6581
Kei ๐Ÿ—๏ธ

@keikreutler #6581

Writing about how cultural narratives of technology shape what worlds we can build https://keikreutler.net ๐Ÿ—๏ธ
985 Follower 77 Following
Last writing stretch on last newsletter of the year, sort of announcing a new project
Tempted to reread Book of the New Sun over the holidays
New question is if I did 1+2 would you consider subscribing for small monthly amount
Thinking about scenarios in which your understanding of phenomenon can become more wrong while your desired outcomes become more consistent.
The main lesson from changing cultural winds, especially strong ones, is not the new environment they produce, but that they can and will change again, eventually.
Twitter has massively leveled up to being able to deal truly unforetold levels of psychic damage now
If I were to regularly publish thoughts on Substack, wondering should they be about

1) Memory across technologies
2) "Magic" and technology
3) Strange space weather (news and myths related to the current space weather)
4) Something else
Itโ€™s better to try to explain trends without using the usual jargon, at least to yourself. A lot of phrases like โ€œaligned incentivesโ€ get repeated but are in many cases pretty hollow. Itโ€™s good to interrogate what you actually think each time.
After finishing this book on memory, I want to try making writing fiction my main vocation. Fingers crossed in public on it.
This is the narrative of this cycle for me, from my 2021 writing.
My crypto 'cycles' are measured by the interesting writing published. So far it hasn't happened.
I appreciate how this essay of mine resurfaces.

While some aspects, including using the term "web 3.0," feel dated, I think it's still directionally correct.
Iโ€™m not sure if thereโ€™s anything better for me than seeing slanted winter sunlight on mountains.
I want to start something like a referral group chat / reading group for this purpose soon.
I do genuinely miss the small town hall feeling of twitter years ago, where you could post to friends and the adjacent void and interesting ideas would find you. I like Farcaster because my account presence here feels small in that same way, but I think weโ€™re headed toward Balkanization of the internet and dwindling find the others energy no matter what.
Iโ€™m back home and incredibly excited to return to everything Iโ€™m working on. Social media silence commences again.
Making a place is the most future-oriented work Iโ€™ve done. Itโ€™s a commitment to a future. Most futures-oriented work I see operates as denial of increasingly shrinking personal optionality, articulated only as negative freedoms.
Freedom, privacy and wellbeing are not a trilemma trade off. Itโ€™s just going to take a decade to change the course.
Iโ€™ve been wondering about the relationship between technological innovation and risk

When are they proportionate and disproportionate? Does innovation always produce symmetrical risks, e.g. the ship always produces the shipwreck?

It obviously canโ€™t be a perfectly proportionate relationship but I wish it could be understood better

What if there was a ViX for technology taking an index of progress and risk indicators? This would likely be doomed by speculative counterfactuals and technological doomers, but it feels like weโ€™re already confronting the shadow of this now
I canโ€™t stop thinking about the changes coming from self-driving EVs and how it can reshape quality of life (air, sound, commute, new types of roads) and the relationship between urban and rural culture. I hope we remain on the trajectory to get there.