Hivemind: Ideas from the Edge

Max
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Hivemind: Ideas from the Edge

Notes on the hivemind and other ideas from the edge hivemindvc.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 2 HR. AGO

    The State of Nostr with Bob Scully, David King, Oscar Merry, and Moritz Kaminski

    We recently hosted a Hivemind Ventures LP/Portfolio day, where we showcased a variety of presentations. The Nostr panel was particularly good so I’ve decided to release it publicly. The panel features an all-star cast, including: Bob Scully (founder of boardwalk.cash), David King (co-host of Nostr News), Oscar Merry (co-founder, Fountain), and Moritz Kaminski (co-founder, Alby). We discuss: * Why Nostr feels like the early Internet * How Nostr (Nostr Wallet Connect) serves as the universal messaging layer for Bitcoin/Lightning Network payments * How Nostr’s open identity and social graph allows apps like Fountain to build new experiences like discovering the podcasts your friends listen to * Why Nostr is so much more than social media. The real promise of Nostr is a social Internet where data is open and users control their own identity, allowing for a Cambrian explosion of new social apps. Imagine automatically finding your friends’ reviews on goodreads, listens on Spotify, and highlights on Kindle * How Nostr compares to other projects (e.g. Bluesky and Farcaster) attempting to build open publishing for the web. Why Nostr is the only neutral solution for bringing user-owned identity and open data to any web app today * What business models might be viable for startups building in and around Nostr * Will Nostr bring more people to Bitcoin or will Bitcoin bring more people to Nostr? Learn more about Fountain, Alby, Boardwalk Cash, and Nostr News Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Listen on Fountain Follow Max on Twitter and Nostr Follow DK, Oscar, Bob, and Moritz on Nostr Follow Max on Stacker News Read Max's Writings here Learn more about Hivemind Ventures This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com

    35 min

  2. NOV 1

    Complexity Rules Everything Around Me with Lyn Alden

    This was a fun and fascinating conversation with Lyn Alden! We discuss a number of topics about which she’s not typically asked. One common thread throughout the conversation is how best to understand and invest around complex systems. Please note that while Lyn and I discuss some biohacking/energy boosting stuff, we’re definitely not doctors, so do your own research ;) Here are a few of the topics we cover: Energy Hacks * Lyn’s favorite energy boosting hacks, including: magnesium, sardines, vitamin K2, vitamin A, cold plunges, and sprinting Complexity and Permaculture * Lyn’s fascination with permaculture and the application of permaculture principles to our information diets * How Lyn builds a brand around being open and intellectually honest to avoid group think and audience capture * Top down vs. bottom up (Communism vs. Capitalism) is the big story of the 20th century that continues today Nostr * The promise of Nostr as a new substrate for re-wilding the web and its ultimate TAM * Evaluating Nostr vs. other systems/protocols attempting to build a decentralized identity/data system * NOSTR project requests from Lyn and Max Big Tech and AI * Lyn’s take that AI is a continuation of the cloud computing wave, which means it’s centralizing in the medium term  * BUT these big companies are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by restricting and closing off their products, which leaves an opening for tech that’s a year or so behind but actually open and less neutered * Lyn is less bullish on AGI; the biggest breakthroughs are likely to come out of left field like trillion dollar health care companies * Lyn is also less bullish on robotics because it’s energy intensive and more complex; software often goes faster than you think and hardware often goes slower than you think  Open Source Software and Companies * The big winners from open source software are platform aggregators (e.g. AWS) and users  * Lyn analogizes companies built on open source software to ETFs - products with trillions of dollars under management but companies like Black Rock, State Street, and Invesco, which are big but not massive. BlackRock is a $160B company and only half of that is ETFs. Big but not Google or Apple. ETF businesses are worth a couple hundred billion for an industry worth >$10 trillion; the true winners here are the users as margins race to the bottom  MicroStrategy * Can $MSTR sustain its premium trading 3x to NAV ? * $MSTR advantages: founder control and growing liquidity network effects (e.g. MSTR options markets); very few ETFs and companies will achieve sufficient liquidity in their options markets  Bitcoin and Energy  * Bitcoin is energy backed money - external entropy is what makes the Bitcoin system not circular logic (like proof of state) and a truly autonomous system * Both Lyn and Max track energy price/density models for Bitcoin  * Lyn also uses MVRV Z-Score for tracking fair Bitcoin price This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com

    1h 41m
  3. Designing Jack's favorite shirt, Creating an open music library, and Growing an indie music empire with Sam Means (Founder, lightning.store and Wavlake)

    OCT 23

    Designing Jack's favorite shirt, Creating an open music library, and Growing an indie music empire with Sam Means (Founder, lightning.store and Wavlake)

    * The genesis of lightning.store * Parallels between Bitcoin and the punk/DIY scenes  * Max’s dad - indie artist who made some cool trippy nostr shirts (which Max is wearing during interview) * Sam’s NOFX Nostr shirt (which Max wears frequently) * How Sam decides what shirts to make * Making Jack’s favorite shirt, seeing it on the Super Bowl, and stress testing Sam’s Lightning node + btcpayserver setup  * Sam needs a Lightning Shopify app that works (opportunity for listeners!)  * Sam got started making a first website and forum for the Weezer fan club * Sam is the consummate entrepreneur: he just does the things that need to be done  * Sam’s education was coming up in bands and working venues  * Pinkerton - the Weezer album changed the course of Sam’s life * Can a band be big and not suck? * Why the music biz generally sucks for bands * The magic of finding a new band that “flips your lid” (Sam’s new favorite phrase) * The magic of David Bowie and artists who can reinvent themselves  * Finding the weirdest 10cc record in Japan  * A history of the interplay between music and technology from pre Internet to p2p file sharing to streaming to what’s coming next * Scott Joplin and piano rolls (artists were getting screwed from day 0) * Lars from Metallica will forever be known as the guy who wants to put 12 yo music fans in jail * Music Like Water (2005, Forbes) - early article explaining how to charge for music like a utility * The monthly subscription fee for everything was the first step to a new idea  * ~97% of artists on Spotify make approximately nothing. If this market can make anything somewhere else they’re likely to try it  * Bitcoin is the real occupy Wall Street; Wavlake is the real occupy Spotify  * Even though big artists are making money, they’re still leaving a lot on the table with all the middlemen  * Wavlake is changing incentives so super fans can give uncapped support for the value they receive  * We jumped into the internet super fast. Now Nostr is helping us rearchitect the web by letting people travel through the Internet and bring their social graph with them * Now Wavlake and Value4Value is doing this for Music; the industry was almost completely uprooted in the last wave, but ultimately failed; now we have another shot * The role of the curator in the new more p2p internet world  * Wavlake’s grand plan: it’s not a music player with zaps, but rather an open music catalogue that disrupts all of music distribution  * Bandcamp and SoundCloud are examples of building a new library from the ground up * Wavlake is following their example with the key difference that their library is not confined to one app but open to anyone (e.g. Fountain) * How does Wavlake compete with Spotify - they don’t  * The magic of interoperable networks and instant payments (good clip around 1:10) * Artist still only had to upload track once but the potential for where that track can live and get monetized is unlimited  * The negotiations between all parties is transparent unlike current opaque set of deals  * We’re making podcasting for music (another good clip around 1:14) * Wavlake’s open music catalogue is inspired by thePodcasting 2.0 spec * Developer splits incentivizes developers to try adding and monetizing music in new ways  * Now music can live in all kinds of different experiences (good clip around 1:16) * Interoperability means your social graph and comments follow you to any app you use! A comment in Wavlake shows up in Fountain  * LN Beats and RSS Blue also working interoperably * Sam is not afraid of competition, in fact he’s paying to incentivize it  * One artist monetizing via bitcoin and value4value will start the tsunami * Check out the Forbes article on Value4Value * Ainsley Costello might already be the first big artist. She had made about $750 over years across Spotify 60+ other services. In one year, she’s made >$12k on Wavlake, Fountain, and o

    1h 57m
  4. High Strangeness, Memetics, and the Open Source Insurgency

    OCT 9

    High Strangeness, Memetics, and the Open Source Insurgency

    This was a fun one! In most recent episodes, I’ve had conversations with builders from the Nostr/Bitcoin community about other rabbit holes they’re interested in. In today’s episode, I sat down with Jack Heart, a longtime blogger and veteran of high strangeness and esoteric rabbit holes galore. Although we focus primarily on themes from Jack’s blog and recent book, we do spend some time discussing the principles of Nostr and how they align with Jack’s view of building an open source insurgency. I’m hoping to do more conversations with thinkers like Jack from communities philosophically adjacent to Nostr. You can learn more about Jack’s work on his blog, Tekgnostics, and in his new book, Brave Noo World: A Guerrilla Ethnography of High Strangeness. Here are some of the other topics we cover: * High strangeness and the acceleration of technology, society, and novelty  * Tekgnostics - a balance of artifact and epiphany * J. Allen Hynek - coined the term high strangeness * The origin of Foo Fighters - UFOs * Cosmic triggers - the atomic bomb - UFO craze after the war - term UFO coined after lights over Mt. Ranier * 2012 as omega point for Terence McKenna and the Mayans  * High strangeness going mainstream as dominant paradigm: politicians calling each other weird  * Synchronicity as meaningful coincidence  * Vernor Vinge’s singularity and the end of the human era  * Humor as the highest and most human form of intelligence and the great weapon against bureaucracy  * Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere as the omega point of human thought and the next layer of biosphere  * Humans will ultimately be all right because of our creativity  * Humans are tool and model builders  * Early internet was the first model of what the hivemind might look like  * Nostr and gnostic — a happy synchronicity ;)  * Digital evolution and DNA * Philip K Dick’s view of DNA as a binary system of memory coils which gnosis allows us to read * The workaround - humans’ core ability to adapt to whatever circumstances  * Jung and the ability to catch ideas from the noosphere  * The Buddha is in the Park * Discordianism: seriousness vs humor - don’t take the world too seriously  * Humor is the highest form of intelligence; perhaps AI will struggle to mimic or understand humor  * “When I dress like a clown, the cops won’t hit me” * The clown and jester archetype; the fool and the trickster (Prometheus , Krishna?) * Meme magic and memetics as mind virus  * Memes are a big reason Trump won in 2016 (Pepe the frog) * The open source / decentralized insurgency  * The ebb and flow of everything  * Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, chakras, and the 8 brain model of psychology  * Crowdfunding a billboard for Brazil all over nostr  * Nostr as the open source / decentralized  insurgency against bureaucracy  * PKD and blows against the empire  * Bureaucracy lacks a sense of humor * Gnosticism as the mystic arm of Christianity  * Overview of gnostic thought  * The great Yin/Yang, masculine/feminine, binary dichotomy of the universe  * Why something instead of nothing (manifest vs. unmanifest)?  * The mythology of Ancient Civilizations - civilizations rise and fall all the time  * Creating substrates for data redundancy and preventing human amnesia (Nostr/Project Alexandria and The Internet Archive)a * Jack’s Book: Brave Noo World and blog: Tekgnostics Learn more about Brave Noo World Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Listen on Fountain Follow Max on Twitter Follow Max on Nostr Follow Max on Stacker News Read Max's Writings here Learn more about Hivemind Ventures This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com

    1h 20m
  5. Anarchism, The Origins of Nostr, & The Future of FOSS with Ben Arc (Founder, LNbits)

    SEP 24

    Anarchism, The Origins of Nostr, & The Future of FOSS with Ben Arc (Founder, LNbits)

    I sit down with LNbits founder Ben Arc for a wide ranging and fascinating conversation about political philosophy, Nostr, and the future of FOSS/AI. Check out the notes below for more details on our discussion. This was a treat to record and I hope you enjoy! * Ben’s left libertarian / anarchist lens on Bitcoin - the ultimate goal is liberty  * Stateless socialism, Marx, and Adam Smith  * Open protocols like Bitcoin / Nostr  and public key cryptography replacing functions of the state * Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: “Property is theft, property is liberty” * Soulful vs. soul-less capital  * “The Adam Smith Invisible B***h Slap” - Ben’s synthesis of left anarchism and Austrian/ancap thought. Open protocols, public key cryptography, FOSS create new more efficient commons in which private capital can participate. But if capital tries to co-opt the commons, it gets the Adam Smith invisible hand b***h slap (see the big blockers from Segwit2x). This creates the playing field for an actual free market  * Collaboration vs extraction - key is aligning incentives so both parties win and grow the pie * “Value waterfalls and the remix economy”- Max’s idea of how BTC and open source protocols will evolve - similar to Stemstr. Both parties win when they collaborate are incentivized to share the same stream of files which get remixed and create thicker value waterfalls or a bigger pie for all  * Peter Kropotkin and Mutual Aid - rereading Darwin for mutual aid as a driving factor in evolution  * Karma and evolution: 1) nothing is permanent; everything is in flow; everything is relative - one order lower of complexity sees only itself + information 2) karma may be the ultimate driver/law of evolution - a system evolves in its totality toward more mutual aid and complexity  * Hegel and the Master-Slave Dialectic - exploitation requires dehumanization making both parties less in touch with reality and happy; in order for them to both be free they need to become peers. The ultimate goal is more liberation/liberty  * P2P peer relationships are the best healthiest relationships: what we see in Bitcoin and open networks  * John Nash: non oppressive mind space is healthiest - Mind on Strike: giving more people mind space allows their minds to explore and explode open; libertarianism comes from liberation and the need for some equality for this to happen. * Is John Nash Satoshi? * Ben’s entry to bitcoin: dorky Uk news correspondents, his students using dark markets, a hatred of banks, and Wikileaks  * The mindseed for nostr: Ben’s Diagon Alley  * Pirate Bay and p2p markets  * Building the first twitter clone on nostr; apologies for NIP-04 * Reverting a fiatjaf hard commit led to Branle * Securing nostr.com for 1 BTC * First talk on Nostr at Paralelni Polis * Finding the alpha with the productive nyms; spear fishing for projects; hanging out on edge of internet; if you’re sending a deck it’s generally too late for me  * Nostr and free / open / non Orwellian / non evil IoT * what all can we build with relays, web sockets, and public key crypto  * Building a new web with Nostr (e.g. see Nostr Wallet Connect and early IoT) * Protocol stack; the old web is compromised and drowning in AI spam; dead internet theory is here; Nostr (public key crypto) for signing notes is our best defense  * Nostr.com is selling dope NIP-05 verifiers  * LNbits released a Nostr signing device for identity management * Nostr is best of both worlds online - create smaller forum like communities while still riding on a global network effect  * “A better Internet is possible” - we’re not at the end of history  * FOSS, nostr, and bitcoin are viruses which infect the system: Just like the major financial institutions with Bitcoin, eventually Twitter will plug into Nostr  * Monopoly of the commons is the future; FOSS eventually swallows all (see Switzerland recently requiring the government to use FOSS) * AI brings the age of disposa

    1h 47m
  6. Power Markets, Pirates, and Energy Backed Money with Andrew Myers (Co-founder, Satoshi Energy)

    SEP 4

    Power Markets, Pirates, and Energy Backed Money with Andrew Myers (Co-founder, Satoshi Energy)

    Andrew and I sit down for a fun conversation while overlooking the San Francisco Bay. There are a few sound/wind issues with my mic (mostly towards the end), but hopefully nothing too disruptive. We focus a lot on energy, but touch on a number of interesting ideas from the edge, including: * The declining cost of solar and batteries * The commodification of solar and Bitcoin miners  * The interconnection process in ERCOT  * Opening new markets as the cost of solar continues to decline  * Bitcoin Mining vs. AI compute markets (price and uptime are two major factors)  * Reforming legacy power markets vs building new ones with microgrids (micromarkets enable microgrids) * What a power market does - 1) match supply and demand to create price at each node and 2) serves as clearing house * Nostr as the communication protocol for decentralized energy markets? * Pirates once ruled the world because they were free to experience different modes of life. Do they still? * Andrew’s vagabond/pirate ethos and lifestyle experiments * Andrew’s other business idea: a tech enabled private military as an insurance company * How does humanity evolve into the hivemind? * Patience as the ultimate virtue  Learn more about Satoshi Energy Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Listen on Fountain Follow Max on Twitter Follow Max on Nostr Follow Max on Stacker News Read Max's Writings here Learn more about Hivemind Ventures This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com

    1h 11m

  7. JUL 18

    Music, Discovery, eCash, and Identity with Tony Giorgio (Co-Founder, Mutiny Wallet)

    Max and Tony cover a lot of ground, including: - Music and its role in society: “He who controls the music controls the mind”  - Why the ad model for monetizing the Internet is not only a panopticon, but also extremely ineffective - How to find under appreciated long tail Internet content  - How to improve Nostr on-boarding for noobs  - The role of the curator on Nostr - Permissionless identity creation means evolution can happen much faster - How Tony uses AI  - How to live a healthy life with (and without) technology; camping is great - in theory  - The balance between contributing to open source and building a company  - Lightning Network as the final settlement layer and Nostr Wallet Connect as the async message layer - eCash and why Tony is bullish on Fedimint - Fedimint as its own consensus network  - Nostr evolving into identity for the Internet  - Nostr as the fire hose of raw data - you can build anything with it  - Open source vs. closed source AI development  Learn more about Mutiny Wallet Learn more about Mutiny Wallet Timestamps: 00:00 The Human mind associates tastes with nostalgic memories. 05:12 Whoever controls the music controls the mind. 16:51 Enjoy infinite exploration, linking to quality content. 24:04 Accessing search engine data for analysis and manipulation. 37:15 Generating personalized recommendation lists based on specific topics. 50:05 Discussing the impact of content creation on platforms. 51:06 Simplify content sharing for enhanced user experience. 01:06:26 OpenAI's methods are scrutinized, and the societal impact is praised. 01:19:02 Recognizing the loss of valuable tools, reflecting on technology's impact on society. 01:25:30 Elderly individual reflects on technology's impact. 01:31:00 There will be those who can focus and run things, and those who can't will get run. 01:35:07 Themes in the Bitcoin community: openness, capitalism, free markets. 01:43:35 Appreciation for both capitalism and open markets. 02:01:11 Decentralized spending permissions using private key-based NWC. 02:13:16 Exploring the necessity and complexities of global identity. 02:20:56 Equal treatment for all tech users is desired. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Listen on Fountain Follow Max on Twitter Follow Max on Nostr Follow Max on Stacker News Also, Read Max's Writings here Learn more about Hivemind Ventures This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com

    2h 22m
  8. Swarmwise, Ron Paul, and Open Source AI

    JUN 17

    Swarmwise, Ron Paul, and Open Source AI

    Christopher and Max explore: * The influence of Swarmwise and the Pirate Party on Chris’ approach to building * Lessons learned from the Ron Paul Campaign in ’08 and ’12  * The state of open source AI * Plans for openagents.com to unlock bottoms-up market intelligence * What exactly is the singularity? Is the future gray goo or Star Trek?  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com

    1h 8m

  9. JUN 5

    AI, Simulations, and Startups with Keyan Kousha (Founder, Stacker News)

    Keyan and Max jam on several topics including: * What is the singularity? * The future of AI and the coming intelligence explosion * Does the brain create or receive consciousness?  * Can machines have souls?  * Do we live in a simulation?  * Keyan’s learnings from 7+ startups prior to Stacker News * How to balance intuition and feedback from reality * Why Jack is a 🐐 founder * Using bitcoin to create physical constraints in digital space * The future of Stacker News territories (end-to-end encryption?!) * Kagi and the opportunity to disrupt Google search * Evolution, epigenetics, and the observer effect This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com

    1h 45m

  10. MAR 28

    Evolution and Nostr with Stu Bowman (Founder, Satellite.earth)

    Stu and Max jam on a wide range of topics including: Terence McKenna, the world of language, evolution, Web of Trust, and the future of Nostr. At least two big ideas really clicked for me: 1) Nostr as the substrate for digital evolution (i.e. forking with checkpoints) and 2) Nostr as an API for market intelligence. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com

    1h 24m
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Notes on the hivemind and other ideas from the edge hivemindvc.substack.com

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