Fiction, Art, Music, Aliens & Evolutionary Biology - (Issue #173)
Monetary policy, intelligence agencies, AI vs crypto, aliens, Bitcoin treasuries, everyday novelists, evolutionary biology vs modernity, Solana fundamentals, quantum computers, EU politics, EDM duos
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Another season 2 instalment…
It’s a bit of a strange issue this week. It would appear that there isn’t much tech in it, but in fact the tech is underpinning everything, and many of the big items are just examples of the amazing cultural things we can now create using all these technologies we build every day. It’s time to take a step back and look at the culture, how it’s intersecting and affecting everyday life, what sort of art we are creating, to try and get a vague idea of where we might be heading.
There’s one thing for sure and that’s that things in the future will be almost unrecognisable from the perspective of our past, yet we need to work together to figure out ways to pass down the valuable knowledge accumulated from thousands of generations of humans, while at the same time trying to make the future a better place for all of us.
There’s a lot of zooming in a zooming out necessary this week. From the highly specific details of living in a street in a big city neighbourhood, to the more esoteric process of making and performing electronic music, to new generations pioneering different ways of living, to the politics shaping our worlds at the macro level, all with the backdrop of the technology systems we build to enable all this chaos and creativity to be channeled in useful and productive ways that make society better.
That’s why this issue had been somewhat dizzying to put together. There is just so much going on. It’s mindboggling, and wonderful. I think we are doing pretty well considering how complex modernity has become. Let’s remember to be kind to each other and help people in the places that have difficulties.
This is the week of the assassination attempt on Trump. That’s what the news is full of currently, so I feel like I should mention that here. It’s obviously a very important moment, yet for whatever reason it only occurred to me that I should mention it once I’d writen and scheduled the issue. I think that’s a sign of how much cool stuff is happening in the world at the minute.
I haven’t been doing any development work on my static site generator this week. I wanted to get a few weeks of solid blogging with the new everything page, to get a better feel for how all the pieces work together, to get a better sense of the writing process. It’s been quite enlightening.
Broadly speaking I think it’s working well. I’ve been posting links, writing notes and managing to write a load of blog posts. Here are the latest blog posts:
Some half baked thoughts about election turnout numbers https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/13/some-half-baked-thoughts-about-election-turnout-numbers
The future of crypto and high end NFTs https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/14/the-future-of-crypto-and-high-end-nfts
Parodying yourself https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/15/parodying-yourself
Enough will never be enough https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/15/enough-will-never-be-enough
The newsletter preparation experiment https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/16/the-newsletter-preparation-experiment
Do you even memecoin? https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/16/do-you-even-memecoin
Rudimentary backup of our civilization https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/16/rudimentary-backup-of-our-civilization
Just ignore them virtually impossible https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/17/just-ignore-them-virtually-impossible
Kings and Queens and politics https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/17/kings-and-queens-and-politics
The offline video cache web browser https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/17/the-offline-video-cache-web-browser
Competition for criminals https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/18/competition-for-criminals
Bitcoinifying arguments https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/18/bitcoinifying-arguments
The real vs digital assets equilibrium https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/18/the-real-vs-digital-assets-equilibrium
GenZ vs evolutionary biology https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/19/genz-vs-evolutionary-biology
I think it’s fair to say the blogging virtuous circle is working from a quantity perspective. I’m reasonably happy with the quality of the writing given the circumstances. Hopefully there are some pieces there that peak interest for some of you.
Another change that I made this week is that I started drinking hot coffee again in the morning. There’s no question it helps with increasing productivity, but I’m not so sure how healthy it is long term. I’m not super into how it makes you feel when the caffeine wears off, a sort of low grade irritability, a slight uncomfortableness. I’ve also had a week of eating food pretty much everyday without many skipped meals. Coffee and food most definitely have a big effect on output.
I’ve also been running an experiment on how I put together the newsletter. I’ve been writing the podcast reviews as I go through the week up as linkblog links. The idea was that it would be less work, but honestly it’s felt like a lot more work. I’m going to try it for another week because I think maybe the quality has improved, maybe I can optimise it a bit. Glad I tried it in any case.
I’m going to end it here for this week. Quite the ride, I’m kind of spent.
Podcasts
Bank of England Economist: Interest rates must be cut (The Rest is Money Podcast) - Robert and Steph have economist and external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, Swati Dhingra on the show. There’s much interesting and intelligent discussion all very relevant to the government changeover in this episode. While listening to this I was struck by how special it is that these 3, with such different backgrounds, are all living in the same country, all call it their home, and all earnestly working together at a very high level to make it a better place for everyone. Even just the variety in accents is something that is incredible. There are very few other places in the world that have this. It’s amazing. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/6582865?episode=25095761829
Whitney Webb & Mark Goodwin on How Intelligence Agencies Capture Everything (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) - Whitney Webb has this unbelievable ability to paint enormous, completely self consistent pictures, based on limited available data. It’s really quite something. What it amounts to is one possible version of reality, of "the truth", that’s incredibly convincing. Mark Goodwin is pretty darn good at it too. I think it’s worth remembering that before embarking on a podcast journey with them. Worth remembering also, especially if you are a builder of things, that there are other, as self consistent realities possible. It’s still nevertheless a fascinating ride. In this part 1 of 2 they discuss among other topics, why stablecoins are keeping the dollar afloat, the dwindleing petro dollar system, the emerging bitcoin dollar system, banks becoming information brokers, Arpanet’s (the precursor to the internet) history with intelligence agencies, and some of the dangers of public private partnerships. Kind of heavy in places, but so much to think about. Really looking forward to part 2 :) https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/whitney-webb-mark-goodwin-on-how-intelligence-agencies-capture-everything
Stocks Up & Crypto Flat...Why? (Bankless Podcast) - There’s a whole lot of interesting and very practical stuff discussed in this episode, including how crypto must outperform AI, that 7 companies account for most of the equity markets, the internet bubble vs the AI bubble, money market funds, the disappointment of ETFs, what stablecoins bring to the table, the often forgotten yet very compelling TradFi promise. https://www.bankless.com/stocks-up-crypto-flat-why-jim-bianco
My search for proof aliens exist (Ted Talks Daily Podcast) - Astrophysicist Avi Loeb talks about the possibilities of alien civilisations existing in other places in the universe, and describes an expedition he led to find reminents of the first detected interstellar asteroid that crashed into the ocean in the last few years. It’s quite a humorous talk, scientists can be quite funny too :), definitely worth the listen. https://www.ted.com/talks/avi_loeb_my_search_for_proof_aliens_exist
Why a Bitcoin Treasury is the Winning Strategy with Eric Semler (TFTC Podcast) - I listenned to this earlier under pretty extreme conditions so it was very difficult to concentrate. The part I found very interesting was around why holding Bitcoin in a company treasury can be very beneficial in some circumstances, especially for high margin businesses that tend to hold a lot of cash on their books. It’s an interesting discussion, I wish there were more examples of businesses integrating crypto and Bitcoin into their operations and talking about it. https://www.tftc.io/bitcoin-treasury-winning-strategy-eric-semler-tftc
Andrew O'Hagan goes up the Caledonian Road in search of Truth, Justice and a Man in Blue Ep#2027 (Keen On Podcast) - I really enjoyed this interview, on many levels. The fact it’s about a novel written about a place in London I’d spent some time in, the fact that the novel is a rich tapestry, weaving together stories and characters from different walks of life, and class, together with contemporary topics, and even the diverse real life cast of the podcast interview itself. It’s like some sort of giant living jigsaw puzzle, where the interesting pieces find each other and intertwine like a patch of garden in a bigger patch of a larger garden. Fascinating waters in which to go for a swim, with so many different cultural topics intersecting, the novel really gives a sense, a multi-dimensional snapshot of a place in time. Local pubs, politics, austerity, Brexit, migrants, fake news, fake life, global vs local, renters vs home owners, big city, urban vs country side, art, perspective, concreteness, optical illusions, capitalism, englishness, the working class, unions, working men’s clubs, the miners strikes, russian oligarchs, aristocrats, crypto utopianism, landlords, paying your taxes, beaurocracy, gangsters, Balzacian & Kafkan nightmares, Britain, the similarity of father & sons relationships across classes, all with the backdrop glow from a distant US culture. The complexity of modern life in all it’s imperfect glory. Seems like a really wonderful example of the art and stories the technologies we build everyday now make possible. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/240566?episode=25025812774
The Jonathan Haidt Interview (All-in Podcast) - New interview format for the All-in pod. They interview writer and evolutionary biology and psychology specialist Jonathan Haidt. All sorts of interesting topics covered, including the origins of sociology, a somewhat dubious social media drugs analogy but kind of interesting comparison nonetheless, how the human brain and mind evolved, the dopamine reward system, hacking evolutionary biology, Boomers vs GenX vs Millennials vs GenZ, Buddhism, the alleged perils of desire and dualistic thinking, influencer culture, collective action traps, oppressor / oppressed mindset, the 3 great untruths, how the political left has changed since the 70s, traditional liberalism and conservatism, boredom & creativity, and some things to be aware about video games. Very much recommended if you spend a lot of time thinking about the future. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/1015378?episode=24971848701
Is SOL Undervalued? 83% discount to ETH? | Michael Nadeau (Bankless Podcast) - Solana is generally considered to be the 3rd most popular blockchain after Bitcoin and Etherium. Micheal comes from a TradFi background but has been into crypto for a number of years. He’s identified some interesting things about Solana by doing a classic TradFi analysis of core fundamentals. He presents his findings. He looks at things like total value locked, number of active users, number of transactions, number of developers, fees, to where investment capital is flowing, DEX trading volumes and more. It would seem to still be somewhat undervalued. He makes some predictions for the future. Good solid episode. https://www.bankless.com/is-sol-undervalued-83-discount-to-eth-michael-nadeau
Quantum computers aren’t what you think...they’re cooler | Hartmut Neven (TED Talks Daily Podcast) - A look into the weird science behind quantum computing where huge computations can be carried out using parallel universes. It’s very early days for this technology, but we will soon be able to use quantum computers to solve problems in medicine, AI, neuroscience and more. All sorts of interesting examples of what we might be able to do in the future. We might even be able to discover the dynamics of consciousness, and perhaps even ways to expand it. https://www.ted.com/talks/hartmut_neven_quantum_computers_aren_t_what_you_think_they_re_cooler
Caitlin Long and the Conundrums of Europe Ep#183 (Goats Gold 'n Guns Podcast) - Caitlin Long who runs Custodia Bank is on the show to discuss the recent elections in the UK and France, and how they have been affecting the markets. She also goes into her difficult experiences trying to setup a crypto focused full reserve bank, Trump and crypto, Tether & US treasuries, and the unconstitutional structure of the FED. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/236253?episode=25224718445
Bicep Ep#522 (Resident Advisor Podcast) - Interview with Irish duo Andrew Ferguson and Matthew McBriar. To be honest I’m not familiar with their music or mixes (yet!), but I thought this interview was excellent, really great window into the creative, business and performance sides of electronic music. Topics including setting up a label, their background in design and advertising, tech gear, the writing process, live shows vs writing albums, mixing seminar at Abbey Road, upping their game and working with tech wizards, working as a duo, Belfast vs London, people’s differing views on emotions, writting with purpose, being maximal with minimal, negative spaces, giving your brain space, taking the essence out and striping it back, teasing the audience, harnessing energy, 1 word song titles, the Brit awards, creativity during the pandemic, fear & worry in the community, signing with Ninja Tune, performing live vs DJing, being on the road, Glastonbury, first Essential Mix, first Beats in Space mix, first show in Japan, rave energy and clubs in general, blogging their sets, artistic kinship, making tunes and getting them out as quick as possible, collaborating, and shooting video for visuals. https://ra.co/exchange/754
That’s all from me…
Best regards,
Mark
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