The World's Most Experimental Newsletter - FL #11
50 Crazy Experimental Ideas That You'll Certainly Disagree With Me On
Welcome to the 3 new crew members who have joined the frontier expedition since the last letter! If you haven’t subscribed, join the 46 curious explorers in our adventure to understand the frontier of innovation.
In my previous newsletter, I discussed the framework for the Frontier Letter: We are explorers who look at emerging tech and innovative ideas, demystify the situation/problem, and attempt to ideate solutions. My vision is to make you more hopeful and less threatened by an uncertain future!
The frontier of innovation can be chaotic, considering it is a space that most have not explored, and ideas are not fully hashed through. This means that ideas will sometimes be characterized as "insane," and sometimes we will miss the target of our proposed solution. If we miss the mark, I hope to spark ideas and inspire creativity in your thoughts so you can improve upon the concept.
In a testament to that, I want to have some fun to show you the extent of exploration we're willing to embark on - so today, I put together a list of 50 experimental ideas, which I can guarantee most readers will disagree with at least 1, which is excellent! The disagreement means we can attempt to find greater truth, and that's the reason we explore the frontier :)
These ideas range from ones I just thought of now to ones I have been thinking about for a while. They are a blend of speculative thought, playful exploration, and thoughtful conviction.
After you make it through the 50, share your favorite idea, the funniest, the one you agree with the most, or the one you disagree with the most! You can comment below or tag me here.
This is only the surface of the type of ideas we will explore; nothing too intimidating for exploration. If you enjoy it, please like this, subscribe, and share it with a friend. You can check out my previous pieces for deep explorations, which are the typical newsletter format and what you can expect in the future.
I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed cultivating this list!
We're in a simulation; the Big Bang was pressing the on button, atoms are bits, the multiverse theory is accurate, and the other universes are simulations running parallel on the same hardware. Some of us are NPCs (I hope not me), and others are ported in from outside the simulation.
Bitcoin will be the most valuable store of value blockchain, and Cardano will be the most valuable digital economy blockchain.
Cardano is the layer 1 blockchain with the highest potential for success against all competitors.
Humans are social creatures before they are truth-seeking. Ask yourself: do I believe in something because I think it's true or because everyone around me believes in it. Many of us get caught up believing something because others in our social groups believe it. In relation to crypto, FTX is a good example.
Religious stories are the defined parameters of the human experience that humans have observed for thousands and thousands of years. Since the Nietzschean death of god, humans have been pridefully ignorant of the most wisdom-filled texts ever to be created, which is a big disservice to humanity.
We need madness in our institutions and governments because it reveals to us some of the most incredible people who exist and stand by their principles against the overbearing tyranny of the institution.
Darrow O'Lykos is one of the strongest fictional heroes I've ever encountered. He would take down the Avengers if you gave him a year to strategize. The caveat is that I have not read much fiction, so there may be some fantastic heroes I've never read.
Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fiction in general have a more significant impact on the behavior of humanity than non-fiction.
There will likely be a portion of the economy AI will never replace because it's a very human profession. I have yet to think through the number of jobs this applies to in our current job market.
If we get the value distribution correct, and people can maintain the same or a higher standard of living, then AI replacing most jobs is actually exciting to me. You're telling me I can spend my weeks deriving meaning from exercising, conversations with loved ones, watching movies, reading, gaming, playing sports, listening to music, listening to podcasts, playing chess, spending time with my doggo, starting a family, and writing (I don't care if I don't make money doing it; I enjoy it as part of the human experience). If people really put their minds to it, they could fill the 40 hours they work. Like I said, though, the value distribution NEEDs to be right!
VR will reach a point where we can converse with someone and feel like we're in the room with them, we can experience podcasts with the podcasters, and we can listen to music with the artist performing for us.
Artificial intelligence needs Cardano, specifically. Frontier Letter #9 explains why
I wish there was human kibble so that most of my meals could be the nutrients I need, take extremely little time to make, and make having tasty and extravagant meals much more meaningful. The kibble would have a different texture or taste than dog kibble. Still, the idea is a standardized nutrition set with minimal preparation time. Soylent is the closest thing to this.
I think I will live to be 300 years old. Remember that if you bet against me on this one and you're here with me 272 years later, you're going to be hoping I die, which isn't very nice of you. My 300-year-old self is looking for your support :)
The power of the word is far more than most people believe.
Red Rising is the best fictional book of our time. If it comes to the screen, it will have either a Harry Potter moment or a Game of Thrones moment, depending on whether it's a show or a movie.
People shaming 9-5 jobs is antiquated, and many people like the stability in them if they can find something that aligns well with their personality.
99% of the truth is still in the unknown
We will be able to 3d print food from our own houses with extraordinarily cheap organic material that is encoded to work exactly as prescribed by our genes and gut microbiome - meaning vegans can print steaks and carnivorous can print bread and get the proper nutrients they need from it, and the matching gut bacteria so it agrees with them.
The show Succession reveals how people truly desire extreme levels of wealth, but because the show demonstrated how incompetent and terrible the people were, no one felt guilty for watching the show (thinking about people who think of billionaires as evil); yet, led to a further desire to be wealthy, and I think it will be a partial factor that served as a help to end wokeness. It reminds me of the fact that Dallas was really popular in the soviet union, and even Gorbachev said he believed it was in large part what led to the end of the Cold War.
One honest person can take down an entire tyrannical country, and I literally believe that to be true.
Conversations are more impactful than we think - especially now that they can be made public.
The unconscious mind is unbelievably complex. If society matures to a place where it's common to be caught up on emotional problems, we will start to partake in unconscious exploration retreats. Jung's active imagination sessions will become a daily active practice, in the same way daily meditation grew in popularity in the West.
The rabbit r1 device is a more significant innovation than many think; I believe I can increase my productivity immensely with r1, and they're just getting started. If you're curious about how I will do it, drop a sub! I will track my first 30 days of getting the device and what I can do with it (some insight if you're interested).
The idea that good triumphs over evil is only true if people work hard for that to be the case. People worldwide are working hard for evil to triumph over good, too.
In my lifetime (refer to idea #9), I will be able to genetically engineer nearly every part of me - like a video game character creation.
The modern educational system is currently on the route of gradual fall; the sudden collapse is pending the next greatest learning tool, which may be closer than we think. It could be something like the rabbit r1 that's optimized for helping that individual achieve their whole potential self.
I haven't heard much of the conversation about the psychological benefits of AI, but they can be immense. Image an AI that is optimized to always help you constantly collaborate on what your best potential "self" is aiming for. It can be IndividuationAI at your side at all times. We will become closer to enlightened beings with them at our side. Enlightened is defined as individuals who have solved the malaise in their conscious and unconscious minds.
A psychedelic revolution is impending and necessary. I don't think it's a coincidence that the decriminalization and legalization of psychedelics are trending because I believe that humans realize that they want more than there is to offer; even in a vastly abundant world -> spiritual and religious experiences will become as sought-after as gold.
I think it's likely that listening to people talk via audiobooks is a better way to retain the information in a book, given that humans have evolved longer to harness stories in oral tradition than in written tradition.
Brain-computer interfaces, where we put chips in our brains to enhance our cognition, are terrifying propositions, to a great degree because they make possible a human-transcendental era where we become one hive mind (theoretically at least), which is not the direction society should go.
"Move fast and break things" is best applied to forming intimate and romantic relationships, not software.
This is not my idea; it's Balaji Srinivasan's, Network States: Balaji has a fascinating idea, which, in one sentence, is: "A network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states."
A question that always stirs in my head is: What are things we do today that humans will think of as evil and morally reprehensible 100 years in the future? I guess making psychedelics illegal sits in that category; part of me feels that within the next 100 years, we may find out that some of the animals we eat have a level of conscious awareness we can't perceive that is causing them great pain.
I believe that religious phenomena, dreaming, imagination, fantasy, and psychedelic experiences are all tapping into similar things - I don't know what that thing is, but it seems to me that put it in analogy - physics is to the objective world as whatever these experiences are to the subjective world.
We will eventually get to a point where we actually use psychedelics, religious experiences, and dreaming to obtain knowledge from whatever that thing is; we may start to use it as a technology, which may be precisely what it is.
Successful creative endeavors are ideas pursued by a chosen host that correctly implements the idea. To properly receive those ideas, you must treat yourself so that the space of ideas ports those ideas to you. This looks like proper physical health, mental health, and spiritual health.
It's interesting that when we talk in terms of progress, it's in economic units or new technology. Seldom do we talk about US - how the human psyche has transformed.
Cryptocurrency will be the most used money.
Blockchain will be the future of our internet.
Governments will implement blockchains for greater transparency, property rights, and increased voter turnout, at the least.
AI alignment shouldn't be as focused on trying to guardrail AI machines as it should be about funding human connection and the ability to pursue psychological and physical health in an attempt to make the whole of humanity a more mature culture that can try to find truth in how we all align together. If we don't know what we want and how we socially cooperate to get that, how are we supposed to tell AI to do it?
We do not possess the skills as humans to wield the technologies we are creating. The answer lies within our unconscious minds, a supercomputer we know mostly nothing about
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I discussed in FL#9 how a massive job displacement, to borrow from Hemmingway, will happen gradually, then suddenly. Assuming AGI is coming by the end of 2024 - the gradual part has started.
We will soon participate in active lucid dreaming with technology that triggers these states.
Advancements in neurotechnology will enable people to connect their minds while dreaming, creating shared dream worlds for exploration, entertainment, or therapeutic purposes, blurring the lines between reality and the subconscious.
Augmented reality will evolve to the point where each individual can live in their own customized reality bubble, overlaying the physical world with personalized digital enhancements, altering their perception of people, places, and events in real time.
A new technology will enable the transfer or sharing of emotions and feelings between people, enhancing empathy and understanding and potentially leading to a more harmonious society.
We will intentionally integrate biotechnology into our bodies, leading to a symbiotic relationship between biological and digital forms, enhancing physical and cognitive abilities, and creating a new subspecies of humans.
We will have to compete with clones and the dead sooner than we think - a piece coming soon on this idea.
I hope you all enjoyed it!
Have a wonderful week, and I’ll see you in the next one :)
Take care!
Dom