"If you are living with other humans, getting along is essential. You need human discussion and consent. For example, ragequit is not a good mechanism for co-living. Deeper understanding and willingness to find compromise isn't part of DAO tooling."

"Better frameworks for living together are group rituals, culture, storytelling, sharing protocols, and even religion or spirituality. There's rich history in ecovillages and intentional communities about what works and what doesn't."

"they still need to manage money"

"They still need to manage assets."

Ragequit: this feature embodies the very spirit of Moloch. It's an action designed for individual self-preservation by removing oneself from the process of collective governance. Anyone who ragequits needs to pack their bags and leave the commune. As identified above, ragequit should be wholly excluded from many community coordination strategies; depending on what the specific governable asset(s) are and the context around the community managing them.

Discussion and Consent: I would reframe these two participatory activities as being 100% essential components in a "healthy" DAO. They can also be embedded as conditions that gate access to proposing and/or voting in various ways. A more nuanced approach is to apply granular permissions on which members & groups in a DAO can create different types of proposals (e.g. @AstroDao policies) - and by using some sort of "reputation modifiers" to adjust vote weight depending on whether a member participated in a contributing activity.

Co-living Frameworks: as with discussion & consent, we can systematically apply conditions and weights to members' proposal & voting rights based on specific actions performed in any of the co-living strategies mentioned above (e.g. group rituals, storytelling, etc). Defining these conditions along with appropriate input and output metrics can be done fairly easily using flexible documentation & referencing systems like @eas_eth and @HyperfilesOrg.

Ragequit has proven to be a valuable tool in reimagining exit strategies for IRL projects. It does happen a lot, causing dreams to be buried and land sold. Life changes are a part of life, you have to go in prepared to go out even if you think you never will.

This article is composed of excerpts from one of Dr. Nick's post on X.

Some days, I get so much done before Noon that it's hard to keep track of how many tasks I could be checking off for free dopamine.

Other days, I flounder the entire day or haphazardly bounce between whatever task(s) are highest priority until I look back and have to add new things to my lists just to assuage my ego.

This is classic ADHD. I've been able to manage it partially through a multi-decade long curation effort for my own cannabis product consumption. Yes, I've consumed cannabis nearly every day for 20+ years through high school, college, PhD, building a $1M biotech startup, and absolutely every time we've been on a DAO community call together.

“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life." ~ Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi

To "Zone Out" or "Zone In"?

The documented cognitive effects of cannabis I believe that I continue to leverage include (but are not limited to): analysis enhancement, conceptual thinking, creativity enhancement, focus enhancement, mindfulness, immersion enhancement, increased music appreciation, novelty enhancement, personal meaning enhancement, thought connectivity, and time distortion (most commonly reported to be in the form of time expansion). Source: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Cannabis

I've also learned to lean into thought connectivity sometimes when it takes over. Since my mid-20's I referred to my proclivity toward "thought connectivity" (wandering thoughts and ideas) as a product of genetics by stating that "I'm a lateral thinker". Which is a nice way of saying my brain can't sit still for more than 1.2s and I get way too excited about way too many things.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."~ Hunter S. Thompson

Nothing fits neatly in a box, ever.

People are trained to prefer linear thinking because for thousands of years knowledge was largely passed down through oral tradition. The cultures in our society have convergently evolved to use stories as the de facto mechanism for delivering the moral to a story.

One foot in front of the other. KPIs and trajectories are easier to measure. Narratives and through lines basically write themselves.

"To use your head, you have to go out of your mind." ~ Simon Posford

The problem is that there is no moral to the story. That was a uniquely human assumption. Data doesn't care about morals and Occam's Razor doesn't have an ego.

Linear might seem like the simplest solution, but linear is just a model to represent the real world. And, by definition models are incomplete representations of the world. Making models that capture a robust and coherent view of the world is not a trivial task.

“When we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, we learn to become more than what we were." ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Even the strongest critics of the Many-Worlds Hypothesis will tell you that a world without counterfactuals is a world without free will. Breaking free from linear narratives opens the door to asking 'what if?' - what if the story had a different moral?

"You are not thinking. You are merely being logical." ~ Niels Bohr directed towards Albert Einstein

Source: The Bohr-Einstein Debates

If I didn't get baked this morning would I have written this post? Maybe, because this post is an extension of an unpublished blog article exploring my logic behind net productivity & how I'm able to juggle so many projects simultaneously. But, we could just keep going down that rabbit hole all the way back to when I was 15 years old.

"There is no time which flows equally for all observers. Now, sooner, later, and simultaneous are relative to the frame of reference of the observer."~ Albert Einstein

My Morals: Chaos can be incredibly productive, the value of anything is determined by the metrics & measurements we choose (hello RPGF). Assumptions are the enemy of truth, objective observation and social consensus is its infrastructure.

"Not only is the universe stranger than we think. It is stranger than we can think." ~ W. Heisenberg

Time to go rip some tubes before my next couple hours of deep work. ✌🕊

"Life is too short, so love the one you got." ~Bradley Nowell

Bonus content: "History, On Weed" ~ Elijah Spina
Image prompt (created using Mage.Space): "photorealistic image of Albert Einstein passing a cannabis joint to Hunter S. Thompson. Put the people in the foreground and include relativistic cannabis plants in the background."

I've been permanently banned from using PayPal and Venmo since 2020. This can happen to anyone. Have you considered what you would do if you got blacklisted from traditional banking and payment systems because of your professional involvement with crypto?

Spencer Graham

@spengrah

Tell me you don’t understand the point of what we’re all doing here by… checks notes… telling my you don’t understand the point of what we’re all doing here

Tyler Reynolds

@tbr90

The biggest narrative shift in the last 3 months isn’t that @Solana is going to take over, it’s that ETF approvals are showing govts are finally getting on board w crypto and we may not need the robust decentralization we thought we did

And in that world, $SOL is king

24

6:48 AM • Dec 21, 2023

Things like integrating Venmo as a "zero-knowledge"onramp trigger a particular rebellious streak in me because they sell themselves as a solution, but that solution clearly isn't going to work for me.

I wasn't banned from PayPal because of crypto. I operated an ancillary cannabis business in the US. Ancillary means we didn't require a special state-level license because we didn't handle any plant material. We provided genetic diagnostic laboratory services via mail-order DNA collection kits. The only thing we handled was DNA samples (doesn't contain any regulated materials such as THC) - but PayPal's stance was that we were the equivalent of being accountants for the mob.

Our merchant account had been active for over two years and PayPal even gave us a working capital loan based on our existing revenue. Then, when we reapplied for a second loan after paying back the first, our payment processing was halted without warning and PayPal held pending sales revenue for months after that. So, instead of a loan we ended up with a hole in our balance sheet until they finally gave us our money back. Meanwhile, we still had to fulfill shipping orders and provide lab services for the customers whose payments were frozen.

They even had the gall to charge my personal account a fee after they had closed it, then sent that unpaid fee balance to collections (which is how I first found out they charged me that fee). I was also notified that my SSN was permanently banned from both services (PayPal owns Venmo) because I was the primary contact on our merchant and bank accounts. I get to awkwardly relive this story by pretending it's a badge of honor every time I go out to dinner with friends.

We never truly recovered from this, although it was just the first in a series of challenges that led to us closing the lab in 2022 after over 5 years in operation & 25+ employees. Luckily, I had already started working in DAOs and evaluating solutions to the lack of data liquidity that underlies the tension between public and private scientific research. It's been a pretty rough career transition going from PhD lab scientist -> startup CEO/CTO -> largely unemployable DAO contributor (yay for highly specialized generalists); but the journey is simply unfolding one intuitive step at a time.

I'm not alone. The cannabis industry (especially traditional markets with zero or varying levels of grey area state-level regulatory frameworks) is ripe for innovation via crypto money systems, privacy, and identity tech. PayPal has become notorious for shutting down ancillary cannabis business accounts without warning since this happened to us.

With better consumer facing UX finally coming into play - it has become my life mission to research and implement these solutions starting with my corner of the cannabis industry: science -> via OpenCann and Hyperfiles.

Centralized onramps are a necessary evil, for now. I'm all in on crypto because of the freedom that true meritocracy and radical transparency provide. The former is an emergent property of the latter, by the way.

"Contracts are not for when things are going well."

Ain't that the fucking truth.

The same is true for decentralization. It's easy to underestimate the value of it in happy times.

Good thing we're building trustless, permissionless, and publicly verifiable smart contract infrastructure. Right?

Also:

"Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."

Proceeds from collectors of this post go to the BanklessDAO Community Treasury: Bankless DAO: Treasury | Address 0xf26d1Bb347a59F6C283C53156519cC1B1ABacA51 | Etherscan

Tldr: shitposting meets empathetic intellectualism

We research pain-points in DAOs from a distinctly human perspective, then word vomit emphatic phrases onto the page and hit publish immediately. The articles we write are designed to be provocative, with the intent of making a point.

All authors on this blog are uncensored and encouraged to write with passion about taboo subjects. Society is full of culture devs, and, we CAN do something.

Our no bullshit approach to writing sometimes cuts deep. We show no mercy in the extraction of splinters from thorny coordination mechanisms.

Speaking from the heart curates raw ideas and generates unfiltered words. We're opportunistic writers who draw inspiration from lived experience, tapping into deep seated emotions that prune away politics and replace it with pure humanity.

We are DAO contributors, and we believe in a future where self-sovereignty robustly complements systems of collective governance, leading to positive-sum equilibria.

For the love of DAO, let's just cut the crap and get to the heart of the matter.

P.S. We also like to sneak in some off-color humor here and there. So, please try to enjoy our snark with a smile. Happy reading, frens. 💗

One idea that some people have proposed is to replace banks with peer-to-peer lending platforms that match borrowers and lenders directly, without intermediaries. This could potentially make the financial system safer by eliminating the risk of bank failures and bailouts, but it would also pose new challenges such as regulation, fraud prevention and credit assessment¹.

Another idea that some people have explored is to use cryptocurrencies as an alternative to traditional money and banking. Cryptocurrencies are digital tokens that can be transferred and stored without relying on a central authority or intermediary. Some proponents of cryptocurrencies argue that they offer more freedom, privacy and innovation than the current system, but they also face significant hurdles such as volatility, scalability and legal uncertainty².

A third idea that some people have suggested is to move toward a cashless society where all transactions are done electronically using cards, apps or digital wallets. This could reduce the costs and risks of handling cash, but it could also raise concerns about privacy, security and social inclusion. Some countries have already taken steps to limit or discourage the use of cash, while others have resisted or reversed such policies³.

As you can see, there are different ways to imagine a world without banks, but none of them are easy or straightforward. Banks play a vital role in the economy by providing credit, payment services and financial intermediation, but they also pose risks and costs that need to be managed and regulated. Getting rid of all banks would require a fundamental transformation of the financial system and society as a whole.

I hope this information was helpful. If you want to learn more about any of these topics, you can follow the links below:

(1) A Radical Way To Make Banking Safer: Get Rid Of Banks Entirely. https://www.npr.org/2014/06/10/320734876/a-radical-way-to-make-banking-safer-get-rid-of-banks-entirely.

(2) Banks Tried to Kill Crypto and Failed. Now They’re Embracing It (Slowly .... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/business/banks-crypto-bitcoin.html.

(3) Why Are Banks Quietly Working Toward a Cashless Society - Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/banks-cashless-world-disaster-economy-business-fintech-cash-crypto-2022-6.

(4) How Long to Keep Important Documents Before Shredding Them. https://bettermoneyhabits.bankofamerica.com/en/privacy-security/how-long-to-keep-documents-before-shredding."

Source: Conversation with Bing, 7/6/2023
Inspo: https://bankless.community