Jim O'Shaughnessy Profile picture
Jan 17, 2022 25 tweets 10 min read Read on X
1/ Our team at @InfiniteL88ps wanted to experiment with the NFT marketplace in order to get a better understanding of how it worked and see if the online auction pace was similar to what we see offline.

We commissioned the artist @cernicageanina to produce the artwork 👇🏻
2/ Our hypothesis was that an NFT that "unlocked" a benefit would be more highly valued than one that didn't, so we included the opportunity to either co-host an @InfiniteL88ps with me or choose a guest.

As far as the behaviour of the auction, we found it *did* mimic that of
3/ auctions conducted IRL. The price stayed pretty stable until the last half hour, when @vtslkshk watched as the price screamed higher, with the winning bidder @dineshraju paying WETH 9.0 or approximately $36,543.78 $USD at the time of the sale.
4/ I learned later that Dinesh had bought the NFT with the goal of "paying it forward" and selecting as a guest an extraordinary person who was flying mostly under the radar.

His choice of @FiSurgi was brilliant--fellow FinTwiter's know him as a successful Robotic Surgeon who
5/ exemplifies what I think is the best path to learning about investing--never be afraid to say "I don't know" followed closely by "But I'm going to find out."

Dr. David Rhoiney's story is beyond inspirational--he went from a homeless kid caring for his brother to graduate
6/ from the United States Naval Academy, and also competing in two sports as an NCAA athlete.

His mission is simple, but critical--he says "I want others from similar backgrounds like me, to make it as well" and we can't wait to record his @InfiniteL88ps episode and bring
7/ his full story to our listeners.

But our second goal was to donate the money raised to a charity, and since our team is international, we thought it would be a good way to introduce our mostly U.S. audience to other parts of the world and their needs. Our colleague
8/ @viziandrei, who hails from Romania, was the first up to select a charity.

After a lot of research, he selected “Ambulanta pentru Monumente” or “The Monuments’ Ambulance,” an NGO created in 2016 to receive our donation.

Most of us associate Transylvania with Dracula
9/ but it's much more than that--The region is brimming with unique cultures and traditions; ancient villages;
medieval towns; timeless castles; fortified churches; virgin forests; and imposing mountains.

Sadly, the country was under Communist rule from 1947-1989, a system
10/ which Vizi says was "based on the supremacy of a hostile ideology that rejected beauty, culture,
traditions, and religion" one result of which was that there are now over 600 historical monuments in Romania in an advanced state of decay or pre-collapse.
11/ The goal of Ambulanta pentru Monumente is to act efficiently for the preservation of the immovable
heritage of Romania.

They boast many successful interventions and achievements and are highly transparent about how they spend the funds they receive.
12/ I'm delighted with Vizi's choice of this charity.

I didn't conceive this NFT experiment as an example of "paying it forward," but that is what has emerged from every aspect of it--we wanted to transparently learn in public about NFTs and their potential, but to my mind,
13/ we learned a much greater lesson:

None of this would be possible without all of the new tools that were used to make it happen. This is one of the huge benefits I see from The Great Reshuffle--while the tools themselves are incredibly cool, it's what they ALLOW us to do
14/ and achieve in the REAL world that is the great potential engine here--this whole project would have been impossible just a few short years ago.

While the Internet has many problems, one of the great benefits it offers is to remove the barriers of space, time, geography
15/ and background that previously limited associations, friendships and employment opportunities to a much more narrow set of options, mostly formed by where you lived, worked or worshiped.

Now, those have all fallen away. Each of my colleagues at @InfiniteL88ps earned their
16/ spot on the team by "proof of work" that they were brave enough to put online.

It didn't matter where they went to school; what their family background was or who they knew or what outside institution had certified them to be--it was their talents openly demonstrated over
17/ time on a platform where all could see their accomplishments, their misses, and their growth as people actively learning more and more each day.

I marvel at the synchronicities this new world unlocks:

👉🏻Our ability to learn in real time how the NFT ecosystem functioned;
18/
👉🏻The ability to include benefits the buyer could unlock to shine the light on an extraordinary individual whose determination and perseverance afforded him the opportunity to help many other people's lives proactively;
👉🏻The ability of our team's donation to a charity few
19/ had heard of prior to @viziandrei's research at a time that we later learned they were stuck on trying to raise the amount we donated to finalize all of their projects in Brasov.
👉🏻And finally, the ability to make connections that just a short while in the past would have
20/ virtually impossible but also, importantly, almost inconceivable.

I wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet all but one of my teammates at @InfiniteL88ps which led to a much improved podcast, nor, I doubt, would I have met @dineshraju and learned of his passion for
21/ building software to help the underdog triumph.

And while Twitter did let me get to know @FiSurgi, it was this "virtuous flywheel" of events that will let him tell his amazing story to a much broader group and hopefully inspire people who are currently in circumstances
22/ similar to those he overcame that they can do it too.

From a simple curiosity about a new artform, we were able to learn so much more from so many different parts of the globe, all of which might have been hidden to us in a prior time.
23/ What's more, it's allowed people who would have met each other in the past to join forces and create and innovate at an almost unimaginable level.

Don Tapscott said "All one needs is a computer, a network connection, and a bright spark of initiative and creativity
24/ to join the economy." That creates an exponential opportunity for people from every background and walk of life to find their place and connect with others.

But the real revolution as I see it is something Howard Bloom said:
25/ "It is not the amount of knowledge that makes a brain. It is not even the distribution of knowledge. It is the interconnectedness."

We're creating a Global brain that can take us further, faster, than any other time in history. The opportunities are endless--grab them!

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More from @jposhaughnessy

Dec 7
1/ While playing around with our @osventuresllc AI Lab, I glanced to my right and saw "The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick" and wondered if you could create a game based on the world Dick builds in this massive tome.

It was a really fun exercise, and here's the first pass Image
2/ First prompt: "Please create a comprehensive review of "The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick" by Philip K. Dick and describe how one might use the insights to build a real-world game based on its views on reality"
3/ It came back with this:

The key themes include:

Reality Layers: Multiple overlapping realities existing simultaneously

Time Perception: Non-linear time and temporal displacement

Divine Communication: Information-rich pink light and cosmic consciousness

Hidden Knowledge: The concept of hidden truth beneath apparent reality

Identity Fluidity: Multiple personalities and shared consciousnessImage
Read 20 tweets
Jan 28
1/ From the ever provocative Jed McKenna via JEDVAITA website--"Dreamweaver"

"Dreams feel real while we're in them, right? It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange."
~Dom Cobb, Inception.
2/ "That incessant chatter going on in your head might not be mental pollution, as it seems. It might actually be how you constantly weave your dream state, yourself included, into existence.
3/ Obviously, or maybe not so obviously, your reality has no independent reality. It's all in your head, including your head.

That might be a nice thing about meditation - that you can close your eyes, turn off your brain, and spend some quality time away from the
Read 22 tweets
Apr 2, 2023
Arthur C. Clarke 🗣️

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

“It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.”
“I am an optimist. Anyone interested in the future has to be otherwise he would simply shoot himself.”

“A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.”

“Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence”
“Excessive interest in pathological behavior was itself pathological”

“Few artists thrive in solitude and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests.”

“He had a suspicion of plausible answers; they were so often wrong.”
Read 4 tweets
Mar 16, 2023
Henri Bergson 🗣️

“Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.”

“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”

“The universe is a machine for the making of Gods.”
“Time is invention and nothing else.”

“Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.”

“The Eyes See Only What The Mind Is Prepared To Comprehend.”
“Creation signifies, above all, emotion, and that not in literature or art alone. We all know the concentration and effort implied in scientific discovery. Genius has been defined as an infinite capacity for taking pains.”

“No two moments are identical in a conscious being”
Read 4 tweets
Mar 11, 2023
1/Implicate and explicate orders--A thread

“We are all linked by a fabric of unseen connections. This fabric is constantly changing and evolving. This field is directly structured and influenced by our behavior and by our understanding.”
~David Bohm
2/ David Bohm was a quantum physicist whose work focused on understanding the fundamental nature of reality. Bohm's concept of implicate and explicate orders is a way of understanding the relationship between the manifest world we experience and often
3/ think of as “reality” and the underlying system that gives rise to it.

The explicate order is the consensus reality that we share directly. We perceive the world of objects, space, and time with our senses. The explicate order is what we see and experience now,
Read 20 tweets
Feb 13, 2023
Robert A. Heinlein 🗣️

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

“Never try to outstubborn a cat.”
“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

“Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.”
“A prude is a person who thinks that his own rules of propriety are natural laws.”

“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.”
Read 6 tweets

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