Toby Shorin (Website, Blog, X) is a researcher, writer, consultant, and cultural anthropologist for the internet era. His interests and work include culture, identity, organizational design, psychology, cryptocurrency and blockchains, brands, health and care, spirituality, and social forms and institutions. Today, Toby works on Care Culture, a community and research platform focused on mental health and spirituality. Toby also co-founded Other Internet, a research institute known for its deep cultural analysis and work with crypto organizations. Conversations with Toby and his work—especially ‘Headless Brands’ and ‘Squad Wealth’—were deeply influential to my interest in crypto and related subcultures and ideologies. Over time, I have been even more energized by his broader thinking and ability to interpret cultural change especially with regard to evolving sources of meaning, identity, and connection. This conversation is primarily about themes I’ve noticed across his work and how those have evolved toward what he is working on now. In many ways, this is the pattern of modern culture “secularizing” more sacred forms—including but not limited to practice, faith, ideology, morality, and religion—and how that happens at individual and collective levels. Episode Transcript Timestamps: (02:26): Post-Authenticity & Romantic-Era Individualism (10:08): Squad Wealth: a seed of collectivism--the collective as the atomic unit (14:40): Other Internet (18:45): Life after lifestyle, headless brands, and new forms of collective beliefs, cults, and religions (30:55):  Toby's pivot away digital to physical social forms; from technology and brands to health (38:51): The body, the will, and new kinds of individualism and collectivism (52:47): Prototyping Social Forms of Care (58:08): The theme of Toby's work: practice-- and new spiritual and religious forms (1:00:50): Secular and Sacred (1:04:35): The social body and the social spirit (1:05:56): Toby's central question (1:10:13):  Observing and Critiquing vs. Prescribing (1:13:03): Innovating on social forms like we innovate with business and technology (1:21:52): Reflecting on time spent in Crypto (1:29:23): Protocols (1:31:50): Social forms in lieu of institutions (1:34:43): Learning about yourself through writing (1:37:44): Spirituality Links: Dialectic with Jackson Dahl is available on all podcast platforms.Join the ⁠telegram channel for Dialectic⁠Follow ⁠Dialectic on Twitter⁠Follow Dialectic on InstagramSubscribe to Dialectic on YouTube

Chris Paik is a General Partner and Co-founder of Pace Capital, a Venture Capital firm in New York City. He invests in technology and internet businesses at Pace, and previously did the same at Thrive Capital, which he joined in the earliest days. At Thrive, Chris invested in Twitch, Unity, Patreon, among others. Chris is a profoundly deep thinker who relies on behavioral economics to build robust frameworks for understanding technology, businesses, the internet, and human nature. As we discuss, intentionality runs through Chris's life and actions. While Chris has strong views about incentives and markets that may seem in conflict with some kinds of idealism, he is also strongly optimistic and earnest in his love for the world and its people, and for what we might create for each other. We discuss Chris's frameworks and approach to explanations, markets and incentives, top-down and bottom-up thinking and companies, approaches to new markets and raising capital, his obsession with discovering the new, how his ideas become published thinking, the positive and negative impacts of the internet, Pace and its values, and the inner-workings of Chris's truly unique and fascinating approach to the world. Timestamps: (01:08): What does it mean to be intentional? (05:21): Good Explanations (07:28): Sharing explanations and thinking publicly (14:45): Pendulum Theory (22:14): The efficient market hypothesis (27:34): Top-down vs. bottom-up thinking and companies (48:09): First-to-market vs. best-to-market (55:44): Cost of capital and when venture capital makes sense (1:03:28): How Chris finds new things and how he curates what he consumes (1:07:59): Chris's ideation funnel: thinking > sparring > publishing (1:10:42): Is the internet actually good for us? What about capitalism? What rules above capitalism? (1:18:56): The internet as a lever on agency and ability to take risk (1:23:47): Pace Capital: Values, Brand and Reputation, Truth-Seeking, and People (1:32:20): A pre-mortem on Pace's failure (1:34:06): The first piece for a theoretical Pace Capital art gallery Questions for Chris about himself (1:36:07): Is Chris's unique set of worldviews and thinking more due to nature or nurture? (1:37:21): What has Chris compounded most continuously (1:38:23): What Chris's best or favorite “investment” in the universe? (1:40:01): How do Chris use laziness as a lever? How might other people? (1:41:50): Meta-analysis and cognitive biases (1:45:11): How Chris hacks his brain: what's at the top of the usuer manual of being Chris? (1:47:51): Where is Chris most confident in the conensus view (1:49:01): How does Chris apply pre-consensus thinking to his personal life? (1:51:36): Alignment: with Keely in life and Jordan at Pace (1:55:43): Every second counts Links: Frameworks v0.2 PACE DESKTOP The Shadow of Disutility: Technology’s Hidden Cost Zen for Film, 1965 by Nam June Paik Transcript for this episode. Join the ⁠⁠telegram channel for Dialectic⁠⁠. Follow ⁠⁠Dialectic on Twitter⁠⁠. Follow ⁠⁠Dialectic on Instagram⁠⁠. Subscribe to ⁠⁠Dialectic on YouTube⁠⁠.

Tina He (Site, X, Newsletter) is a product designer, entrepreneur, writer, and amateur philosopher. She is a product lead at Coinbase, where she works on developer tools for its network Base. She joined Coinbase through the acquisition of her company, Station Labs. Tina grew up in China before moving the U.S. at age 14. As an adult, Tina has been a dual-citizen of New York City and the internet. As she has put it, Tina is interested in the culture of technology and the technology of culture. While we share a love of technology and the internet as a "place," Tina is also my favorite person to get reading recommendations from. She studies philosophy, immerses herself in art, film, and fashion, and has been writing online since she was a teenager. I aimed to give listeners a glimpse of the types of wide-ranging conversations that I've enjoyed with Tina over the years. We cover identity, locality, NYC, the internet, writing and sharing online, finding your people online, her career arc from comparative literature in college to venture capital and crypto, how labor markets and economies lay a foundation for culture in cities and online, what it means to be serious, patriotism and greatness, ambition, philosophy, ideas and action, Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World, her favorite philosophers from Kierkegaard to Wittgenstein to Byung-Chul Han, Beauty, taste, aesthetics, film, fashion, and how love and attention underpin her life. Timestamps: (1:07): Identity & Place: What Does it Mean to be Local? (7:46): New York City (14:24): Urban Design and Evolution in Cities and Online (19:03): Being a Citizen of the Internet & Sharing Yourself Online (31:55): Tina's Unique Path: from Comparative Literature & CS to VC to Crypto (45:58): Station & Coinbase: Why Economic Systems & Labor Markets are Upstream of Cultural Outcomes  (55:22): Being a Serious Person (58:53): When We Cease to Understand the World (1:02:47): Greatness, Patriotism, and Ambition (1:07:00): Reconciling with Obsession and Ambition: Can They Go Too Far?  (1:10:13): What is Philosophy For? Refining Realities vs. Asserting Reality (1:20:57): The Patterns in Tina's Favorite Philosophers and Writers (1:26:04): Making Time for Philosophy and Study (1:32:09): Aesthetics, Taste, Beauty, Film, Fashion (01:39:58): Love & Attention Links & Resources The New Frontier of Belonging by Tina He Order without Design by Alain Bertaud When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut Tina's "raw thoughts from the journal" post-election Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld by Byung-Chul Han A train rushing through a lightning storm - the first post I read from Tina, which includes the Bezos speech Photo: Eugene Wei Join the ⁠telegram channel for Dialectic⁠. Follow ⁠Dialectic on Twitter⁠. Follow ⁠Dialectic on Instagram⁠. Subscribe to ⁠Dialectic on YouTube⁠.

Ava (X) is one of my favorite writers. She writes full-time for her Substack, Bookbear Express, and focuses on love, friendship, emotions, culture, and psychology. I'm not sure there's anyone I've more consistently recommended to friends and loved ones in recent years, and it seems like the world agrees: Ava now has over 30,000 subscribers. One of my favorite parts of this episode was reading excerpts from Ava's essays over the years back to her. We cover a ton of ground, including writing, consistency, commitment, friendship, authenticity, self-respect, taste, beauty, and much more. Timestamps: (1:09): What makes for good writing & what Ava writes about (5:49): Flow, Writing Practice, Consistency, Commitment, and Maintenance (14:08): Audience Consideration, Vulnerability, Sincerity, and Ava's Readership (26:30): Feedback Loops, Getting Better at Writing (28:51): Distribution and Growth; Writing Online vs. Making a Living with Writing (34:39): Social Psychology and Seeing People More Clearly (36:21): Do People Change? (42:44): Relationships & Helping Others Find Love (44:32): The Friendship Theory of Everything (1:00:35): Consistency, Self-Respect, and Self-Trust (1:03:45): Frames: Consistency in Our Relationships with Others (1:08:21): Authenticity and Honesty (1:15:12): Taste & Interiority (1:24:14): Two Core Interests: Relationships and Technology (1:26:12): San Francisco (1:29:48): Writing in the Second Person (1:31:52): Substack Recommendations and a Novel (1:33:07): Motivation & Energy (1:33:50): 10 Years Back, 10 Years Ahead (1:35:46): Uselessness (1:39:06): Beauty Links & Resources: Ava's Writing: protecting flow on maintaining attention is everything copy? december what's up with modern love? the friendship theory of everything everything I know about love frames the girl the internet made me (Authenticity) taste what we talk about when we talk about taste in praise of uselessness Others: The Elif Life | Elif Batuman Out of It | Mary Gaitskill Join the telegram channel for Dialectic. Follow Dialectic on Twitter. Follow Dialectic on Instagram. Subscribe to Dialectic on YouTube.

Dan Romero, CEO and co-founder of Farcaster and former VP at Coinbase, dives into the nuances of decentralized social networks. He discusses the chaotic nature of content distribution on platforms like Twitter and the need for improved algorithms to support user intelligence. Romero shares insights on building community-driven projects within crypto, the importance of pseudonymity, and balancing decentralization with growth. He reflects on his career arc and the evolving dynamics of communication in today’s digital landscape.

Michael Dempsey, Managing Partner of Compound and a seasoned investor in science and tech, shares his insights on navigating the evolving landscape of investment. He discusses the impact of cultural shifts on technology adoption and the importance of being original in investment strategies. Dempsey delves into future challenges, such as managing rapid societal change and ethical considerations in biotechnology. He highlights the potential of AI in mental health therapy and the growing complexity of digital identities in a tech-driven world.

Jason Liu (Website, X, Github, Newsletter) is a technologist, consultant, teacher, and friend. He spent the first part of his career as a machine learning engineer, mostly at Stitchfix, only to run into a wall: a hand injury that prevented him from being able to write any software for over a year. Fortunately, he's not so one-dimensional, and spent time reclaiming somatic experience in learning to free-dive, train Jiu-Jitsu, and return to the pottery practice he developed in art school, all while reckoning with big questions of ambition, purpose, and self-fulfillment. Since then, he's built a consulting practice helping modern AI companies better implement RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), avoid system design mistakes, hire elite talent, and build for an LLM-centric world. He maintains a large structured output library called Instructor with about 1m downloads per month, writes prolifically (which he does entirely via voice input with LLM editing, as we discuss), tweets semi-manically (he's grown to 30K followers on X with the simplest strategy I've ever heard anyone articulate—tweeting 30K times), and teaches courses on RAG and online consulting. Finally, my man can yap. He was a perfect first guest because he has no shortage of ideas but comes at nearly everything with a beginner's mindset. Timestamps (0:00): Intro to Dialectic (2:55): Brick laying vs. capital allocating (6:04): Acid Story: Trying so hard to be a somebody (9:20): Planning, judgement, elasticity, and abundance (11:28): Ambition and Trusting your future self (14:20): Fear; Confidence is the memory of success (18:46): Compounding psychology of risk taking (21:30): Do you get what you deserve? (22:32): Playing life on hard mode (27:22): Agency, Taking Accountability, and becoming essential (35:58): Consulting and Independent Contracting (39:52): Ambition and “Manhattan Project” Appeal (42:30): What are you motivated by? (44:36): Challenge runs and side quests (46:39): How to be prolific (53:46): Mastery, complex games, and creative fingerprints (57:47): Programming, animation, and style vs. cohesion (1:07:56): Jason only writes with his voice--with some LLM help (1:12:47): Flooding the airwaves with content (1:14:10): Twitter growth: simple math (1:19:49): Using the “sawdust” (1:23:30): ELI5 RAG (Retrieval augmented generation) (1:27:39): A final rant against couches References Losing My Hands by Jason Advice to Young People, The Lies I Tell Myself by Jason A Critique on Couches by Jason Things you're allowed to do by Milan Cvitkovic Duolingo founder Luis Von Ahn on engagement vs. education