Recent good reads – web3, Elon, Stranger Things, fake Russian history, and CS Lewis

https://tcg.mirror.xyz/CCtokn_XR9yqGhL3OIKM4u8IxaVO0V0fmRxH-G5yWs8

We hear a lot of conversation around “hooks” for crypto-native messaging, like permissionless social graphs, verification, and token-gating, but these are features of web3 messaging, not the core use of it. None of these features have made on-chain messaging competitive with Telegram or Signal, because convenience (almost) always wins over quality. The reason these messaging protocols will be more convenient is they will unlock a whole new recipient of the message: the protocol itself. We haven’t gotten there yet because currently, messaging is regarded as an end, but web3-native messaging is a means, not an end. It’s a byproduct of completing actions.

Interacting with the protocol is a fascinating idea, although I suppose that’s what we do when we search google, or call an uber…and now there’s “interacting with an algorithm” too when we use ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion…

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/12/1064751/the-viral-ai-avatar-app-lensa-undressed-me-without-my-consent/

“Women are associated with sexual content, whereas men are associated with professional, career-related content in any important domain such as medicine, science, business, and so on,” Caliskan says.

I dunno, I kinda liked my new six pack

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-12-14/elon-musk-twitter-ownership-full-of-firings-ad-cuts-chaos

His journey from hero of the save-the-planet wing of the Democratic Party to right-wing flag-bearer has been years in the making. It was seemingly provoked by a series of real or perceived attacks from his left flank—from unions such as the United Auto Workers, which hopes to organize Tesla workers; Covid-wary lawmakers in California who shut down Tesla’s factories during the early days of the pandemic; and labor-friendly leaders like President Joe Biden, who declines to mention Tesla in speeches about electric cars and talked about extending EV credits for only unionized automakers. When Musk feels ambushed, he lashes out.

Shakespearean psychodrama? Does the msm have a hard on for Mr. Musk or what

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/most-amazing-discoveries-2022

For the first time, biologists have observed a native species, a bobcat, raiding a python nest and eating its eggs. Later, when the bobcat returned to find the snake guarding its nest, the cat took a swipe at the reptile. “When you get interactions like this and see the native wildlife fighting back, it’s like a ray of sunshine for us,” says Ian Bartoszek, an ecologist with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. “In 10 years of tracking snakes, I can count on one hand the number of observations” of native animals standing up to the reptiles.

Demonstrating per usual that the “real” world is an incredible place full of potential wonder and we haven’t yet understood 1% of 1% of it

https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/a-prophecy-of-evil-tolkien-lewis

The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man goes on apace among Communists and Democrats no less than among Fascists. The methods may (at first) differ in brutality. But many a mild-eyed scientists in pince-nez, many a popular dramatist, many an amateur philosopher in our midst, means in the long run just the same as the Nazi rulers of Germany. Traditional values are to be ‘debunked’ and mankind to be cut into some fresh shape at will (which must, by hypothesis, be an arbitrary will) of some few lucky people…

I had to read this twice to understand its gist, which is something like, when we stopped worshipping something greater than ourselves (be it values or a deity), that left a power vacuum, and a small set of “experts” stepped in to tell us what to worship instead. And in writing that preceding sentence, I realize I still don’t really get it, and probably need to read it again

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1010653/she-spent-a-decade-writing-fake-russian-history.-wikipedia-just-noticed.-

Yifan went down the rabbit hole on the Kashin mine and the Tver-Moscow War, learning about battles, the personalities of aristocrats and engineers, and more history surrounding the forgotten mine. There were hundreds of related articles describing this obscure period of Slavic history in the dull, sometimes suggestive, tone of the online encyclopedia. It was only when he tried to go deeper that something started to seem off. […] Eventually, he realized that there was no such thing as the great silver mine of Kashin (which is an entirely real town in Tver Oblast, Russia). Yifan had uncovered one of the largest hoaxes in Wikipedia’s history.

Yes I am chaotic neutral, and yes I mostly find this entertaining and have more than a modicum of admiration for this high-school educated lady to weave such a George RR Martin-esque alternative history. What we humans are able to create when we truly enjoy the creating…

https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/stranger-things-season-4-captions

Jeff T.: People really focused on “eldritch thrumming.” Eldritch is that sort of arcane, unknowable, vaguely threatening, otherworldly presence. I am going to reveal the depths of how nerdy I am — I apologize in advance — but it’s also the signature spell for a warlock in Dungeons & Dragons. It’s called eldritch blast. The lore of a warlock in Dungeons & Dragons is that they make the deal with an otherworldly power, whether it’s a demon or a powerful fairy lord. So I was like, “Oh, this is the perfect term for that sense of otherworldly power intruding into our world.”