Mere Mortals Conversations

Kyrin Down & Juan Granados
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  • PHILOSOPHY
  • UPDATED TWICE WEEKLY

What is Effective Philosophy? Juan and I simplify hard to grasp concepts into pragmatic takeaways that can be applied to every day life (fitness, goal setting, work, parenting, travel, hobbies, finances, etc.,).

  1. Becoming An Owner Of The Network | Chris Dixon's 'Read Write Own'

    7 HR AGO

    Becoming An Owner Of The Network | Chris Dixon's 'Read Write Own'

    Are there any downsides to taking part in upsides? In Episode #512 of 'Meanderings', Juan & I discuss: how the internet moved from corporate networks to open protocol networks to blockchain networks, Dixon’s framing (read, write, own), why he thinks open protocols like RSS struggled against corporate platforms, where blockchains might change take rates, the real-world viability of tokenomics, if ownership will matter for in a future of AI, micro‑payments and abundant digital goods, games vs music business models and whether people will actually care about on-chain ownership if everything becomes cheap and effortless to access.  No support for this week :'( Stan Link: https://stan.store/meremortals Timeline: (00:00:00) Intro (00:00:25) Book pick: Read, Write, Own by Chris Dixon (00:04:16) Corporate vs protocol networks; email and the open web (00:07:23) Owning the network: why blockchains change incentives (00:13:25) Governance, take rates and platform lock-ins (00:17:56) Music vs gaming revenues: models and innovation (00:21:30) Protocol pessimism and the RSS debate in podcasting (00:25:04) Value for value: Podcasting 2.0 funding dilemmas (00:30:08) Could a blockchain fund open infrastructure? (00:34:27) Designing a micropayments-first podcast app (00:38:22) Do users care about digital ownership? (00:41:48) Abundance thesis: free content and data trade-offs (00:45:30) Will advertisers pay users directly? (00:49:45) Will ownership still matter in an abundant world? (00:53:01) Digital status, scarcity and beachfront reality (00:58:48) Extreme efficiency futures: cars, housing and cost curves (01:03:05) Human status, achievement and digital provenance (01:08:33) Voice-first generation and app-less experiences (01:14:47) Ownership vs access: memories, messages and guarantees (01:16:54) Wrap-up: book verdict and sign-off  Connect with Mere Mortals: Website: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/ Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReU Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspods Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcasts/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meremortalspodcasts Value 4 Value Support: Boostagram: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/support Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/meremortalspodcast

    1h 18m
  2. Monthly Goals | February 2026

    1 DAY AGO

    Monthly Goals | February 2026

    It's time for our monthly check in where we review our goals from last month and see what's coming up for the next. Do you set yourself monthly goals and if so, how many do you set? Juan and I on the first week of every month go over our progress from the previous month and where we are heading for the next. Emphasis as always is on the shortcomings; what we didn't achieve in the previous monthly goals and how we will fix that for the month that comes. We hope you get some value from this series, showcasing our own methodology. What do you do differently and why? Stan Link: https://stan.store/meremortals Timeline: (00:00:00) Intro (00:00:36) Juan's January 2026 Recap (00:06:10) Kyrin's January 2026 Recap (00:12:51) Support Overview (00:13:27) Juan's February 2026 Goals (00:18:24) Kyrin's February 2026 Goals (00:24:01) Moltbot Sidenote (00:32:21) Fitness (00:37:00) V4V Connect with Mere Mortals: Website: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/ Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReU Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspods Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcasts/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meremortalspodcasts Value 4 Value Support: Boostagram: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/support Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/meremortalspodcast

    37 min
  3. Hell Yessssss Vs No | Deciding On Where To Spend Your Time

    25 JAN

    Hell Yessssss Vs No | Deciding On Where To Spend Your Time

    You can't say yes to everything .... so where do you draw the line? In Episode #511 of 'Meanderings', Juan & I discuss: the “hell yes versus no” decision-making lens and where it truly fits, opportunity cost/time constraints/certainty versus uncertainty, how emotion or rationality shapes decisions, stacking reasons to make a strong yes, a practical quadrant for choosing activities based on enjoyment and likelihood of meeting people. Stan Link: https://stan.store/meremortals Timeline: (00:00:00) Intro (00:03:39) Context matters: opportunity cost, age and life stage (00:07:45) Replacing habits: when a simple yes is enough (00:09:44) Decision heuristics: yes vs hell no for everyday choices (00:13:14) Capacity fills the time: stacking commitments and hard trade-offs (00:19:10) Workplace decision matrices vs personal life choices (00:23:06) System 1 and System 2: training intuition with deliberate thinking (00:27:49) Certainty vs uncertainty: when you need a hell yes to persist (00:31:07) A practical framework: enjoyment vs meeting-people quadrants (00:35:25) Boostagram lounge (00:36:02) Listener input: lazy no vs instinctive no (00:37:40) Upcoming moonshot gathering: why it's a clear yes (00:44:31) Stacking reasons: VeeCon memories, serendipity and energy (00:50:00) New tech temptations: why not every tool warrants a yes (00:55:01) Where we're still weak at decisions: money and overcommitting (01:03:17) Emotion vs reason: explaining feelings with rationality (01:05:48) Wrap-up, live time and Brisbane Marathon team invite  Connect with Mere Mortals: Website: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/ Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReU Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspods Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcasts/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meremortalspodcasts Value 4 Value Support: Boostagram: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/support Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/meremortalspodcast

    1h 7m
  4. AI Futurism Meets Medieval History | The Million Dollar X402 Wall

    19 JAN

    AI Futurism Meets Medieval History | The Million Dollar X402 Wall

    We're destressing and just going over all the non-goal related things swirling around in the current moment. In Episode #510 of 'Meanderings', Juan & I discuss: the old million dollar homepage and the new x402 version, experimenting with a cheeky one‑pixel squatting strategy to test rent‑seeking dynamics, why some value‑for‑value/Lightning initiatives plateau despite strong early communities, advertising economics from retro web banners to F1 liveries, if energy could become the unit of exchange in agent‑to‑agent worlds and whether the current moment has the most amount of historical rate of change. Huge thanks to Cole for the support! Stan Link: https://stan.store/meremortals Timeline: (00:00:00) Intro (00:00:49) Remembering the Million Dollar Homepage and link rot (00:03:07) Hype cycles and the modern x402 Wall revival (00:06:44) Domain‑squatting pixels: ethics and ROI debate (00:12:45) Advertising realities: from F1 liveries to failed walls (00:15:04) Old web ads versus brands and what’s obsolete now (00:19:10) Micropayments vision: beyond subscriptions (00:23:56) Index decentralisation, AI spam, and niche podcasts (00:28:20) Ads, ethics, and why ‘wall squatting’ targets advertisers (00:32:03) Boom–bust build‑outs, block space, and critics (00:36:54) Agents, moats, and access to compute (00:39:02) Boostagram Lounge and community shout‑outs (00:45:34) Agents doing business end‑to‑end: Truth Terminal case (00:50:07) Beyond attention? Energy, agency, and ‘currency’ (00:56:36) Speculating on rights for uploaded minds and AI (01:00:24) Short‑term goals, schooling, and planning in fast change (01:05:03) Is today’s change really faster? Moore’s Law debate (01:10:26) Exponential feels: compressing change into months (01:16:22) Falling out of the loop: TikTok, crypto, and pace (01:19:35) Can AI replace governments? Companies vs states (01:23:46) Wrap‑up, shout‑outs, and value‑for‑value support  Connect with Mere Mortals: Website: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/ Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReU Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspods Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcasts/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meremortalspodcasts Value 4 Value Support: Boostagram: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/support Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/meremortalspodcast

    1h 26m
  5. Don't Let The Gremlins Steal Your Focus | What We're Leaving Behind In 2026

    11 JAN

    Don't Let The Gremlins Steal Your Focus | What We're Leaving Behind In 2026

    It's a new year ... no new goals ... instead we're focusing upon what NOT to focus upon. In Episode #509 of 'Meanderings', Juan & I discuss:  what we’re not bringing into 2026, expectation inflation (how setting grand scenarios can pre-bake resentment), how to strike a workable balance between Eastern contentment and Western drive, choosing realistic marathon aims without sacrificing other priorities, ditching negative self‑talk, making room for smarter training decisions that prevent injury and burnout and avoiding philosophers/what ifers/haters in the media landscape. No support so we can't focus on the beanie. Stan Link: https://stan.store/meremortals Timeline:  (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:02) Framing the episode: inverse goal setting (00:06:31) Mindset traps from past races and comparison (00:09:40) Gym mastery vs beginner runner mentality (00:11:40) Training without self punishment and injury management (00:14:10) Working on relationships and reducing negative self-talk (00:17:36) Expectation inflation and premeditated resentment (00:24:19) Choosing realistic goals and tradeoffs (00:30:22) Livestream hiccup and Boostagram Lounge (00:32:08) Media focus: stopping attention leakage (00:37:46) Media diet rules: useful now over future hypotheticals (00:45:25) Entertainment vs actionable insight in moonshots (00:49:41) Cutting whatifs, doom and haters from feeds (00:53:19) Confusing consumption with growth (00:56:36) Abundance over scarcity and closing thoughts  Connect with Mere Mortals: Website: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/ Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReU Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspods Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcasts/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meremortalspodcasts Value 4 Value Support: Boostagram: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/support Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/meremortalspodcast

    58 min
  6. AI Slop Killed The Podcast Star | The Shifting Landscape Of Media

    6 JAN

    AI Slop Killed The Podcast Star | The Shifting Landscape Of Media

    I'm shifting away from listening to podcasts and I'm a blog reader now. In Episode #508 of 'Meanderings', Juan & I discuss: why our media diets are shifting, how we each consume information across video, audio, books, Substack, X long‑form (even X Spaces), why written digital content is winning more of our attention lately, the flood of AI‑generated media (from YouTube videos to TTS podcasts spun from Reddit threads), the challenge of finding high‑signal sources, fiction vs non‑fiction swings, curation styles (tabs vs phone-first), rising ad density in pods/YouTube to near ad‑free long‑form writing and why subtlety and cadence get lost in AI summaries of long videos. No support for this week, the beanie remains cold. Stan Link: https://stan.store/meremortals Timeline: (00:00:00) Intro (00:01:48) How we consume now (00:04:26) From video rabbit holes to purposeful listening and reading (00:09:35) Podcasting 2.0 and structuring feeds to handle AI content (00:12:20) Why digital reading wins for AI and crypto topics (00:16:30) Finding and filtering digital reading: Substack, X longform, and curation styles (00:19:37) Longform on X and email newsletters as modern blogs (00:22:07) One inbox vs many silos: different workflows for discovery (00:26:21) Timeless vs timely episodes: examples from Rick Rubin, Brian Armstrong, Lex Fridman (00:29:07) Boostagram Lounge (00:31:21) Enhancement vs slop: subtle AI in scripts and production (00:38:20) AI guidance wins and fails: car fixes vs an $800 vet visit (00:41:03) TTS flooding the podcast indexes: Reddit threads to AI voices (00:46:28) High signal vs hype: debating Gary Vee and trend timing (00:52:38) Uniqueness from humans vs AI clones: where interviews still shine (00:56:37) Superabundance everywhere: YouTube, podcasts, music, and text (00:59:14) Hard mediums breed quality: from early podcasting to AI curated media (01:03:00) On demand past, uncertain future: predicting the next media shift (01:08:51) Follow the money: ads, creators, and why text feels cleaner (01:10:27) Wrap-up  Connect with Mere Mortals: Website: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/ Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReU Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspods Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcasts/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meremortalspodcasts Value 4 Value Support: Boostagram: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/support Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/meremortalspodcast

    1h 11m
  7. Monthly Goals | January 2026

    4 JAN

    Monthly Goals | January 2026

    It's time for our monthly check in where we review our goals from last month and see what's coming up for the next. Do you set yourself monthly goals and if so, how many do you set? Juan and I on the first week of every month go over our progress from the previous month and where we are heading for the next. Emphasis as always is on the shortcomings; what we didn't achieve in the previous monthly goals and how we will fix that for the month that comes. We hope you get some value from this series, showcasing our own methodology. What do you do differently and why? Stan Link: https://stan.store/meremortals Timeline: (00:00:00) Intro (00:01:17) Juan's December 2025 Recap (00:06:19) Kyrin's December 2025 Recap (00:09:30) Support Overview (00:11:47) Juan's January 2026 Goals (00:18:17) Kyrin's January 2026 Goals (00:34:29) Fitness (00:37:04) V4V Connect with Mere Mortals: Website: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/ Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReU Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspods Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcasts/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meremortalspodcasts Value 4 Value Support: Boostagram: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/support Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/meremortalspodcast

    38 min
  8. Intention Is All That Matters | Every Day Use Of AI Agents

    28/12/2025

    Intention Is All That Matters | Every Day Use Of AI Agents

    We're expanding out from an AI blog into the real world. Also had some issues with the audio this episode so I'm working from the backup copy (that was super loud for some reason). In Episode #507 of 'Meanderings', Juan & I discuss: the shift from attention to intention in the AI era, what truly agentic AI might look like versus glorified chatbots and automated workflows, where the tech is actually useful right now, whether the real breakthroughs will come from bolt-ons to existing platforms or from new rails built natively for agents, testing jailbreak games, microtransactions and betting on an AI Monopoly, job market dislocations, new forms of basic services and the rise of agent-first marketplaces. Huge thanks to Petar for the baller boost this week, the beanie is back! Stan Link: https://stan.store/meremortals Timeline: (00:00:00) Intro (00:01:20) Agentic AI: what it is and what it is not (00:06:08) Hands-on agents: calls, purchases and speed trade-offs (00:10:54) Agents vs automated workflows: real differences (00:15:06) Trust, bugs and the need for human verification (00:20:04) The Intent Economy article: key takeaways (00:27:59) Legacy rails vs new rails: why 2026 may surprise (00:31:05) Slow to sudden shifts: adopting AI-first systems (00:34:16) Content for AIs, not humans: a paradigm shift (00:39:11) Bootstragram Lounge (00:43:06) Daily use-cases: new profiles, payments and x402 (00:49:20) Model guardrails vs open models: practical lessons (00:53:17) Spinning up a podcast agent: limitations revealed (00:57:47) Intent drift: when your goals change mid-stream (1:00:12) Human relationships, agents and future norms (01:06:36) Free money? x402 Monopoly and betting agents (01:12:32) When rules break: brittleness of current agents (01:15:00) Keeping up: daily AI briefs and real-world inertia (01:19:59) Wrap-up  Connect with Mere Mortals: Website: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/ Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReU Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspods Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcasts/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meremortalspodcasts Value 4 Value Support: Boostagram: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/support Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/meremortalspodcast

    1h 21m
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About

What is Effective Philosophy? Juan and I simplify hard to grasp concepts into pragmatic takeaways that can be applied to every day life (fitness, goal setting, work, parenting, travel, hobbies, finances, etc.,).

Information

  • Creator
    Kyrin Down & Juan Granados
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    768
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2024 Mere Mortals
  • Show Website
    Mere Mortals Conversations