Thread by @RhysLindmark

1/ Nice picture of Detroit to start a thread for #RadicalXChange @RadxChange 👇

2/First off, how could I *not* come? Here are the #RadicalXChange speakers who've been on my podcast:

Podcast #6 @simondlr (1.5 years ago!)
#7 @ntnsndr
#31 @piamancini (@santisiri)
#37 @kimmaicutler
#38 @yaoeo
#55 @noUpside
#58 @glenweyl

Good crew.

itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gre…

3/ Plus, great folks like @lrettig @mames @devonzuegel @evabeylin @zooko @tristanharris @VitalikButerin @zhitzig (and others I'm excited to meet!)

Feels like there's "something in the water" that's bringing us here together right now. We'll see! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#RadicalXChange

4/ Interesting to hear @RadxChange's Executive Director, Jeff Lee-Yaw, synthesize the Coherent Pluralism (CP) of this movement.

CP is manifest in the belief: "Diversity is essential."
CP is manifest in the value: "Openness."

#RadicalXChange

5/ The #RadicalXChange motto is: "It’s not radical to critique our current society. It's radical to build a better one."

This quite "directionally correct", imo.
So many folks critique the status quo. (Postmodernism.)
Not many folks try to build a new one. (Metamodernism.)

6a/ @baratunde

"Algorithms reflect society. They want to make the world a better place...but if they just *reflect* society, then couldn't they make society a worse place?"

See @Joi's "AI Isn't a Crystal Ball, But It Might Be a Mirror." wired.com/story/ideas-ai…

#RadicalXChange

6b/ @baratunde

"Facebook is on a non-ending apology tour." 😂

#RadicalXChange

6c/ @baratunde begins to explain his New Tech Manifesto, here (as an open-source google doc!): docs.google.com/document/d/1s-…

Here are his 8 principles:

#RadicalXChange

6d/ @baratunde wants "trust scores" but, imo, he doesn't adequately explain how his version is different than something like China's Social Credit System.

#RadicalXChange

6e/ @baratunde on principles #4: "Diversify Who’s At the Table".

"Anti-social people have built all our social tools." lol 😂

Also, he just gave a shoutout to @projectinclude! cc @triketora

#RadicalXChange

6f/ @baratunde's recommendations are 🔥

- @AnandWrites goodreads.com/book/show/3750…
- @shoshanazuboff (though it' so long—700 pages!) goodreads.com/book/show/2619…
- @VillanuevaEdgar goodreads.com/book/show/3824…

Especially love this "positive sci-fi" theverge.com/2018/12/5/1805…

#RadicalXChange

7a/ Panel on "Building the #RadicalxChange Movement" with @ntnsndr @DrMChatelain @Combsthepoet @glenweyl.

I like how Glen introed folks, describing them "as the intersection they are."

#RadicalXChange

7b/ @glenweyl "We didn't expect any of this." (120 groups globally!) "But we're still falling short." e.g.

#1. On Coherent Pluralism: "There are so many dimensions of inclusion. We don't have many folks from the Global South or rural areas. How to include them?"

#RadicalXChange

7c/@DrMChatelain @Combsthepoet w/ a great answer: we need to think about language. (eg Is diversity just non-white?)

Also, I personally love it when folks mention being on indigenous land. In Canada, all events begin with a ceremony that reminds us of this fact.

#RadicalxChange

8a/ @noUpside begins her breakout session on "Data for Democracy."

#RadcialxChange

8b/ @noUpside "Our political conversations are happening on an infrastructure built for viral advertising." (Not sensemaking!)

"This means we have 'dual-use' technology." (Great phrase, imo.)

#RadicalxChange

8c/ @noUpside explains how Russia's disinformation campaign built a community given the internet's ecosystem of distributed trust.

(Build identity-based trust first, *then* leverage it for political ends.)

#RadicalxChange

8d/ @noUpside with a fascinating point: her data was *already* attributed by the platforms (as fake/from Russia).

I'll be curious to see the arms race between the platforms' (AI's) ability to attribute "fakeness" vs the fake news groups' ability to "seem real".

#RadicalxChange

8e/ @noUpside with another interesting point on how the digital community (in bits) gets manifest IRL (in atoms):

Russia's IRA would schedule two competing protests at the same time and place across the street from each other.

#RadicalxChange

8f/ @noUpside "I don’t want to de-legitimize real protest or anger, but we need to recognize that it can be weaponized."

(This is a constant question to ask—how can your "mechanisms for change" be weaponized?)

#RadicalxChange

Unrelated tweet: if you're interested in discussions for the event, here's where people are (digitally) convening):

- Telegram: t.me/RxC2019Detroit
- Discourse: forum.radicalxchange.org

#RadicalxChange

9a/ @proftortuga begins her talk "Private Property Against Public Works". Key idea is shown in this graph:

- On left: Stronger property rights correlated with higher economic development
- On right: Stronger property rights correlated with worse infrastructure

#RadicalxChange

9b/ @proftortuga: In economic terms, this is the balance between:

1. "Investment efficiency" (property rights ➡ lower transaction costs + investment security [longer time preference])

vs.

2. "Allocative efficiency" (holdout/opportunistic behavior)

#RadicalxChange

9c/ @proftortuga With strong property rights, there are three different kinds of opportunistic behavior:

1. Holdouts (extract rent given complementary goods)
2. Infrastructure trolls (like patent trolls)
3. Scope expansion (citizens bargain w/ veto power)

#RadicalxChange

9d/ Side note from Rhys—The Three Gorges Dam is my favorite example of statist/weak property rights (in China):

- # of people displaced: 1.2 million
- # of cities and towns flooded: 13 cities, 140 towns, 1,350 villages

@ProfTortuga #RadicalxChange

9e/ @ProfTortuga Radical markets (w/ COST, QV, etc.) may be a good solution to balance investment vs. allocative efficiency.

I love her new language here: *emergentist* notions of community. (Feels texturally different than traditional adjective here: emergent.)

#RadicalxChange

9f/ Rhys side note—super clear presentation, imo. Thanks @ProfTortuga! #RadicalxChange

10a/ @zooko exploring decentralized basic income.

#RadicalxChange

10b/ @zooko the crucial idea here: everyone's wallet self-taxes 10% and divides it among other wallets. (Then high-income folks would end up donating more than low-income folks.)

#RadicalxChange

10c/ @zooko on similar self-tax systems.

(Note from Rhys: selfish plug for my thinking here.)
-Personally tithing 20% w/ new feedback loops: medium.com/@RhysLindmark/…
-Tithing across religion: medium.com/@RhysLindmark/…
-My initial thoughts: medium.com/@RhysLindmark/…

#RadicalxChange

10d/ New learnings for me from @zooko:

- Chama: a "micro-saving group" (cool!) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chama_(in…
- Sadaqah: like zakat, but voluntary: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadaqah#D…

#RadicalxChange

10e/ I agree with @zooko that "Liberal Radicalism" is not a great name and should be called "Quadratic Funding". cc @glenweyl @VitalikButerin @zhitzig

#RadicalxChange

10f/ Another random plug from Rhys. To learn more about how P2P self-taxing overlaps w/ CLR, come to our panel tomorrow at 1pm, "Can Philanthropy be Empowering?"

Here's a slide from that talk: P2P self-taxing pushed through CLR to fund a bottom-up civil society.

#RadicalxChange

11a/ @devonzuegel moderates a panel with @ATabarrok @mwiyas @MarkLutter on "Radically Reimagining the City".

She begins with a 1st principles question: "Why do cities exist?" 🔥

#RadicalxChange

11b/ @devonzuegel's second question is "What is the MVP of a city?"

Panelists' answers generally gravitates towards having an anchor tenant and filling a higher order need.

#RadicalxChange

11c/ @mwiyas references two new styles of education/work patterns for Nkwashi, Zambia (the city he's helping build):

- @Andela-style placement program
- @LambdaSchool-style ISA between universities and students to bootstrap the school

Live local. Work global.

#RadicalxChange

11d/ tl;dr of most cities conversations, imo:

1. Avoid top-down "Seeing Like a State": goodreads.com/book/show/2018…
2. Strive for bottom-up emergence a la Jane Jacobs: goodreads.com/book/show/3083…

#RadicalxChange

12a/ @tristanharris begins his talk "A New Paradigm for Technology".

Tristan kicks off the talk by mentioning the alignment between his work (on attention economy mechanisms) and #RadicalxChange (on economic mechanisms).

12b/ @tristanharris w/ some good "quips" (he's a quip master, imo):

-Thinking of 4B networked smartphones as an "ant colony of people"
-Saturday morning cartoons used to be a "protected national park" (no oil drilling!), but now AI-based YoutubeKids removes that

#RadicalxChange

12c/ @tristanharris's big point:

Our perverse incentives and worldview are eating and transforming the world (in their image).

#RadicalxChange

12d/ @tristanharris's proposed solution:

We need to become more sophisticated about human nature. (Blue light is a great simple example.)

#RadicalxChange

13a/ @VitalikButerin starts his presentation on how Cypherpunks and #RadicalxChange folks can co-evolve with/learn from each other.

JPB!

13b/ @VitalikButerin The Great Recession was seen in different ways:

- Mainstream: An indictment of neoliberal capitalism and banks, to be saved by the govt.
- Cypherpunks: An indictment of institutional hegemony generally (banks + govt.), to be solved by code.

#RadicalxChange

13c/ @VitalikButerin cypherpunks learned from 2 big crypto events: [BTC vs. BCH] and [The DAO].

1. Money is a fundamentally social thing in a much deeper way than, e.g. P2P encrypted communications
2. Social contracts matter
3. Norms of public discourse matter

#RadicalxChange

13d/ As @VitalikButerin tells the history, I'm reminded of how crazy this crypto stuff is. I remember this Wikipedia page in April 2017 and thinking "seems important/crazy".

8 of top 10 crowdfundings are blockchain-based (as of 2019).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h…

#RadicalxChange

13e/ @VitalikButerin common threads between #RadicalxChange and crypto.

1. Decentralization (Native to internet-based network)
2. Community (Bottom-up-ness)
3. Polypolitanism (Coherent Pluralism / Metamodernism)
4. Mechanism Design (Incentives rule everything around me...IREAM)

13f/ @VitalikButerin just called Moloch the "rationalist god of coordination failure." 😂 cc @ameensol @slatestarcodex

(Shouldn't it be "demon", not "god"?)

Here's the referenced article btw: slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/med…

#RadicalxChange

14a/ @tmillerpoetry's poetry is 🔥. So happy #RadicalxChange had her speak. A breath of fresh air.

Also, super hard to livetweet because she's talking so fast :).

14b/ @Tmillerpoetry Poem #1 re Detroit:

- This is not a city trying to transition into another city. It’s just Detroit.
- You can sell a house 100 times, but the walls still tell stories.
- Home is wherever most of your loved ones are buried.

#RadicalxChange

14c/ @Tmillerpoetry Poem #2 re immigration and ICE:

"You're more than just housekeepers, you are the house and the walls. And if you're forced to leave, you burn it down. Burn it down."

#RadicalxChange

14d/ @Tmillerpoetry Poem #3 on her brother's death:

"They say you shouldn’t mourn the life of a drug dealer. The funeral was next week and there was a big line of friends and family. He probably could've been someone, don’t you don't who he say actually was."

#RadicalxChange

15/ 🙌❤️🙌 @RadxChange team :)

#RadicalxChange

16a/ @achakrava @MarkLutter @jlmorone (and I think @m_t_prewitt?) discuss the future of #RadicalxChange.

16b/ @achakrava you should talk about your ideas on the RxC Intellectual Commons with folks at the Knowledge Futures Group btw. @metasj @gustafjt etc.

Also @Truebitprotocol folks who are thinking about this.

mitpress.mit.edu/kfg

16c/ My .02 on long-term sustainability of #RadicalxChange @RadxChange:

Need more thought on the *capacity* of the nonviolent movement. Current capital comes from blockchain/academia, but no long-term plan AFAICT.

See @zeynep goodreads.com/book/show/3271… and medium.com/@RhysLindmark/…

17/ Some folks asked for my presentation from the "Can Philanthropy Be Empowering" session (on the overlap of @Effect_Altruism and @RadxChange (specifically Quadratic Funding).

1st, a related article: medium.com/@RhysLindmark/…

And the presentation itself: docs.google.com/presentation/d…