Profile picture
, 3 tweets, 1 min read
My Authors
Read all threads
The internet increases variance. But why?

- The internet disintermediates
- Disintermediation removes middlemen
- No middlemen, no moderation
- No moderation, no limits
Centralizing institutions masked the variance. Now it's all spilling out. When anyone can interact with anyone else, we get both extreme good and extreme bad.
Some of the most valuable companies in the world are essentially opt-in filters on the internet that give you the upside while bounding the downside (malware, trolls, spam).

Google ranks pages, Apple curates the app store, Airbnb rates their hosts.
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh.

Enjoying this thread?

Keep Current with Balaji S. Srinivasan

Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @balajis see all

Profile picture
Balaji S. Srinivasan
@balajis
This is shot like a bureaucratic version of the Celebrity Apprentice. Multiple camera angles, dramatic music, tune in next episode.
The election as reality television, as idiocratic infotainment. Perhaps it was always so.
There’s something about the transition from clickbait to reality TV that lays the whole thing bare.

From the subtle Russell Conjugations of print to the very unsubtle video editing of Real Presidential Candidates of the United States of America.
Read 3 tweets
Profile picture
Balaji S. Srinivasan
@balajis
Maybe centralization is actually also underexplored in the design space.

For example, today’s social networks are essentially governed by a single CEO.

But that CEO is a background figure. They aren’t leading the users to do anything. What if they did?
One example: could @elonmusk’s 30M followers somehow get us to Mars faster?

Tools for directed, collaborative work by really large groups on the internet are still in their infancy.
Some technologies for internet collaboration:

- operational transformation
- microtasks / MTurk / Scale AI
- conflict-free replicated data types
- blockchains and crypto
- the polymath project
- social networks & group messaging
- Wikipedia

See also:
Read 4 tweets
Profile picture
Balaji S. Srinivasan
@balajis
Labor liquidity is far below what it should be. In theory, a next-generation version of LinkedIn should continuously be finding you opportunities, tasks, and jobs. And not just full-time work.
This is a hard problem because it seems to subsume everything from job boards to MTurk to consulting gigs to Uber and Lyft. But I can think of a few z-axis approaches.
I think about the Japanese concept of Ikigai a lot. The ideal engine would find something you love, that you're good at, that the world needs, and that can make you money.

And it would surface this automatically, with new opportunities arising as you provably gained new skills.
Read 4 tweets

Related threads

Profile picture
John Manoochehri
@jmanooch
A thread on how to drive mass sustainability change.

@mokka is asking not for policies per se, but change-mechanisms, that can activate massive change within a decade.

I see four #consensus targets to trigger mass change

1 Limits
2 Infrastructure
3 Aspirations
4 Society
But first a quick comment on this question itself.

The first challenge is framing - where to start, what + how to target: some of the starting points and goals are not obvious.

Pushing a rock uphill is harder than pushing one downhill, obviously.

So: Which rock and which hill?
0 Framing

A lot of change is based on unstated frames of view, mainly:

Democratic (elected governance)
Para-democratic (popular mvts)
Technocratic, and above all
Economic (framing the world as producers and consumers).

These are bad frames. Not these rocks, not these hills.
Read 48 tweets
Profile picture
John Walke
@JohnDWalke
1. I testified in the Senate this AM opposing a Republican bill to drastically weaken the Clean Air Act, to let nearly 14,000 industrial facilities across America significantly increase dangerous air pollution like smog, soot & carbon pollution. epw.senate.gov/public/index.c…

A thread.
2. The GOP bill targets clean air safeguards that constrain runaway air pollution increases from many 1,000s of U.S. industrial polluters; then they make changes that increase air pollution significantly, they must install modern pollution controls--or limit the increases.
3. The GOP bill wants to gut these clean air safeguards, by allowing massive air pollution increases from every community in America, & eliminating the requirement for modern air pollution controls.

How bad is the bill? Excerpts from my oral statement follow:
Read 21 tweets
Profile picture
Adriana | KalpaTech
@adriana_kalpa
1/9 Today in @cosmos we talk about the projects competing at @hack4atom and who are the ones building them. So let’s meet the teams:

1) Prediction -Masanori Uno
Prediction Market by using @ethereum & @cosmos

2)@kava_labs
Pegging assets into @cosmos to help kick start defi
2/9 Today in @cosmos :

3)@B__Harvest
Staked atom marketplace using subkey feature

4) @agoric
Smart contract platform based on secure Javascript and Object Capabilities

5)@21xhipster @cyber_devs
Pin, publish and index your web content with ipfs and cyberd
3/9 Today in @cosmos:

6)@ixoworld and @simply_vc
Cosmic Bonding, a universal token bonding module for Cosmos
networks

7) KIRO team @requilence Roman Khafizianov and Kirill Guzenko
Tool to create checkpoints proof chains as to use with light clients in other blockchains
Read 9 tweets
Profile picture
Ross Wilson
@rossalexwilson
So I’ve spent this evening touring BT Dial House in Manchester. It’s a huge telephone exchange, and brings telephony and Internet access to Manchester. Wanna see some photos and nerd out with me? A thread ... #internet #telephony #infrastructure
This is just one of the marine diesel generators that live in the lowest basement. The site has its own dual redundant HV feed, and operate their own HV/LV transformer kit. They take ~600 litres of oil, and are regularly tested.
To power those, they need a load of fuel. There’s a tank like this for each generator, and they hold enough red diesel for 8 hours. An additional huge set of tanks sit behind which receive fuel deliveries from a tanker connection outside the building.
Read 10 tweets
Profile picture
Juan Ortiz Freuler
@juanof9
Thread (1/7): @TheEconomist published a Special Report Titled "Fixing the #Internet", which relied on #Centralisation as its core lens

Huge victory for a technical community that has spent decade explaining how the architecture & ethos of the internet are under attack.

6 arts!
2. "But like Sir Tim, many people have recently become more critical of it (...) At the heart of their disenchantment, this special report will argue, is that the internet has become much more “centralised” than it was even ten years ago."
economist.com/special-report…
3. #Decentralisation is ultimately a question of #democracy. As digital technology penetrates society ever more deeply & the two become ever more intertwined, the rules of the former will increasingly govern the latter" economist.com/special-report…
Read 7 tweets

Trending hashtags

#Democrat #HaddadPresidenteSim #swindle #brasileirAs #Böse #EMP #Amazônia #religious #Mundo #GilroyGarlicFestival #carlosbolsonaro #paas #SUS #AI5 #hold #MaisMedicos #herzog #FAMILYCONNECTION #DDHH #Technology #tweet #gain #Congress #estudantes #200diascomBolsonaro
Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!