Category: Media

The best description of “The Metaverse” that I’ve seen yet: “the Metaverse is not one thing or one piece of technology. It is every technology”

Andrew was an early NFT / crypto adopter, and is now jumping full steam into the metaverse. So it’s no surprise he lives in the future. And this recent essay of his was the best description I’ve yet read about the metaverse, ie, what Facebook spent $10B and renamed its company to achieve.

Link: https://andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/metaverse-what-it-is-how-it-will

Some excerpts:

In my eyes, the Metaverse is not one thing or one piece of technology. It is every technology – the internet, AR, VR, AI, crypto, NFTs, etc all working together in one seamless system.

I agree that it will encompass many things, there is no clear dividing line (except maybe between “online” and “offline”)

Economic – The financial system of the metaverse will likely be accessible to all, transparent, and operate on blockchain rails. If you want to buy a digital good in the metaverse and have to wait 5 days for the wire to hit the seller’s account in Germany, that is not going to cut it.

Surprise – I agree! Though there will also be centralized options too, but the most innovative – and likely most valuable – components will be blockchain-based, open source, and permissionless.

In the past, we had “internet” companies, but now almost every company is a “tech” company. Similarly, the metaverse is a collection of technologies and capabilities that will soon transform every company into a “metaverse” company. With the world becoming more digital and connected, the impact of the metaverse will be felt by everyone and everything.

Also agree. Just as every company who wanted to stay competitive and relevant had to incorporate “the internet” over the past 20 years, everyone today will – willingly or otherwise – integrate “the metaverse”. And probably “AI.”

Nat Friedman – Some things he believes: “Energy is a necessary input for progress”

Lovely list of perspectives and insights he’s gained over the years, at nat.org

A few of my favorites (copied verbatim):

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The efficient market hypothesis is a lie
-In many cases it’s more accurate to model the world as 500 people than 8 billion

We are often not even asking the right questions

Where do you get your dopamine?
-The answer is predictive of your behavior

Going fast makes you focus on what’s important; there’s no time for bullshit

Enthusiasm matters!
-Energy is a necessary input for progress

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Added to my personal bible

Superb essay on Nietzsche on master and slave morality: “The last man seeks comfort above all else”

Source: https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/nietzsche-on-slave-morality

Nietzsche was worried about this instinct suppression that slave morality enabled. He feared it would lead to the rise of the most despicable kind of person — the /last man/. The last man seeks comfort above all else. The last man no longer understands the value of suffering and chaos and so avoids them. This makes him weak and ineffectual, but the last man calls this “happiness”.

But Nietsche also believed that something was gained in this transition to Slave Morality: /A rich inner-life/. The inner conflict created by the tension between group-beneficial social norms and self-serving instincts drove us to create great art in an attempt to reconcile those tensions. This inner conflict led us to become philosophers, psychologists, novelists, etc. There’s no Woody Allen or Larry David or Dave Sedaris in Master Morality.

Crony beliefs: “Beliefs that have been hired…for social and political kickbacks”

Loved this Kevin Simler essay on the concept of crony beliefs. And if you like this kind of writing, I also recommend his book Elephant in the Brain (I shared some favorite highlights here).

A few key paragraphs (shared verbatim):

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I contend that the best way to understand all the crazy beliefs out there — aliens, conspiracies, and all the rest — is to analyze them as crony beliefs. Beliefs that have been “hired” not for the legitimate purpose of accurately modeling the world, but rather for social and political kickbacks.

And so we can roughly (with caveats we’ll discuss in a moment) divide our beliefs into merit beliefs and crony beliefs. Both contribute to our bottom line — survival and reproduction — but they do so in different ways: merit beliefs by helping us navigate the world, crony beliefs by helping us look good.

At work, we’re rewarded for believing good things about the company. At church, we earn trust in exchange for faith, while facing severe sanctions for heresy. In politics, our allies support us when we toe the party line, and withdraw support when we refuse.

Going further, crony beliefs actually need to be protected from criticism. It’s not that they’re necessarily false, just that they’re more likely to be false — but either way, they’re unlikely to withstand serious criticism. Thus we should expect our brains to take an overall protective or defensive stance toward our crony beliefs.

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If you like anime, would highly recommend Summertime Rendering

I’m 90% through — no meaningful spoilers below — just highly highly recommended, it’s made me feel some strong emotional things

Stream of thoughts…

The main story is a murder mystery with plenty of action, comedy, fantasy thrown in, and a unique structural device that is the best application I’ve seen since Edge of Tomorrow

Though it was somewhere between episode 5-10 when the story finally “hooked” me, the payoff is really worth it, primarily emotional investment in the characters, all because of how patiently the story is told

The characters are very very well developed — full back stories, interesting and unpredictable arcs, complex relationships

There is a fair amount of fanservice which I can only assume is a “Japanese” thing and perhaps a wish of the author / creator — and now I’m wondering what is the female version of fanservice but as I type this, I already kinda know, it’s the extremely beautiful man who is also an impossible gentleman

I’m convinced childhood flashbacks are a way to “hack” the audience’s emotional involvement — we can’t help but feel both nostalgic of our own memories, and people just care MORE about kids

The art is just GORGE — diverse, detailed, hyper realistic with touches of fantasy, really world building — sometimes the art will suddenly switch to a “horror” or “comedic” style and it’s like a sneak attack you don’t see coming