undercurrents

Paul Graham argues that cities whisper to us, applying subtle pressure to be and do, and because we are so much a product of our environment the smart move is to move-move to the places that whisper the things you aspire to. Silicon Valley to push boundaries, to New York to chase power, LA for the aesthetics and fame, Cambridge for the ideas.

Denver (Colorado at large, really) is my chosen home though. People come to play outdoors, and the place whispers that you should be training for your next triathlon, planning that next backpacking trip, gearing up for adventure.1 Go outside, it tells you, and maybe grab a craft brew on the way back.

I moved recently and it struck me that the entirety of my not-outdoor-related possessions fit neatly in a single large duffel and a medium Home Depot moving box, mattress and books aside. My gear on the other hand filled a U-Haul moving van, which is to say that I’m very much a product of this place, and I wouldn’t change that if I could. But every so often I find myself wishing that there was stoke for a bit more than bombing powder lines around here. In the words of Bob Black:2

I’d like life to be a game—but a game with high stakes. I want to play for keeps.

I’m serious when I talk of building a better world, and play certainly doesn’t prohibit that seriousness - if anything it’s integral. Most people telling you to “care” about something that “matters” rarely seem to do so themselves, they lack that essential joie de vivre at their core. It’s why I can’t stand half of what I say a quarter of the time and also why I’m optimistic about finding more of what I’m looking for here in the mile hi. The mix of playful ambition feels primed for it.

I’ve been exploring what it takes to foster that and turn it into something real, and plan to spin this out into something longer eventually. Reading the Power Broker and The Prize have almost certainly gone to my head in this regard - Rockefeller and Robert Moses now occupy seats in my psyche for better or worse

conversations I’m having/things I’m reading

related to the above, really enjoying the Experimental History substack, particularly this piece and SlimeMold’s bit on building charter houses. Both get at alternatives for fostering research and talent outside traditional institutions, which I think we can be doing far better. The unstructured charter house with a lab in the basement would have been my ideal living space until very recently3. Still huge on community based mixed-use spaces though and am excited about the Esmeralda Project in that vein.

discussing our tendency to come up blank in conversations with a friend, and how easily it’s resolved by returning to genuine interest in the people around us. the beauty in others being inherently unknowable is that they’re also infinitely interesting as a result (s/o Alain de Botton). see also: Good conversations have lots of doorknobs.

recently started a part-time gig helping teach elementary school math and science, and its got me on a educational theory kick. Moontower has a one of my favorite research summaries on the topic. Less related but something I’m deeply convinced of is the embodied nature of learning math/science/etc - understanding them approaches synesthesia more than usually taught. This guy is out there but on about it.

finally got lured down an AI alignment rabbit hole after a twitter account I made was swarmed by automated crypto-schill bots, all while chatting with a researcher on that exact issue. Enjoyed Stross’ Accelerando as a techno-futurist novel in this vein, particularly it’s depiction of economics 2.0. See also: Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants and Dawkins Selfish Gene. Funny at first to think ecology and virology might be key in understanding the emergent behaviors of the autonomous networks/agents starting to appear online, but obvious in hindsight - Dawkins did coin the term “meme” in his book on genetics after all. info is info

the recent Starship success fundamentally changed the economics of orbital space flight, and I’m excited to see what cascades. Casey Handmer explores one idea here for building the largest telescope ever.

some of my previous writing on here (and far too much of my thinking) has circled around the idea of a “meaning crisis”. and while I’m generally of the mind that people are correctly ID’ing a problem, most commentary seems to run to higher and higher levels of abstraction, including my own. wondering what a more specific analysis would look like.4

the recent appointment of our new Secretary of Energy struck close to home, and convinced me to finally dive a little deeper on assorted climate issues and my vision for energy in the future. Chris has a book here where he lays out his stance, and I feel confident calling it the best written steelman for the “there is no climate crisis” camp5. I’ll be trying to shoot some well-intentioned holes in it, expect to see a number of loosely informed hot takes in your inbox sooner than later.

cheers