordinate positions and in which, like, you can enforce your value system over them through, you know, this, this notion of everything, everything you need to function in a society, right, is is based on money.
00;50;13;17 - 00;50;40;15
Chris
And therefore whoever has, you know, the large a larger amount of money or whoever's in a lending a lender situation versus debtor situation, or simply like, you know, what was the functional purpose of money coinage, right? It was simply like it was a it was an easy, easily transportable way to pay soldiers, you know, at the end of the day, and you needed your army to go out and accomplish what you wanted.
00;50;40;15 - 00;51;04;02
Chris
And then if you won, right, you you, I assume, hopefully captured minds, captured the ability to mint more coinage, which then means like whatever you did, write whatever your value system was to accumulate that money to begin with. You're now like whitewashing the violence you did to achieve your political aims. Like, there's a lot going on in there.
00;51;04;02 - 00;51;21;08
Chris
And once you kind of get past like the actual functional purpose of money and start getting into like how it actually governs relationships between people, then you can start to see, okay, what we can replace money with other ways to do this.
00;51;21;12 - 00;51;42;20
Aaron
Yeah. You know, like more of an economist lens. There's a couple guys there like researchers, academics, but they do a lot in and around the fed. And, you know, they were interested in crypto in part because they think at the end of the day, you just get rid of the unit of account, the adult like the dollar, for all intents and purposes, right now, at least for us.
00;51;42;25 - 00;52;06;12
Aaron
And it's just the complete like barter exchange, like, you know, it's like we can't cleanly barter just because it's such a complicated, friction filled process. But the ideal end state is not to have a unit of account. It's just to like, you know, share your, you know, trade your consumptive goods or services with another person or persons or groups.
00;52;06;12 - 00;52;34;04
Aaron
So I wonder if it just gets a little bit cleaner that way. But then the case for like like collecting something. Yeah. Like if you own objects. Right. Like whether they're digital or physical, like that's where you know, it lands, right. So, you know, maybe in the long run it is something like, you know, a rare digital object that that is becomes more valuable because you don't need to amass as much in terms of, you know, just US dollars, etc..
00;52;34;10 - 00;52;35;25
Aaron
Currency fades away.
00;52;35;28 - 00;53;08;25
Chris
All the giant heads in Easter Island, right, are actual money. Like the rye, those big stone carvings. That's how they are storing wealth. And so that's kind of like one of those convergences of, you know what you're talking about. Their then there's also like this whole other form of like woohoo, right. Which is abundance mindset and fully luxury, full, fully automated luxury communism.
00;53;08;28 - 00;53;09;23
Chris
Go ahead.
00;53;09;25 - 00;53;12;24
Pri
And just like it's just like, that's not real.
00;53;12;26 - 00;53;16;03
Chris
I did I just call it another form of economic group.
00;53;16;09 - 00;53;20;25
Pri
Yes, that's true. But some who is real but that's not. But yes.
00;53;20;27 - 00;53;40;10
Chris
I you know, look I think abundance mindset is a great thing to have. I think that's actually a great useful mental positioning. It's one of those things that like drive me nuts about the world. Like, we could feed everyone if we wanted to, right? There are so many different things we could do if we wanted to, but we choose not to.
00;53;40;15 - 00;54;00;14
Chris
You know, like all of our like us government social policy is kind of predicated actually on we will support things that increase asset values. We will not support things that actually don't have a larger like GDP oriented outcome.
00;54;00;16 - 00;54;02;16
Pri
That's true. You're not wrong.
00;54;02;20 - 00;54;32;29
Aaron
I actually think that this is where the and I know it got like kind of lambasted. But you kind of here like maybe because this interview is fresh in my mind. But like Elon was talking about abundance, right. You have like the Ezra Klein Derek Thompson like folks talking about abundance. I actually even listened to Ezra Klein interview Moore's cats from one of the political operatives behind a lot of the recent political candidates that have been winning in the northeast.
00;54;32;29 - 00;54;39;02
Aaron
And he was talking about abundance. So maybe that's the actual horseshoe theory right there. It's just abundance.
00;54;39;03 - 00;55;12;09
Chris
Yeah. Well, I mean, like the reign of private equity and how how terrible are you as health care system is right there. There's there's a lot of obviously like focal and flashpoints in which artificial scarcity is induced and it's induced through like instead of it's induced through raising barriers to access. Right. Like there's a lot of strategies in play right now which like societally are absolutely stupid, but they benefit capital formation and they benefit, you know, financial systems.
00;55;12;09 - 00;55;38;08
Chris
But like if you were to like, reorder our country from first principles, you know, aliens come down if like the big AI you know, gets online and we were to like kind of look at how the heck we flow capital and how we allocate resources. You know, there's a good you know, who knows what the number is, 30%, 50% of our GDP that just not like societally useful and could be like deployed to better things.
00;55;38;08 - 00;55;42;04
Chris
We just choose not to do it and we choose not to do it right.
00;55;42;05 - 00;55;46;27
Aaron
Because people get into some thinking.
00;55;46;29 - 00;56;10;20
Chris
Zero sum thinking, but we also just can't get past like binary thinking around economic systems. And so we're constantly stuck with, well, it's either capitalism and it's the warm embrace of collectivism. And right, like everyone knows what happens when we erode private property rights and that like the track record for going down that road tends to be like zero for 100.
00;56;10;21 - 00;56;29;08
Chris
I don't know how many times have been tried, right? But like, no one's turning around and pointing at like the enduring, you know, when that, that mode of, of economic organization turned out. And so then we're stuck just in this. Well, do you want this far, far worse thing, right. And it's like, well, no, of course I don't.
00;56;29;11 - 00;56;38;02
Chris
What? I like something better. Yes, but we can't have these rational discussions in which how we go about doing that, we're just stuck with King or Kodos.
00;56;38;06 - 00;56;50;17
Aaron
Yeah. Well, maybe I'm I'm ready for the warm embrace of the crypto, the crypto punk community. Although it didn't seem to go to all for Brian Armstrong, so maybe we don't want that either.
00;56;50;20 - 00;56;54;00
Pri
Not such a warm embrace brought up.
00;56;54;02 - 00;57;01;18
Aaron
I was glad people like, you know, kind of like like we're like pushing back on that a little bit.
00;57;01;19 - 00;57;29;24
Chris
So that whole thing is like just a weird little, you know, a weird little, like, place for folks get worked up about, like him sporting a fake punk. PHP forever was stupid. You know, the punk community or the OG crypto NFT community. Bullying in him into a real punk. Getting a real punk was stupid also, right? But like you also know he's only doing this because his Eye of Sauron has been turned on.
00;57;29;24 - 00;57;56;27
Chris
The fact that, like base was a big alienation, you know, from a core customer base and that like, they're getting their clock cleaned over in Normie Chain Land by Robin Hood and like, yeah, you know Coinbase look they ultimately might be a company who is, you know, lost their fastball and only had their fastball because they were operating against a much smaller peer group a decade ago.
00;57;56;27 - 00;58;12;12
Chris
And now that, you know, the rest of the financial world has caught on, they're getting caught out. But like, so, you know, that whole thing is just like, whatever. There's no winning when you get into the like down in the mire of shit like that.
00;58;12;12 - 00;58;42;24
Aaron
Completely, I think they'll be fine. Coinbase, to be honest, you know, my my sense is that, you know, the rumor is like clarity act may pass. There's like, you know, reporting that it may not like so who knows where that lands. But let's assume it lands. I just think, you know, Baze, hood, tempo, all these other chains from existing players, they'll it will probably be a big category in the next cycle which looks like we're either bad to started or it's already started.
00;58;42;25 - 00;58;54;13
Aaron
You know there's a big debate around that at this point. But it feels like the the storm clouds are, are clearing a little bit. No more Canadian smoke over the over the crypto industry.
00;58;54;14 - 00;58;55;14
Chris
Over the world of crypto.
00;58;55;15 - 00;58;56;14
Pri
Yeah. Yeah.
00;58;56;15 - 00;59;30;07
Chris
I mean, look my if you had to ask me to gaze into the crystal ball, I think Coinbase will probably rebound. We'll do a little better than what they've been doing because it's hard not to. I also do think they'll lag behind other people in the space, and ultimately they'll get acquired in like five years. You know, a JP Morgan or like someone once clarity rolls in and once, you know, we kind of get fully integrated and we're, we're in in the ledger era that like someone's going to someone's going to look at Coinbase and go, okay, well I need all this infrastructure, I need all these licenses.
00;59;30;07 - 00;59;42;01
Chris
I need this entire apparatus like that. That to me is where Coinbase ultimately lands. It's like buying to discover credit card. You know, that's where Coinbase is going to be.
00;59;42;05 - 00;59;47;18
Aaron
Bank of America like swoops in and it's now Bank of Coinbase or something like that.
00;59;47;20 - 00;59;53;19
Chris
Imagine Wells Fargo and Coinbase combining how what's would that be?
00;59;53;20 - 00;59;55;19
Aaron
I mean that's in my mind.
00;59;55;20 - 00;59;57;02
Pri
That's likely outcome.
00;59;57;03 - 01;00;15;27
Aaron
Their closest peer just because they're a little bit more retail focused right. Like in Robin Hood I think they're more trader focused. Right. That's why they were able to pull over so many of those traders to, you know, poke around with hood and like whatever they're building there, which I haven't yet. I think that's a good, good point though, Chris.
01;00;15;29 - 01;00;42;07
Chris
Yeah. I mean, everyone assumes a primacy just because they're so, you know, everyone has their head in their crypto space. But like Coinbase, are they big? Yes. Or are they like escape velocity behemoth big in which like, you know, on chain back offices. And this becomes like the future reels. They're not that big. And so I do think they'll probably be like an acquisition target in the next five years.
01;00;42;08 - 01;00;59;24
Aaron
I mean, what's the rumor that stripes going to buy open router. You know, maybe maybe SpaceX just rolls it up and Coinbase is the outpost for space. Just another rounding error. Error actually on its balance sheet.
01;00;59;27 - 01;01;04;25
Chris
Yeah. Well I mean you know SpaceX.
01;01;04;27 - 01;01;12;13
Chris
Is really going the the layer two FTV coin unlock route right now. Their stock price ain't looking good.
01;01;12;15 - 01;01;25;29
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah I wonder what happens with the unlock. I mean purportedly like a lot of the folks that participated in the IPO were long term investors and holders. But it'd be interesting to kind of see what happens there.
01;01;26;00 - 01;01;28;12
Pri
Are you guys a buy at any time?
01;01;28;15 - 01;01;56;20
Chris
I wouldn't even look at this thing until the end of the year, like in January. See what what its actual market cap is. And then you can get a sense for this. You know, I'll give Elon a lot of credit for being the first one to, to IPO, right? Because if we believe in, in all sorts of like mystical recurring cycles, generally the last two years of Republican administrations and an economic disaster and, you know, so.
01;01;56;22 - 01;01;57;29
Pri
Yeah.
01;01;58;02 - 01;02;08;23
Chris
For for the open air eyes and the anthropic of the world, you know, you might want to not end up like open sea who can't even talk about their token anymore. Yeah.
01;02;08;25 - 01;02;36;13
Aaron
It was interesting. I mean, the big news last week, I'm sure you guys had it was just on all the Kimmi stuff. Right. But as people are, like, digging in on that, that felt like more of a little bit of a nothing burger, but that the whole open source AI debate is definitely like picking up. I saw some people music that it's like the new crypto in some way, which I don't think is unfair, just because I feel like a lot of the energy kind of feels a little bit like early, early crypto, like around it.
01;02;36;13 - 01;03;04;04
Aaron
But did you guys see Jenson posted for the first time on X defending open source AI, and it kind of names some of its supporters, which included Palantir, Microsoft Box, I guess Aron Levy, who talks a lot about this stuff. So kind of interesting to kind of see that begin to come to a head or, or at least become a conversation related to it.
01;03;04;05 - 01;03;29;28
Chris
Yeah, some of this is a certain class of people expecting special treatment because they traditionally do get special treatment. And so I'm not all that sympathetic around this, you know, like I had my product roadmap copied verbatim for three years by a company my size who would like match their lineup to mine two weeks after any release I did, and there was no recourse for it.
01;03;30;04 - 01;03;53;20
Chris
You live in capitalism. You're playing a big boys game. You get better. That's your recourse. Your recourse is you're the one who knows how to do these things. If they're just following copying you, that means your edge is in your ability to create product. It's to drive innovation. And like the only thing you really can do is get better in ways that are not easily copy able.
01;03;53;26 - 01;04;10;26
Chris
Right? Like you have to expose your enemy that way. Like by the end of my time, like running the damn mobile carrier, I was building like family plans and shit. I was like, these fuckers can't do this. So I guess that's what I'm doing, right? Like, I'm going to tie these, tie these bastards in knots. And that's capitalism.
01;04;10;26 - 01;04;36;10
Chris
And so sure are their national security concerns. Yes. You know, do we need some form of, you know, a sensible regulation or like anti-competitive stuff? Yes. Is the solutions being proposed that. No. And you know what? You're getting distilled. Tough shit. Build a fucking product that can't be distilled like.
01;04;36;17 - 01;04;37;05
Aaron
That's the piece.
01;04;37;05 - 01;04;45;25
Chris
That no one, you know, like like, oh, my God, you made a steam engine. No. Steam engines belong to me. Like, fuck off. You know, it's capitalism.
01;04;45;28 - 01;05;08;11
Aaron
I mean, I felt I'm sympathetic to that, Chris. You know, when I was at a company with Kia fandom, we built one of the first. There was like an earlier generation, but we built an open source search engine, and Google's search team definitely was paying attention to it. We'd like release something. And, you know, week later they would copy, like fast copy it.
01;05;08;11 - 01;05;32;15
Aaron
That's when Google was like, you know, younger, meaner, super agile. It's tough to compete with. But so I hear you on that front, I am I don't understand why anthropic and or OpenAI can't block that distillation process. Like what are they doing to kind of get around that, like to set up like all these different accounts? Like I just don't understand it.
01;05;32;16 - 01;05;44;15
Aaron
Like is are they serving this all in like in China? Like, can't they do like an IP block of some sort? Like it feels like a, a problem that its advanced model should be able to kind of tackle.
01;05;44;17 - 01;06;07;17
Chris
Yes, or at least degrade to the point that you drag them out, you know, put, put the shit around. I don't know Cloudflare. Right. Block VPNs. You know, be more severe, like dealing with fraud and dealing with, you know, bad behavior on your platform is a constant game of whack and mole. It's a back end. It's in a fourth.
01;06;07;17 - 01;06;31;00
Chris
And I don't even know if they're doing that. Like, you know, just the way anthropic has been managing. You know what? How much fable you get in your subscription plan shows their their poor product management. You can you should never, ever, ever make what you give your customer a variable amount that they never know what is actually there.
01;06;31;00 - 01;06;52;21
Chris
It undermines the whole relationship, it erodes trust. And it shows like you are not an adult about managing the products that like you are offering. Like, again, this is like more telco. But I have zero sympathy for like everyone deals with these problems. It's on you as an organization to solve for them. Be better at product.
01;06;52;23 - 01;07;06;27
Aaron
Chris, I once again call on you to train our AI models so that they do a better job. And I think some of these hyperscalers need need your energy inside their lives.
01;07;07;00 - 01;07;31;07
Chris
They need to be exposed to real world problems. They need to actually have encountered, like batshit crazy behavior in which the opportunity cost of time is completely disregarded. I had all sorts of issues back in the day because, like, we were very, very big in the in the Chinese Jasper in New York. And so, you know, we would sell like a $19 a month plan was free calling to China.
01;07;31;10 - 01;07;53;21
Chris
And you would have people living in, like New York City, Manhattan, Chinatown who would take a 45 minute train ride out to flushing so that they could renew their plan from, we used to call them Coney King of New York. Single biggest retailer do like 5000 lines a month. Crazy like operations. Literally just a bullpen in an underground mini mall.
01;07;53;22 - 01;08;14;21
Chris
And this guy would sell the plan for like 1699. So to save three bucks a month, people would like take a 45 minute, you know, ride out to flushing and like that sort of behavior, right. Like teaches you to harden your product, to teach you to like, deal in the relationships of people nibbling at the edges of these things.
01;08;14;21 - 01;08;33;19
Chris
And all these guys are worried about alignment, to worry about eschatology, like they're not worried about nuts and bolts product problems. And, you know, like if you're going to be someone who delivers these sort of services and has these sort of customer bases, you need to be anchored in this stuff.
01;08;33;22 - 01;08;51;16
Aaron
Amen. And maybe this is just tying it all together that like that tough northeast New York love is what we all need. Maybe that's the persisting vitality of this, this fair city, but maybe we call it there guys. Pretty one.
01;08;51;21 - 01;09;08;24
Pri
Let's do it. Hey everyone, welcome to Net Society today it's me, Aaron and Chris talking all things crypto, tech, culture, AI and more. Just as a quick reminder, these thoughts and opinion are own and not of our employer and none of this is financial advice.