Clouds, brains & governments

Hi nerds -

I salute you from an island near Singapore 🇸🇬, where I’ve spent the last week nerding out with brilliant minds like:

• Balaji Srinassavan (ex Coinbase CTO & a16z),

• Bryan Johnson (longevity expert), and

• Vitalik Buterin (the engineer behind Ethereum).

Out of 3,000+ applicants, I was selected to be a part of the initial 150 person cohort. Network School is like a South East Asian, 3-month long version of Adult Camp.

Here’s my best learnings so far.

brain farts

☁️ Cloud > Land: World order is shifting from the land to the cloud.

• Heads of Networks (like Elon, Zuck, or Pichai) have more influence today than many Heads of State.

• States hold less control over kids than the digital world does. They'd pick internet over state given the choice.

• Laws predating the internet will continue to be re-examined or go unenforced, as will happen with crypto and the financial markets.

As loyalty to the state dwindles, government turns to coercion for compliance, costing them persuasive power. It’s a negative loop to the collapse of the world as we know it.

What's politically feasible depends on what's technologically possible.

🧠 Brain-Computer Interface (BCI): BCIs are devices that read brain activity and can respond to a stimulus via electric currents or photonics (light reflection).

Implanted, wearable or near-able, they can read thoughts and turn them to text, assist with mobility, and provide pain relief.

Today, they already come in different sizes, battery powers, functionalities, and bio-compatibilities.

By the second, they’re getting smaller, more powerful, cheaper to produce.

— Check out: Neurolink, Synchron, Kernel, and others.

🤖 Artificial Super-Intelligence (ASI): We’re living in the last years without ASI.

Not regulating could lead to human extinction. Too much regulation would hinder innovation and give too much power to whoever is in control. No one knows what to do.

The existential cost of delaying it increases by the second. Some mental models:

• Don’t Die: Bryan Johnson suggests favoring life over death (or 1s and 0s) is the only biologically, morally, and computational thing humanity and machines can agree on.

• d/acc: Vitalik argues favoring defensive technology at 4 main levels -

  • Micro: bio-defense (vaccines, health, self-sufficient living)

  • Macro: geopolitical (resilient infrastructure over military)

  • Cyber: world of bits (encryption, blockchain, zero-knowledge proofs)

  • Informational: misinformation (proof of identity, anti-scam tools)

• e/acc: Anderseen Horowitz embraces acceleration - viewing stagnation, not innovation, as the primary threat to human flourishing.

2 smart goodies

1 funky jam

No lyrics indie playlist perfect for reading, writing, or anything where focus-related.

Thank you for reading - always down to connecting over juicy ideas.

If any of these resonate, reply to this email and would love to chat!

See you on cyberspace,

Jules 🤸🏻