Other Life

I discuss my recent move to Austin TX, chaos at the Capitol, and the parallels between Bitcoin and Christianity with Jacob (@cryptochamomile).➡️  Jacob's Youtube channel

John David Ebert is a cultural critic and the author of 26 books, including Art After Metaphysics, The New Media Invasion, The Age of Catastrophe and Dead Celebrities, Living Icons.This is a warm-up for an 8-week course on Carl Jung, starting on February 20th.✦ Get our Carl Jung reading list at otherlife.co/jung✦ John David Ebert on Twitter: @johndavidebert

Dryden Brown is building a new kind of city, from the cloud, in a style he calls hero-futurism.✦ bluebookcities.com✦ @drydenwtbrown✦ https://www.drydenbrown.org/

Get the free, expertly curated reading list at otherlife.co/straussThis is probably the single best podcast on the main ideas of Leo Strauss. A warmup for Michael's 8-week online course that starts on January 23. Signup to be notified when the full course opens: https://otherlife.co/straussMichael Millerman received his PhD from the University of Toronto. He's taught and published extensively on Leo Strauss. Michael's website: michaelmillerman.ca

I discuss my theory of reality forking with two tech entrepreneurs who specialize in community business models.✦ Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg) is CEO of product studio Late Checkout✦ Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) is co-founder of On DeckWe discuss:- How society got to a place where it lost its collective sense-making abilities.- Why calibrating what is real is harder than ever.- Signs that your community is working and what makes it flourish. 

What percentage of my net worth is in crypto? Is the future of academia on Youtube, or where? Would I cut ties with Patreon? Do I consider myself uncensorable? What is the value of my brand? Where is it heading? Why am I launching a social token? Where do I locate myself in relation to other professionals becoming indie creators, like journalists going to Substack?✦ Every week I send my best ideas & links to ~5k galaxy brains just like you: otherlife.co/newsletter✦ Working on your own intellectual projects? Check out IndieThinkers.org

Tom Kaczynski is a successful indie thinker in a most challenging niche: Philosophy comics. Over 10 years, Tom K. has built an impressive little empire as an independent illustrator, teacher, and publisher. In this podcast, he teaches us how he did it.➡️  Tom's Cartoon Dialectics: https://uncivilizedbooks.com/shop/cartoon-dialectics/➡️  Tom's Blog: http://www.transatlantis.net/blog/➡️  Tom's column at The Comics Journal: http://www.tcj.com/category/columns/event-horizon/➡️. Uncivilized Books: http://uncivilizedbooks.com✦ If you're working on your own independent intellectual project, check out IndieThinkers.org (where I first met Tom!)

After all the scams of the 2017 ICO craze, there's a new wave of genuine creators and communities creating serious value with social currencies. Bradley Miles is the CEO of a startup called Roll, which facilitates this process for creators.➡️  https://tryroll.com/➡️  Bradley on Twitter: @Bradley_Miles_A few weeks ago I started talking with Bradley, who is one of the founders of a startup called Roll. What they're doing is they're trying to make it super easy for creators and communities to create their own social tokens on the blockchain, on Ethereum.  It's interesting because this was a practice that became somewhat notorious a few years ago in what's known as the ICO craze, the initial coin offerings of around 2017. There were basically just a lot of scammers. There were a lot of people who would launch a token, and would hype it up, get a bunch of people to buy into it, and then just sell it and basically profit off of the people that got in on it.But now there's this new wave of genuine creators and durable communities that are using social tokens. And they're creating real value, and they're working and they're sustaining. And many of them are trading on the open market, for sometimes very good amounts of US dollars. And it just seems to me like a very real way in which creators and communities are generating real value and wealth potentially, in the long run, for themselves, in this autonomous bootstrapped way. So obviously I'm just super interested in that.I'm definitely still thinking about how I might do it because I don't want to do anything like this unless I have a clear model in my mind of how it works and what I'm trying to do. So I'm still researching and thinking, but I think I'm going to launch a social currency for my community and I'm quite excited by it. I think there could be real upside and I want to take it seriously and try my best shot at making something really interesting and valuable for everyone who listens to or participates in my various projects . And I've been talking with Bradley quite a lot over the past few weeks. Thinking about it and strategizing and yeah... He's super cool, I think he's super legit. And I think he really believes in the project and he has also investors that I know and trust like Balaji Srinivasan.I figured I'd have him on the podcast so he could share what he's doing and we can introduce the idea to the audience of the podcast and my broader community. So I'd love to hear what you think.

Kenny Rowe is an Urbit engineer. He's been working on blockchain projects since 2014, ranging from MakerDao to MetaCartel Ventures. Kenny is a member of the Dalten Collective, a for-profit membership organization rooted in Urbit.✦ The Dalten Collective on Urbit: dalten.org✦ Join Urbit with Tlon's new hosting service: tlon.io✦ Get in touch: otherlife.co/contact

Johannes Niederhauser is a PhD researcher on Heidegger, specializing in technology and human existence. In this discussion, he navigates the influence of technology on consciousness and the unique philosophical insights of Deleuze and Heidegger. They explore the clash between creative freedom and oppressive systems, advocating for personal agency through philosophical engagement. Niederhauser also highlights education as a space for 'serious play,' fostering authentic learning experiences that transcend traditional metrics of success.