I’ve been spending much of my time in recent months working to better understand the strategies being employed around swarm intelligence and complex adaptive systems. The goal is to catalyze emergent behavior through digital social engineering. I’m dropping in quickly this morning in to re-share two long talks I did about Twitter. At this point any researcher or influencer who centers Dorsey or Musk is, intentionally or not, obscuring the deep institutional structures from which the field of social physics emerged. IMO people would be better served by looking into the work of Sandy Pentland and John Clippinger on the Open Mustard Seed project and “self-sovereign” digital identity. If you want to avoid being managed, stop chasing the behaviorist pellets the feed is dropping you. You’re already tagged in the simulation.
Feature image from Pentland’s 2014 presentation at Google here.
Here’s that part of my D-Cent map if you want to begin your own explorations. Interactive link here – click on circles to open reference links.
TBH I believe the Neuralink hype is a distraction. While I’m not convinced those in power will ultimately be able to manipulate the mind or create group minds, this conversation between Juan Benet of Protocol Labs and Adam Marblestone, a former MIT research scientist and protege of George Church, on non-surgical Brain-Computer Interfaces is probably a more likely scenario. This discussion outlines their thinking on how that research will proceed and how to fund it.
Slide deck for “Emergent Superorganism: Musk, Twitter, and AI Spin” here.
Why I got off Twitter.
Thanks so much for all the good work on Twitter and Musk, Alison. I have so many friends who think Musk is a savior coming to reignite the flame of free speech and make Twitter the bastion of engaged civil discourse. I don’t buy any of it. Musk is a self-serving billionaire who believes in carbon tax credits and EVs as a way to save the planet (no, he probably doesn’t *believe* that, but he does preach it loud and clear), brain chips to help humanity realize its full potential (no thank you) and that vaccines save lives. It’s crazy how much people love their external savior and are completely unwilling to realize that no one is coming to “save” us. It’s an inside job and it’s going to be about choice every step of the way. I choose to be in Nature and spend time with loved ones as much as possible. I don’t think any good comes from reading others’ opinions and arguing with those opinions online.
The point I was trying to convey was that we really shouldn’t be paying attention to Musk at all. He’s just part of the show, but a distracting one.
thank you, Alison. I started listening to your video about leaving Twitter, and for the first time feel very pulled in to what you are doing… My ability to stay on these topics is limited, unfortunately. But I hope to stick with you more in future and pay more attention. You have been on my radar for at least a year. I am leaving this comment to encourage and support you. Thank you for all that you do. You are an inspiration.
On the topic of dialectic, CBDC and Token economy, I recommend this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSB2CHKtdwM
Mr. Werner tells a lot of true stories. in a side note he says something like:
“I told the FED to do this and they did it what was exactly right”.
The topic of “transparent governance and accounting” comes to mind here.
It pretty well touches on the topic of “Are the decentralizing forces really in a fight with the centralizing forces”.
You can not make this up:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/jack-dorsey-pushes-for-decentralized-twitter-alternative
If someone has troubles identifying patterns, this might help.