Worried about my friends in Austin right now. Please stay safe. (And it’s shocking to me that E Austin is without power.)
I think one of the causes of burnout is the pressure to be someone you’re not on an extended basis, both to others and to yourself. Productivity demands assimilation. What does it look like to build a life grounded in authenticity, and to make it sustainable?
There is nothing more beautiful than people who, in the face of societal pressure to template themselves to imposed norms, choose to define and represent themselves on their own terms. To all the people who don’t fit in: you make the world better. Thank you.
I consider it an absolute breakdown in my information systems that a musician I’ve seen live no less than 15 times released a new album recently and I had no idea until right now.
Working through my writing homework for the week. I’ve got a short story submission coming up - but what to write about? One thing I’ve learned for sure: it shouldn’t be about the internet.
Still thinking about an interaction this week that might have been my first direct, overt experience of ageism in tech. Their loss, frankly.
As you drive down any highway in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can see them under overpasses and bridges: small conglomerates of tents, surrounded by increasingly-complex infrastructure for electricity and water. Not so much shantytowns as distributed shanty-hamlets: communities of people huddling together and conserving resources as best they can.
The feeding frenzy for GameStop stock, Dogecoin, and all the rest of them shouldn't come as a surprise. People are desperate. All over the country, they're willing to grasp at any straw if it looks like it might lead to a rent check or a paid bill. It's not greed; it's survival.
There are people here in the Bay Area, as there are everywhere, who just want the homeless to go away. Perhaps misled by the great lie of the American dream - that anyone can achieve anything, if they just try hard enough - they seem to think that people who have landed on hard times are bad people, and they should simply be cleared away in the night as if they were piles of old leaves. But there's no safety net in American society, and almost all of the hundreds of millions of people who live here are just a few missed paychecks away from the same fate. Some of the inhabitants of those highway-side tents are the victims of generational injustices of one kind or another; some are just unlucky. For every person visibly struggling, there are nine more that we can't see, doing what they can to make ends meet.
Crime is rising. Who's surprised? People do what they have to.
As I write this, I can see the silhouette of the Salesforce Tower looming over San Francisco. You can see it from most of the city; from the condos downtown, and from the homeless shelters. At its top, a great screen shows video at night - waves crashing, for example, or dancers - like something out of a Blade Runner future. There is enormous wealth here, as in many cities. And there is enormous suffering.
Most of the great CEOs - the billionaires - have a philanthropic vehicle they use to give back. Non-profit organizations are dependent on these wealthy benefactors to support them, and in the absence of real safety, these organizations are what passes for a net. The help that gets provided is, in large part, a function of what the rich are interested in. I'm aware of at least one billionaire who very quietly gives to causes that support the creation of a real welfare system for people who slip through the cracks, but it remains very few. For the most part, the cruel netless trapeze act of American life is perpetuated.
When I first arrived in California, a decade ago, I was advised by a family friend to keep my politics to myself. My parents had met at Berkeley and been activists; my father, a veteran, organized protests against the Vietnam War. But things had changed, and libertarian politics were prevailing. It was better to keep your head down.
But I think keeping your head down is the same thing an endorsement. It's collaboration with a system that's killing people.
We've managed to remove a fascist from office, which feels like a very low baseline for a functional democracy. Those people living in tents shouldn't be there - not because they should be cleared away, but because everyone should have safe housing. Those people desperate to make ends meet shouldn't be staking their futures on Robinhood investments - not because they should be blocked from doing so, but because they shouldn't be desperate to begin with. Those organizations on the ground shouldn't be beholden to billionaire donors to help people in need - not because they shouldn't ask for the money, but because there should be plenty of public funding to help.
There's so much work to do. This is a cruel society, made crueler by the aftermath of a dystopian government and a still-raging global pandemic. It's hard to know where to even start. But we can create, and we deserve to have, a better country than the one we inhabit.
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What’s the most exciting thing about tech for you right now? For me it’s about re-decentralization - people moving to lots of different platforms, having their own websites and revenue streams, building their own mailing lists, etc. Refreshing.
Hot tip: Clubhouse will be much less exciting once people are working from offices and commuting.
Coding is less than half of an engineer's job. I've seen talks on this; I know this to be true; but what is an excellent third-party resource that goes into depth on this? Could be an article or a book.
If you describe yourself as a 10X engineer, I’m going to assume you’re literally ten times the size. That’s a big engineer
If I had to make a list of the things that I find baffling and irritating about America, leaf blowers would be very high up there.
Less than zero interest in participating in, preserving, perpetuating, or validating tech bro culture. In the right hands, technology can empower and enfranchise. These are not the right hands.
I’m very enthusiastic about antitrust reform; very unenthusiastic about Section 230 reform.
If you were going to put some live, visualized data on a screen at home (or in an office, in the event that we get to have those again), what would you use? I'm looking for a mix of visualization types, with super-easy data input.
I woke up super-early to drive my mom to the hospital for a planned visit. It’s been over a year, but it’s surprising how much it still feels like a second home. For better or worse.
My stress levels for the last week have been absolutely through the roof. I hope some sleep and some resolutions to things that have been worrying me can fix it. I was enjoying feeling calm and rested.
I'm selling my frozen heart.
Or at least a representation of it. Five representations, to be specific. Five copies of my frozen heart illustration were released as non-fungible tokens, available to be purchased on OpenSea. All you need is a wallet like Metamask and a few ETH.
Credit to my friends at DADA, who dove head-first into crypto-art a few years ago. I'll admit that I was skeptical then, and they were right. It's absolutely fascinating to see how the NFT art market has exploded.
You can also make an offer on my piece Greenwashing.
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The move to subscriptions continues apace. https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/8/22272364/twitter-premium-subscriptions-tweetdeck-undo-send-tipping...
Four straight weeks of whole30. I have two days left but: I’ve lost 12+ pounds, my blood pressure dropped to a healthier level, and in combination with daily exercise, my fitness is much better. This worked shockingly well for me.
Unpopular opinion: gas transactions of any kind force blockchains out of platform-land and squarely into speculative currency-land.
Werd I/O © Ben Werdmuller. The text (without images) of this site is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
