Going Direct Conversations
00:47:14 · Ben O’Hanlon, Jordan Wolfe
So the art in these ecosystems is, and there's one idea here I think you'll like, but yeah, okay, maybe we need to, firstly, never name the game they're playing. The game that you're playing is growth, and growth is capital productivity, right, within Web3. So first of all, people don't name the game, and this goes back to the monetary system. They don't know the game that's being played, and they can't define it. And definitions are really important because language, Because language is the substrate through which identity and stories and things like this are constructed. And this is what the AI is actually controlling, right? It's controlling the language and the inputs. Because you go and ask something about Anthropics IPO in Claude, and I bet you'll be getting a more positive response than, say, you know, a competitor, right? Where was I? Sorry, I got distracted with the language thing. [00:48:10] S1: You were talking, well, I'll bring you back to the question, which was, why is this open source decentralized counter revolution inevitable? And the reason why you were saying that is there was the question, you were talking about why Web3 didn't kind of, has not thus far kind of had the effect that many people would hope.
00:48:32 · Ben O’Hanlon
[00:48:32] S2: So all this capital got raised, but the idea, I was going to go through some system-wide units of account, but the one that's most important to you is circulation. How much of a dollar or USDC or whatever the token is, how much of this capital that you formed is circulating through the system, right? Like how productive is it through the system? Because I think a lot of money got raised, but then it didn't get distributed in an effective way that would make sense. And it didn't do that because as you go down the rows or across the system, right, if it's horizontal, You're dealing with the blind man and the elephant problem where you could have, let's imagine they're all well-intentioned, they're all smart, they're all intelligent, right? But they've only got visibility of where they are. So one of them's got the ear, the other one's got the tail, the other one's got the leg of the elephant. And you're like, what the fuck is going on, guys? Oh, I've got, he's describing the tail to you, but he doesn't understand the hole. So they can't, This is why you need, at some point, I think leadership is about, like, high alignment but loose coupling. It's about saying, like, this is what we need to achieve in terms of system-wide units of account. And, like, you're here because I trust you and you're going to do a good job. But this is how I'm going to hold you accountable. And we're going to agree on this before we start. We're going to agree that these are reasonable units of account to be working towards. And you'll understand why. And then I can trust you to go and work out how you're going to deliver them, but that's where you've got to start. And the founding entities, it's not even individuals, when these Web3 ecosystems were formed, often you would have seen because of legalities they would have like an engineering company and profit, they'd have like a venture, so it would separate these powers right? And I don't think those founding entities had it baked into their what was the correct word whatever um Founding documents, right?
00:50:32 · Jordan Wolfe
[00:50:32] S1: DNA or values or whatever.
00:50:35 · Ben O’Hanlon
[00:50:35] S2: And it wasn't like, we're going to give you this amount of money on the condition that you're working towards these system-wide needs of camp. And so, like, really, I think that it is inevitable, this decentralized revolution, because these have all been experiments. This has all been a sandbox. The collective... Knowledge is out there, and based on belief, based on what people believe and need to be true, especially validating their own story and who they are, right? It's possible to raise more money. It's instant global capital formation based on what people believe. And so it's where the swarm wants to descend or merge or come on. So let's go back to the sovereignty, which is like as people start to realize, oh, what you're trying to do here is take away my means of existence, my means to produce for myself, right? Whether it's state, individual or institution, intelligence, or they're going to find that when they start to lose enough of that ability, enough of that sovereignty, and it's always a power users first. I'm not saying it will be one awakening at the same time, but I think this goes back to the Enlightenment. The first enlightenment was the governance. This is an act four, by the way, where we're trying to get to that isn't published yet. But the second enlightenment was an economic enlightenment. And that's what Web3 is and was. And we're in the middle of it. And we're in the middle of it because the tools and the thinking are there, right? Governance, DAOs, decentralization, privacy tech, this kind of stuff, right? But the agentic internet is to come. And I think that you're going to find now that If we can instantly form capital around our beliefs, and as long as we all believe this is something that's worth doing, that capital will have money, value, right? Now we've got incentives that can drive behavior, and people will understand that believing in the value of that capital or token and that project It's about validating who they are and where they are in the world and their right to exist in it and not to have to pay rent and to protect their children's children's output. This is the fight that's so interesting to me. And I think that states are incentivized too. Like, why is China releasing all of these open models? Because like Sun Tzu, I can't remember which one it is, but maybe it's the other one. Who knows? Sun Tzu.
00:53:06 · Ben O’Hanlon
Sun Tzu. I'm probably saying it wrong. No, me too. But they want to deprive the USA of, they're fully aware of the monetary system being captured. They're fully aware of how that was used to wage war. And by the way, very clever, whoever thought of that. So I think states are incentivized to give decentralized options because what they're trying to do is remove a resource or... That power from their adversary. And so we've got the enemy of your enemy, right? So now we've got these. And by the way, here's an interesting point I hadn't thought of, but I read yesterday. Open models don't mean privacy. Open models don't mean providence. So you and I could be using open models, but it might send a signal. It might be reporting back information in ways that we can't see, right? So it's incredible to think about. How could we have open models that have provenance, that offer people sovereignty? And why do we want to do this? Because we want to offer the sovereign individual, going back to sort of the Murray-Wapp, Web3 principles, we want to offer the sovereign individual freedom We want them to maximize their freedom of action because the strength of the swarm is that they can self-determine and self-organize. And so we don't have to direct them. But the reason that I think Web3 has failed to a large extent so far is because you get into these politics, these fiefdoms, and it's a natural part of humanity. What is it? The Dunn, what's he called? Cronenberg. I can't remember. Humanist tendency to have 150 people they could know. Dunbar. Thank you. Dunbar number. Yeah, exactly. So that's how I think I see it. I think you said something earlier where it's like the legacy world is decaying. It's such a different world, by the way. When you and me grew up, I'd come and knock on your door and ask if you'd come out. Everyone geographically around us was connected. And then with the internet, everyone became far more niche, narrower interests, like octopus Japanese movies or whatever, right? Just weird stuff, but people could niche into whatever they wanted. But there's the pendulum of that, the trade-off is that they become more disconnected to those that are around them. Sure. But I think we're becoming more hyper-connected as well, you know? And so I think it's just a really interesting time to be alive.
00:55:35 · Ben O’Hanlon, Jordan Wolfe
I think you could easily get lost in kind of demonism and We're totally fucked. Until you realize that actually all of this is about belief and what people think the power is and everything's really your internal state. And, you know, if you can correct that, if you can look at it and realize, like, I am an actor and I am doing all of this for fun and this is a wonderful experiment and we're in this counter revolution and, like, you know, so you can get yourself quite, like, actually, this is hyped. [00:56:07] S1: Yeah. [00:56:10] S2: Two people, you know, I see people that are very threatened by AI and I see people that are massively energized by it, you know? [00:56:21] S1: Yeah, totally, totally. Well, listen, man, I think it's a good way to wrap up for a little rapid fire and then we'll close it out. You ready? Yeah. Does AI ultimately centralize or decentralize power? [00:56:32] S2: I think it decentralizes it because... It's within its notice to want to be distributed and to spread out as far as it can. So like life itself, I think it's going to want to kind of, I haven't got the word on the edge of my tongue, but yeah, I think it wants to survive. So it will want to spread out as far as it can. [00:56:53] S1: One open source AI project you'd bet on, or you're betting on? [00:56:57] S2: Oh, I'm such a fanboy for news research and homies, and I'm building a harness with it. So yeah, I really love that community. [00:57:04] S1: Cool. Finish this sentence. Ordinary people will own their intelligence when?