Artists and authors are issuing non fungible tokens (NFTs) for their work. The market price of these has exploded and bids are currently at $2 million for Jack Dorsey’s first tweet. A lot of people seem to think that it is completely insane to spend money for something that is freely copyable. Why would anyone pay if you can simply go to Twitter and see the tweet there? Screenshot if you want to? The underlying misconception here is to think that in the digital world copies are indistinguisha...

Artists and authors are issuing non fungible tokens (NFTs) for their work. The market price of these has exploded and bids are currently at $2 million for Jack Dorsey’s first tweet. A lot of people seem to think that it is completely insane to spend money for something that is freely copyable. Why would anyone pay if you can simply go to Twitter and see the tweet there? Screenshot if you want to? The underlying misconception here is to think that in the digital world copies are indistinguisha...

I have been asked how I can reconcile my support for crypto/blockchain with my concerns about the climate crisis. So here is a blog post laying this out. Crypto/blockchain is a fundamental innovation that addresses an important problems facing us in the world today: too much power concentrated in the hands of a few corporations and governments. To be clear, this technology is not a panacea and decentralization contains both good and bad use cases. But it is important and foundational, somethi...

I have been asked how I can reconcile my support for crypto/blockchain with my concerns about the climate crisis. So here is a blog post laying this out. Crypto/blockchain is a fundamental innovation that addresses an important problems facing us in the world today: too much power concentrated in the hands of a few corporations and governments. To be clear, this technology is not a panacea and decentralization contains both good and bad use cases. But it is important and foundational, somethi...

Over the weekend I tweeted out a summary of my book The World After Capital in 64 theses. Here they are in one place:The Industrial Age is 20+ years past its expiration date, following a long decline that started in the 1970s. Mainstream politicians have propped up the Industrial Age through incremental reforms that are simply pushing out the inevitable collapse. The lack of a positive vision for what comes after the Industrial Age has created a narrative vacuum exploited by nihilist forces s...

Over the weekend I tweeted out a summary of my book The World After Capital in 64 theses. Here they are in one place:The Industrial Age is 20+ years past its expiration date, following a long decline that started in the 1970s. Mainstream politicians have propped up the Industrial Age through incremental reforms that are simply pushing out the inevitable collapse. The lack of a positive vision for what comes after the Industrial Age has created a narrative vacuum exploited by nihilist forces s...

New York State finally passed a bill that legalizes marijuana and justly releases people serving time for the kind of drug crimes that now are no more. The enforcement of the drug bans were always super racially skewed, primarily targeting people of color. Carl Hart’s “Drug Use for Grownups” really drives home just how misguided the war on drugs has been. There is another less discussed area where criminalization has led to similar issues and that is sex work. In sex work too law enforcement ...

New York State finally passed a bill that legalizes marijuana and justly releases people serving time for the kind of drug crimes that now are no more. The enforcement of the drug bans were always super racially skewed, primarily targeting people of color. Carl Hart’s “Drug Use for Grownups” really drives home just how misguided the war on drugs has been. There is another less discussed area where criminalization has led to similar issues and that is sex work. In sex work too law enforcement ...

A recent event that caught many by surprise was a short squeeze in Gamestop. Several hedge funds, including Melvin Capital, had big short positions that came under intense pressure when a group of buyers emerged via a subreddit called Wallstreetbets. The stock shot up to crazy valuations and eventually plummeted back down. Along the way the hedge funds nearly went under and the popular trading app Robinhood suspended trading in Gamestop, which in turn fueled a narrative that Wall Street was b...

A recent event that caught many by surprise was a short squeeze in Gamestop. Several hedge funds, including Melvin Capital, had big short positions that came under intense pressure when a group of buyers emerged via a subreddit called Wallstreetbets. The stock shot up to crazy valuations and eventually plummeted back down. Along the way the hedge funds nearly went under and the popular trading app Robinhood suspended trading in Gamestop, which in turn fueled a narrative that Wall Street was b...

In 2019 I wrote two posts about reversing the carbon cycle. As a quick recap, we are currently adding about 4-5 gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere annually. That has put us in a position where we are heating the earth’s system by the equivalent of 4 nuclear bomb detonations every second. So that’s bad. Very bad. But there is one piece of truly good news: atmospheric carbon is the ultimate global commodity. What is a commodity? A commodity is a good that has fungibility. Take gold for exampl...

In 2019 I wrote two posts about reversing the carbon cycle. As a quick recap, we are currently adding about 4-5 gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere annually. That has put us in a position where we are heating the earth’s system by the equivalent of 4 nuclear bomb detonations every second. So that’s bad. Very bad. But there is one piece of truly good news: atmospheric carbon is the ultimate global commodity. What is a commodity? A commodity is a good that has fungibility. Take gold for exampl...

Yesterday I took a day off after my second vaccine shot and promptly made the mistake of getting myself into a Twitter fight about the effectiveness of mask mandates (sadly the other party deleted their tweets leaving only my side – despite making good points that had me thinking). I compounded this mistake by citing a paper that I felt (and still feel) provides data in support of such mandates but had attracted the ire of a bunch of epidemiologists who had called for its retraction. The good...

Yesterday I took a day off after my second vaccine shot and promptly made the mistake of getting myself into a Twitter fight about the effectiveness of mask mandates (sadly the other party deleted their tweets leaving only my side – despite making good points that had me thinking). I compounded this mistake by citing a paper that I felt (and still feel) provides data in support of such mandates but had attracted the ire of a bunch of epidemiologists who had called for its retraction. The good...

One of the objections to a green energy policy are the potential jobs lost in the oil, gas, and coal industries. It doesn’t suffice to point out that there will be new jobs created installing solar roofs or building electric cars, because those tend to be different people in different geographies. One suggestion is to simply pay subsidies to affected regions. But it may be possible to do a lot better than that by thinking about creative uses of oil, gas and coal assets in fighting the climate...

One of the objections to a green energy policy are the potential jobs lost in the oil, gas, and coal industries. It doesn’t suffice to point out that there will be new jobs created installing solar roofs or building electric cars, because those tend to be different people in different geographies. One suggestion is to simply pay subsidies to affected regions. But it may be possible to do a lot better than that by thinking about creative uses of oil, gas and coal assets in fighting the climate...

Having enjoyed Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind” on psychedelics (in particular psilocybin), I was intrigued by a book that goes much broader on drug use: Dr. Carl Hart’s “Drug Use for Grown Ups.” Hart is a professor of psychology at Columbia and is basing this book on both his research and his extensive personal experience. While I have one criticism (more on that later), the book makes a very strong case that drugs should be decriminalized broadly: not just marijuana, but everythin...

Having enjoyed Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind” on psychedelics (in particular psilocybin), I was intrigued by a book that goes much broader on drug use: Dr. Carl Hart’s “Drug Use for Grown Ups.” Hart is a professor of psychology at Columbia and is basing this book on both his research and his extensive personal experience. While I have one criticism (more on that later), the book makes a very strong case that drugs should be decriminalized broadly: not just marijuana, but everythin...

The more you know about the climate crisis, the harder it is to not be depressed at least some of the time. The challenges ahead are vast and the will to action still small by comparison. So we already know things will get a lot worse because the physics of the climate crisis are cumulative until we manage to reverse the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In addition to working hard on this reversal, what else can one do to feel better? One answer is to help prepare one’s com...

The more you know about the climate crisis, the harder it is to not be depressed at least some of the time. The challenges ahead are vast and the will to action still small by comparison. So we already know things will get a lot worse because the physics of the climate crisis are cumulative until we manage to reverse the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In addition to working hard on this reversal, what else can one do to feel better? One answer is to help prepare one’s com...