There's a growing need for new economic infrastructure that captures and compounds jointly produced value. Bottom-up collaboration relies on the exchange and development of non-monetary value - be it in the form of attention, knowledge, skills, or relationships. These in-kind dynamics stem from the intrinsic motivations and non-market norms that make purpose-, value-, and interest-driven self-organization so satisfying to be a part of. It also makes growth and sustainability a significant challenge. 

The illiquidity of in-group capital raises the difficulty of coordination across participants. It also erodes exchange with those outside of the scene, as in-group capital does not have the same value and acceptance outside. Access to finance and the creation of capital assets is crucial for the sustainability and growth of any venture, but is widely unavailable to individuals that self-organize - particularly at earlier stages of development. This lack of social and economic resiliency reduces the viability and impact of collective action-taking.

We need social engines & economic systems that raise our ability to take action, together. We see promise in assembling economic mechanisms to better pool and coordinate resources and provide individuals with an expanded set of opportunities. Enhanced capacities to collaborate within and between communities unlocks large-scale cooperation, which in turn enables self-organization to thrive.

It’s difficult to make sense of what’s going on in the world. The design of today’s social media platforms - and the motivations behind them - haven't helped. Neither have many news companies. The landscapes we use to consume, process, and communicate information have become highly polluted. Powerful interests use these spaces to get people to believe and do things that are useful for those interests. Increasingly advanced technologies help them do so.

Limitations in our ability to assess problems are one of the main sources of problems themselves - and the worsening of those problems. The means we use to make sense are more important than any other resource, because they are the basis for why any of us make the choices we do. They determine our effects on the environment, each other, or anything else. 

The power and use of digital technology is growing. So is the need and opportunity for improving sense making at scale. As individuals create content at greater volume and impact, the skill at which each of us makes sense grows in importance. No one person has a complete picture of the world, nor the training to understand it all. We need each other to piece together more complete understanding. 

Be it group-think, straw-manning, or how difficult it becomes to participate when the size of a conversation gets large, there are many challenges that get in the way of making sense, with each other. The good news is that we’ve never been better equipped to build tools that address such limitations. We can already create the foundation of new digital landscapes that bring us closer together and amplify the benefits of rich conversations.

There’s more information than ever before. Now there’s even more. An increasing amount is created by artificial intelligence. Even more advanced AIs determine where it goes, who gets what. 

The generation and propagation of digital content has been honed to a science, accounts for trillions of dollars, and is exploited by nations, corporates, and individuals to alter our perceptions of reality. 

And we aren’t meant to notice.

Our podcast. Ingredients include conversations, musings, and banter. The more curious, thoughtful, and pithy the better. The best kind of unpredictable, from an alchemy of interdisciplinary minds.

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