What if I told you that *privacy* is actually *PUBLIC* good?

You can't have privacy unless all involved parties uphold mutual expectations about intimate vs. communal knowledge.

Here are 10 reasons to see privacy as a commons & why upholding it generates a public good. 1/46 Privacy is usually credited with producing tangible benefits, such as ideals of free expression and self-actualization, autonomous agency, and development of unique selfhood in a free society... 2/46

1/ It's worth reading this entire interview with @pmarca, but I'll post the excerpt that I found instructive:

There is something about crypto and Web3 that triggers responses that go way beyond, “I wish we didn’t have to do this.”

mckinsey.com/industries/tec… 2/ I would describe it more as fear and loathing. Something about it triggers an extremely negative response.

Warren Buffett just had his annual meeting in Omaha, and he went on a very extensive condemnation of this entire category of technology.

1/ Data sovereignty?

My brother in Crypto Twitter, I do not think that term means what you think it means. 2/ It's the bear market, but we are still drunk on hype & misconceptions: that if we open up the social graph & break away from web2's platform lock-in, we will have single-handedly defeated surveillance capitalism and taken back our data.

That's not how data sovereignty works.

1/ What I hope to engender among the builders I work with is an appreciation of the socialized externalities & second-order effects of systems design.

And to learn the discipline of naming and making informed tradeoffs. 2/ It is not a practice that is taught in the education of an engineer.

But reality doesn't care about your ignorance, and the absence this practice is a failure mode in technology design.

I've enjoyed @packyM's series on crypto usecases, a much-needed rubber-meets-the-road exercise in these quiet, contemplative, post-shill times.

In light of that, I'd like to offer the community a resource on developing realistic usecases (not solutions in search of problems).

https://twitter.com/packyM/status/1541407335242940416

This comes partially courtesy of @ChristopherA, whose contributions to cryptography, standards, identity, protocols, and [waves hand at everything] hardly need stating.

1/ There's been a misunderstanding around SBTs. The uproar misses the point.

You're squandering a rare chance to educate people about responsible technology, agentic digital interactions, and privacy-enhancing primitives because you’re busy infighting.

This is not a good look. 2/ You have everyone’s attention.

So, instead of approaching divergent perspectives with humility & curiosity, or seeking common ground from which to build, you’re butthurt that The Current Thing is not the exact thing you always imagined?

Please miss me with this partisanship.

Listening to this @LensProtocol pod & can’t help thinking that we have misdefined or misunderstood “ownership”.

It’s not just replacing platform silos w/ composable graphs.

When you own something, you also DECIDE who can see it, use it, take it.

(1/4)

open.spotify.com/episode/5xBsYs… Ownership isn’t about whether something is stored on a platform or protocol.

Or whether you get paid for your data.

It’s about how much granular & expressive agency you have over what’s yours.

If you don’t have access controls over your data, you don’t own shit.

(2/4)

1/ A while back, a friend asked what it was like to move from Russia to America.

I ended up on a long tangent about communism and cosmology, and how I think political dissidents are akin to theoretical physicists.

My friend had told me to write it down, so I did. 2/ just found it today while searching for something on my FB profile.

The rant takes on renewed significance as I worry about the new iron curtain, and the poisoning of the Russian information ecosystem.

Welcome to my brain.

1/ Here's an A-Z list of every startup or company I could find building the crypto privacy & identity ecosystem.

Why privacy AND identity? Cuz we can't make real progress on privacy unless we also rearchitect toward user-centric identity -- fight me! 2/ Looking for a job fixing tech? Here's your cheat sheet.

Founder? I can't fill in letters Q & Y, so go start something.

Investor? Help letters Q & Y get some runway. 😉

My goal was to be comprehensive, so please add whatever's missing & correct any errors.

1/ Late to the party, but finally read Biden's EO. Wrote about it: ana.mirror.xyz/Is5u-zode1yltj…

TL;DR: It's long on protecting privacy, which is nice, but also long on AML/KYC go ⬆, which defeats the former.

What govt should do instead is...and hear me out...fund ZK research. 🧵 2/ First, if you're feeling gaslit by the U.S. govt's manic, on-again-off-again relationship with consumer privacy, forgive yourself. It's not your fault.

1/ Can we talk about how everyone thinks crypto will just magically solve everything wrong with web2, while ignoring the BIGGEST THING wrong with web2, which is privacy? 2/ Remember Cambridge Analytica, the scandal that finally thrust privacy encroachments into the sphere of public outcry and launched a thousand hearings?

While watching Soloviev's evening talk show on Russian state news last night, I wondered why there was so much focus on "what to do about Poland".

Is Poland next?

I also marveled yet again at the unvarnished, open threats of nuclear strikes on Europe.

1/ One of the guests said, "Europe must understand that you will be hit by nukes if you expand NATO at all."

The frequency with which state channels threaten nuclear violence is intended to normalize this as a reasonable course of action in front of the Russian people.

2/

1/ So, a Russia-occupied Ukraine captured your attention but left you perplexed as to what it means & whether it matters?

Maybe you've even heard it described as an irrelevant border skirmish?

It is not.

Sorry not sorry for this necessary 50-tweet 🧵.

Buckle up. 2/ If you want to understand why this matters to you in the West, you have to look away from Russia-occupied Ukraine to ***Putin-occupied Russia***.

What does Putin actually want? Take it from a Russian:

Putin wants to reconstruct the Soviet Union.