Limits of Decentralization

If your name is associated with something, that knowledge is a potential central point of failure for that "thing."

As long as the identities of people involved in "decentralized" projects are public knowledge, that is an unavoidable reality.

That isn't necesaairly a criticism as much as it's a reality and tradeoff. I mean, if you were on the Peepeth team, for example, and some user posted kiddy pron[sic], you wouldn't be able to simply use 'blockchain' as an excuse not to do anything. Just as they do now (since the team is identifiable) they allow for admins to delete such content. And no one can be mad at them for doing that; but that means they can only describe their product as 'censorship resistant' and not 'uncensorable'.

That leads me to believe that the most powerful applications will be developed and released into the wild by anonymous devs. In that situation, any "value" will then accrue exclusively to end users (that may or may not include the original devs, and if it does, no one will be able to distinguish them from other users) so as to limit the liability issues that any dApp dev team faces.

Farewells

I'm nearing the end of the farewell drinking festivals before wrapping up my final week here next week and moving on to the next challenge in life.

It's been much better than I expected. Just great talks, with great people, over amazing food.

Another farewell is on-deck for tonight and I'm really looking forward to it. It's with a dear friend who I've collaborated with closely on several occasions not to mention was a regular lunch mate.

Tonight will be fun, but pray for my liver y'all. #thoughtsAndprayers

Bike Shedding

Meaning: Allocating a disproportionate amount of weight/time spent on a marginal but easy-to-grasp issue while more serious issues are overlooked.

Origin: According to legend, a group or committee that needed to approve plans for a nuclear PP instead came to focus on what materials would be used to build a bike shed instead...

Reading Three Books at a Time

Normally I'm a one book at time kinda guy. Since I'm a completionist that means I wait until I finish one book until I start the next one.

At least that's how I've read books up until now. Recently I've noted that many people seem to read multiple books at a time. USV's Albert Wenger is the only name that comes to mind now, but there's more - trust me ;)

Also I recently received my annual bulk book purhases, and there are a ton of tempting titles just begging to be read. So I've decided it's time for a change.

I am in the middle of reading three titles now: Rene Gerard's 'Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World', Ron Chernow's 'Washington: A Life', and James Surowiecki's 'The Wisdom of Crowds'. All three are incredibly engrossing and interesting.

Gerard's work is where I am concentrating the bulk of my attention and I'm reading it during my morning and evening commutes. As for the latter two, I am reading one to two chapters each before tucking into bed.

So far so good.

Unique Cent Use Cases

1.

New user finds Cent. New user earns crypto on Cent. New user posts a bounty on Cent using said crypto to advertise their gif animating talent. That's the story of Rita aka @gifanimator, a real life gif animator and Centian from Goa, India.

2.

@BrianXV adds "beta tester" to their resume based on the multiple beta tests they engaged in and were paid for on Cent.

Thoughtfulness Aggregator

In my post yesterday, I tried to show that the commenting community at avc.com and Hacker News as well as the increasing adoption of podcasts are proving that thoughtfulness is a small but growing global value.

That said, this "fact" isn't a driving force for those sites or for most people making podcasts (Sam Harris is certainly trying as hard as he can to act as an example of thoughtful living). Thoughtfulness is simply a happy by-product.

In the case of HN, they have gone a little bit further and made thoughtfulness an explict ideal that should guide commenting behavior, but Paul Graham has written many times in his blog how he has tried to set the site up to be as hands off as possible. In other words, beyond a decentralized karma point system, nothing is being done to aggregate, stimulate or otherwise incentivize thoughtful users.

Jimmy Song Tweeted something I found incredibly profound the other day. Speaking about BTC specifically (as he always does), but imo applicable to other crypto as well, he said:

Hacker News defines thoughtfulness or - to be more precise - thoughtful comments as comments that are at once both civil and substantial. To be substantial, according to Graham, means that something should be taught. Teaching is both giving and gifting, or at least that's how Heidegger saw things, and to me at least, Graham and Heidegger are both essentially talking about providing value.

So we have Jimmy talking about how 'hard money' is great at making people give something [of value - in his Tweet that means creative value] to get said hard money on the one hand, and we have Graham on the other hand exhorting users to make thoughtful comments - literally adding creative value

It's precisely at this this intersection of Graham and Jimmy where Cent, that amazing little project I have obsessively written about, has set down roots. Cent takes the power of hard money and is aggregating thoughtful users from around the world. Cent is fundamentally thoughtful in a way that is so profoundly different from anything else the world has ever seen.

And Cent is just getting started.

Thoughtfulness: An Emergent Global Trend

Thoughtfulness has been a key feature of the commenters on avc.com and Hacker News now for around a decade. But their numbers have been relatively tiny compared to the overall readership (I am making an assumption that what's true on avc.com is true on HN, so I could be wrong, but I don't think that's the case).

Podcasts in particular have arisen as the gold standard of thoughtful discourse and conversation, and in my opinion are the single greatest contributing factor to what appears to be the global spread of thoughtfulness. That said, the number of people who listen to podcasts has been growing, but the percentage of people who listen to podcasts regularly is still very low.

I'm not sure I've read or heard anyone speak of thoughtfulness as a trend or trait. I've only seen it mentioned to either describe an individual team's approach to business or as an ideal for how users should behave.

To me though, thoughtfulness appears to be an elevated, evolved philosophy of living. It is the key to all problems, not because it's a solution, but because it allows for the solution to be sought after to begin with, then found, discussed and agreed upon.

Thoughtful people are emerging more and more. And they are impacting many more. But their numbers are still small. Imagine though, what would become possible if something allowed for thoughtful people to create strong bonds *and* encouraged many more people to live thoughtfully...

Re-thinking *Everything*

Nothing is sacred anymore.

'Sacredness' used to denote pockets of culture, groups, or actions that were off limits from thinking and questioning.

The 'sacred' period of human history has thankfully passed us by and hasn't been dominant for centuries, but innumerable relics installed during that period still remain.

Many of those relics, such as the Catholic church for example, continue on relatively unchecked, unchanged and un-thought allowing their negative, rotten elements to continue to wreak havoc on those that are in it's wake.

The solution is not to thoughtlessly exterminate such 'sacred' relics from this world. We can't even be sure that positing that there should be a solution is correct.

Instead, growing and cultivating individual and collective thoughtfulness is the most important counter we can establish to protect ourselves before beginning the process of questioning and re-thinking *everything*.

Why does the Playstation Store Suck?

Let me clarify: Why are the payment options on the Playstation Store so shitty?

I spent way too much time last evening figuring out how to buy a pre-paid card in the Playstation Store, only to have to download some payment app I didn't have, before having to enter in the 12 digit code to seed my digital wallet with funds, before I could finally purchase Battlefield I and a 1 month of Playstation online.

Anyways, it feels great to have surmounted that mountain of a challange. Will vent my frustration in-game sniping noobs.

Identity on the Blockchain

There is an interesting thread on r/ethereum sub-reddit asking what the hell happened to identity on the blockchain. I'll share my reply here:

"As with most things, it seems like projects seeking to be *the* blockchain identity solution are doing too much. And as a result the solutions they're building are too complicated.

Much of the complexity seems to stem from trying to anchor real-name identity onto the blockchain. Imho that is such a complete mis-step.

For anyone that actually uses any dApps today, the wallet they're using to sign Txs with is effectively creating an identity for them already.

With dApps like Cent at https://beta.cent.co users are receiving ETH to reply to bounties. In other words, they're getting paid to work. And their work, if it's good enough to get them paid, is linked to the actual payment they received. As long as they control their private keys, they are the only ones who can prove that particular identity and past work.

Each user's payslip effectively becomes and identity and resume when viewed in that light. That's pretty incredible.

With that realization, there are of course some pretty clear if non-trivial UI tweaks that are needed to make this resume/identity easier to use (e.g. ERC-721 Avatar that carries this info, a way to organize the work attached to the financial meta-data, etc...).

If blockchain identity is approached from this angle, users will be able to get a way more approachable and workable solution way quicker than they will if they wait for solutions from the projects you mentioned. That's my opinion at least."

Anniversaries

Cent turned one today.

One year ago to the day it launched on mainnet.

It's grown into something super special. The promise is overwhelming.

The seed has sprouted. And it's about to branch out in a very, very cool way.

Get ready. We are.

When I Fell Down the Crypto Rabbit Hole

As I've said many times before, my responses to bounties on Cent are basically ready-made blog posts. My response today to a bounty asking how fellow Centians first fell down the proverbial crypto rabbit hole is just another example. I hope you enjoy.

--------------------------

It seems that most people differentiate between when they first heard of crypto versus when they actually fell down the so-called crypto rabbit hole – well, I’m no different.

I first heard of BTC sometime back in 2014. At the time a small group of work buddies and I would gather every morning at a café in downtown Gangnam to shoot the shit. One buddy had already bought some BTC (I think because of an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience that Andreas had appeared on) and he managed to get a few others to speculate, but not me. Passive wealth acquisition didn’t much interest me then, and still doesn’t tbh.

By the middle of 2015, most of the original morning coffee group had moved on to the next phases of their lives and careers, but one buddy who invested in BTC at the behest of our mutual friend in 2014 remained. In lieu of morning coffee, we began taking afternoon strolls where we would talk about this or that. I remember one walk on a brisk autumn afternoon in mid-October in particular – that’s when my friend asked me if I’d heard of Ethereum. I hadn’t. And then he mentioned smart contracts.

That started everything. I spent the rest of that afternoon pulling up what articles I could find on Ethereum and smart contracts (smart contracts!!). But before hopping on the company shuttle and heading home for the day, I made the discovery that ultimately ended up pushing me head first down that damned crypto rabbit hole. There was a very striking name that was mentioned across a few separate articles that had caught my eye: that name was Vinay Gupta.

A quick google search of Vinay resulted in a link to an episode he’d done on The Future Thinkers Podcast. I must have listened to that episode at least 6 times before somehow falling asleep. Tbh, I’m not sure I every really woke up. I hope I never do ;)

Hypocognitive

The term 'hypocognitive' refers to that lack of a linguistic or cognitive representation for an object, category or idea that one often experiences when first confronting an "unknown unknown."

It's attributable to Robert Levy.

If you want to use hypocognitive in a sentence, 'to be hypocognitive of...' is an acceptable form to employ the term.

With something like crypto - or Cent - anyone who hasn't gone down the crypto rabbit hole is fundamentally hypocognitive of it. We're essentially selling ice to people from Martinique in the 19th century - they have no concept of frozen water let alone the value of it.

So, we need to market the eff out of it, and educate a whole bunch of people. And that's ok, because, well, can you imagine what the world would be like without ice today?

New Cent Updates - Shipped

Get your butts over to beta.cent.co and check out the two new features we just pushed live.

Now when Centians post a bounty, instead of the bounty being earmarked for distribution to 10 recipients by default, bounty posters now have the ability to set the number of recipients that are eligible to receive a payout from 1 to 100.

And we now have moon mode (i.e. Cent's version of dark or night mode) and it's sexy as hell.

Read a more detailed write up the updates here.

About Last Night

Last night was my farewell thrown for me by my old team.

It was perfect.

And I'm still in bed. Welp.

Values & Behaviors

I read the interview between Stratechery's Ben Thompson and the CEOs of Patreon and Memberful today and the following quote from Patreon's CEO Jack Conte has really stuck with me:

"Also, from a philosophical perspective, our number one core behavior — some companies have values, Patreon has behaviors, we like that word because it’s something you can do — is Put creators first."

Putting behavior ahead of values is a great philosophy. And now I'm distilling down what Cent's core behaviors are.

Token Extensibility

Extensibility. That's a word I've been hearing more and more lately, and I'm sure we'll soon be hearing seemingly all the time in the not too distant future.

Unfortunately it isn't the easiest term in the world to intuit.

Thankfully though crypto has Bryan Flynn, an awesomely clear thinker on all things NFTs, who has in a recent article provided what I think is the best example that clarifies what token extensibility actually is: Access.

"If users obtain a token in their wallet, they can unlock new features or tokens in other dApps. Tokens which were once worth nothing, now are worth the equivalent of whatever feature/token it unlocks."

For example, say you have a CryptoKitty. And say I have a dApp that is looking to attract a bunch of crypto-familiars. Since every CryptoKitty owner is a crypto-familiar, and since ownership is provable, I can provide something of value just for CryptoKitty owners who sign up to my dApp using the ETH address that their CryptoKitty is tied to. That token can then be used as an avatar. And it can be tied to all the work/actions they carry out on the dApp. But they can use it on other dApps too.

We live in amazing times. And things keep getting better and better.

Get You Some...Durian?

So this post is a bit out of the ordinary, but thanks to the fact that our Asa Pacific Region HR Manager 'P' is in Seoul visiting our corporate HQ, I've been able to procure some valuable intelligence.

Anyone who knows anything about South East Asia knows that a particular fruit causes a big stink amongst foreigners, but is considered somewhat of a local delicacy. 

Of course I'm talking about durians. And while I haven't had one, when I eventually do (and you best believe I will have it someday) I want to have the best. Luckily P is both a Singaporean Singaporean and a huge fan of durians so I asked her what's the best durian.

Turns out Mountain King durians are. And they aren't cheap at around $30 per kilo. They are also extremely rare and must be sought out (so if some rando near Clarke Quay says they have a Mountain King, chances are it's fake). I'll share one of the two places I was told one could procure this funky bitter delicacy: Serangoon.

Now stick that in your back pocket for when you're next in Singapore and head forth into the glorious day (or evening) ahead.

Not Giving a Fuck Quotient

All jobs come with some amount of bullshit.

That bullshit may come in the form of backward processes, limited R&R, poor leadership/teammates, or some combination of those elements.

For the sake of harmony and in the hopes that the bullshit may be improved, although many people will talk about the bullshit freely with co-workers of the same or lower rank, nearly everyone will avoid speaking directly with their senior managers about the bullshit.

In other words the 'not giving a fuck quotient' of most corporate white collar office employees is quite low. This is probably owing to the average employee's fear of getting fired for "saying something wrong."

But I'm on my way out of a job in a place where the bullshit is unusually shitty. And my 'not giving a fuck quotient' has gone from zero to 100. So I am being very honest with my senior managers about the state of the bullshit.

The surprising thing that shouldn't be surprising, is that many senior managers have been not only receptive, but deeply thankful to me for that level of uninhibited honesty. This is because I'm finally giving voice to frustrations they've been experiencing *too* but haven't been able to seriously address or discuss.

Which makes me think, maybe I should simply continue not giving a fuck, since that appears to actually be the antidote for bullshit.

Reddit vs. Cent

This month I'm focused on getting my Reddit comment karma up.

I'm doing this so my posts to r/ethereum stop getting auto-moderated...

Anyways, as I'm engaging more with Reddit I am noticing how dramatically different it actually is from Cent.

Mainly, from what I can tell, the type of comments that get up-voted the most on Reddit seem to be pithy little one liners, whereas on Cent thoughtful (i.e. civil and substantial) responses that are of a non-trivial length tend to get voted up and thus receive a share of the bounty.

Of course there are many, many thoughtful responses on Reddit too, but they don't seem to get up-voted as much as one would expect. Users can tell, and it seems to be discouraging.

The fact that thoughtful responses get up-voted basically 100% of the time on Cent is therefore quite remarkable, and should be viewed as one of it's greatest strengths.

Cow Intestines

It was a celebration. 

Much was discussed. 

More was consumed. And imbibed.

It was lovely.

Location: Secret.

And it was Written

The dirty ballet of my Korean negotiation has finally come to an end.

Actually it came to a satisfactory end about a week earlier than I had originally earmarked it for - which bodes well for the quality of the team I'll be joining.

I got everything I wanted and then some. Big raise. Check. Multi-year contract. Check. Senior title. Check. Bonus scheme. Check. Maintain all other existing benefits. Check.

So all this is to say I'm going to have a very nice weekend with the wife. Hope everyone is staying cool.

Also, feel free to hit me up if you think you may want someone to help guide you through your next salary nego - it will seriously pay off if you do.

Early Days of Crypto Collectibles

How early is it for crypto collectibles?

This early:

There is still sooo much more that needs to be done to help stimulate adoption.

Serving Through Gifting

Barring any hiccups with the current negotiation I mentioned yesterday, I will be starting the next phase of my career early next month.

Until then I am basically on a month long office vacation.

With all that time in front of a monitor I expect to read the internet about 2~3 times.

Today I read a fantastic Rolling Stone article on Brock Pierce, an enlightened "Hippie King of Crypto." I'd heard the name, but up until today I had no real idea who Brock was.

Well he has quite the story. My favorite quote though from Brock pretty much sums up everything that Brock seems to be: "We’re here in service, and we serve through gifting. We’re here to take our skills – our superpowers – and figure out how to help Puerto Rico, the Earth and the people."

Serving through gifting. Gifting has never been easier with crypto gifts literally taking just a few thumb taps to carry out. Fantastic times. And a fantastic article - you should definitely check it out.

Korean Negotiations - Dirty Ballet

I'm entering into yet another Korean negotiation at the moment.

Korean negotiations always begin as an impossibility. Literally.

If you try to negotiate in Korea - bless you - at the outset you will most likely be told something like: "Sorry but for 'x' reason we need to do (the opposite of what you want) so please accept what I just offered you." Thus the dirty ballet begins.

The dirty ballet-phase of Korean negotiations is essentially a back-and-forth of you making your initial request over and over, and your counterpart making excuses, stalling and begging you to accept whatever solution is easiest for them to gain approval for.

It's key to maintain your composure during this phase. It's equally important to pay close attention to everything your counterpart say - particularly their excuses.

Sometimes excuses can be legit. Korean corporations are notoriously rigid, and unless you're dealing directly with a senior executive or the CEO, your counterparty will be hard pressed to deviate from the standard approach.

Luckily I'm dealing directly with the VP in charge of the Corporate HR Team at my prospective new company. With senior executives a firm yet modest approach is the way to go in my experience. Hopefully that holds true again this time.

Bias for Quality

A common criticism about the writings of immature writers is 'over-writing'. 

More mature writers tend to include only what is most essential or of the highest value in regards to what they're writing about. In terms of the quality of writing then, less is more.

The same critique can be applied to companies and businesses.

Companies that lack discipline tend to keep adding features, even if the earlier features still aren't quite right, on the one hand. On the other hand, truly successful companies relentlessly focus on getting each feature or function just right.

The exhaustive attention to detail for the sake of improving overall quality can be exhausting, and while advocating that more time be spent on an "old" issue may make you seem like you are fighting development, in the end it's always the right thing to do, because when quality issues arise later, you will be remembered as the one who initially pointed them out.

Back Online

Vacations are great, but they aren't great for everything.

Case in point: blogging. 

Traveling on the other side of the world, packed daily itineraries and sketchy wi-fi all wreaked havoc on my daily blogging.

I need to figure out a way to make sure I stick to my daily posting schedule over my next trip abroad at the end of December.

Now excuse me while I go battle this jet lag and oppressive Seoul humidity.

New Terra

With the continued development of crypto-currency and crypto related projects that are expanding the use and use cases of trustless digital value, I believe new terra is being formed in a new world.

Since this is a digital world, the naked eye is incapable of seeing these new land masses, but they're there.

A religion has already arisen within this world for Christ's sake.

Right now people - for the most part - are rushing to erect the same forms and structures that exist in the offline world in this new digital world. The fundamental value system of these existing forms and structures is rooted in capitalism, so by extension the singular value that currently exists in this new digital world is pure, unadulterated capitalism - capital value for capital's sake.

In the new digital world, just like the offline world, capitalism in and of itself has a surprisingly weak hold on individuals. This being the case, one of the key challenges and opportunities for the success of this new world will be how to set up a functioning value system that can keep existing users from leaving as well as continually attract new users.

Since this new digital world is essentially value-less, we can establish any value system we want. So what values should assume primacy?

Vander Ghinste & Sour Beer

With the steady rise in popularity of sour beers over the past few years, it's important to remember where these mouth puckering began.

Like with most good beers, some of the oldest sours have deep roots in Belgium - or Flanders to be precise.

The Vander Ghinste brown Flanders sour ale is one of the best sours out there, but it can be hard to find. Once you do get your hands on one and taste it, like all good Belgian beers, your socks won't get knocked off.

On the contrary, as with refined goods of all kinds, the Flanders sour ale defines the limits of what a good sour ale can be: sour but not overpoweringly so, with a silky light body and an effervescent array of tart and sweet dried fruit laced throughout.

Again, as with most things that happen to be refined, many people seem to seek 'lesser' sours out instead of the magnificent Flanders sour ales. After speaking with the bar tender at Portland's fantastic The Abbey Room about this, the reason isn't any clearer as to why that is the case, but I imagine a simple lack of marketing and advertisement are leading factors.

Anyways, that means more Flemish sour ale for me🍻

Oregon

I'm not sure if there is another state with as much of everything - and at such a high level of quality - as the great state of Oregon.

Oregon is spoiled with raw natural beauty. It's coastline is stunning. It's parks are large and unspoiled. It has gorgeous arid areas as well as steep yet walkable waterfalls lined by lush forests.

While Portland feels like the beating cultural heart, the truth is every neighborhood let alone county and city has it's own unique character, but on the whole Oregonians are as kind, accommodating and open as they come.

People are as free to be as weird or "normal" as they want to be. And adults can really be adults here with an absolute over-abundance of the best restaurants, best breweries, distilleries, and dispensaries in the entire US. 

And books. Portland has a ton of books and book lovers. Of course there is Powell's Bookstores, but there are also a growing number of smaller, independent bookstores such as Mother Foucault's Bookshop (which I'm super stoked to hit up tomorrow). 

7/21 Off the Grid in Seaside, Oregon

We're just getting back from a brief respite in old school Seaside, Oregon.

It's a perfectly simple vacation town straight out of 1950's Americana.

We walked along the ruggidly beautiful coast, went on long drives and ate some fresh af seafood. 

Being back in Portland our itinerary is full of fantatistic eats, drinks and everything in between. Look for a more traditional update in a few hours.

Happy birthday!

Sandy Beaches

Seaside, Oregon is a slice of good ol' days America

I love the beach.

That's something I've never imagined myself saying. Despite frequent trips to New Jersey and Delaware beaches as a kid, I began to loathe the sand and the beach from high school onwards.

The reason seems absurd now, but I recall a sudden and all consuming hatred for sand sometime over the summer between 10th and 11th grade; specifically the uncomfortable feeling of being sandy. Especially sand shoes. They're the worst. Or so I thought.

Having just visited beaches in California and Oregon with my wife I can now unequivocally say I love everything about the beach. The inconveniences I remember now present themselves as delightful peculiarities. Everything feels slow - in a good way. And I guess I am now officially old.

The Happiness Gun

Live.
Be happy.
Make everyone else happy.

(Turn the screen you are looking at upside down - you'll see a gun. Also, like a gun, it's hard to pull the trigger on the middle action, but once you do your life will never be the same.)

Vacation Utterances

• Hi, my name is white sugar.
• Very drunk need ice cream.
• If the earth is 종말해 it'll start from the US.

Quality: Today & Tomorrow

Quality today: look at the label.

Quality tomorrow: it's in the eye of the beholder.

Mental Reset

Sometimes we all need a reset. It's been a hectic few weeks, and I am feeling burned out. Also a bit burnt, but that's from this wicked Cali sun.

A more substantial post is forthcoming, but tonight is for re-charging.

Cheers and prosperity everybody.

LA/PDX Trip

The daily post was for Saturday July 14th was skipped due to the fact that I was in transit on my way to LA.

I'll be in LA for a few days before heading up to Portland for about two weeks.

Updates over the next two weeks will vary in time of posting as well as length.

Be well everybody.

Just Desserts

Well I did the damn thing. 

Then drank with old friends. 

Till the early morn.

Walked home from the Twan.

Ran along the Han. 

Pulled myself up. 

Now it's time to take off.

To savor those just desserts.

With the only one who matters.

Big Days

When was your last 'big day'? You know, one of those days that could potentially change your life. Usually such days are marked conspicuously on a calendar or two. You usually know it's coming. You've thought about it. A lot. And then the time comes to do the damn thing.

Today is one of those big days for me.  The time has finally come to go big or go home.

And you know what I have to say? Bring it the fuck on.

Boom⚡

Via Negativa

A subtraction that stimulates a positive reaction.

That elegant little concept (paradoxically) provides so much food for thought...

Germinating Ideas

New ideas are like seeds. You can try to plant a raw seed of an idea into the soil of open social discourse, but your chances of it taking root in conversation are slim.

You could try to germinate your idea: Talk about it, in short bursts, consistently over a period of time. Then when you see roots emerge you can pot it amongst a small group of like minded thinkers. Water it daily with conversation.

If it is a viable idea, it'll sprout in each of the minds of those in your small group.

The next step is when you think it'll be ready to go outdoors and get introduced to the world🌱

Reputation: Present and Future

What is reputation? Reputation is how others perceive, review and judge you based on past actions. Are you good or bad? Do you do the right or wrong thing usually? Are you successful or not? Are you pretty or ugly? It's a pretty general thing that seems to be an essential, inescapable aspect of being human. And it can be applied as easily to places and things as it can be to people.

Reputation can take a criminally long time and immense efforts to build. That's if it's even possible to build at all. And what is the payoff of building a good reputation anyways?

Normally individuals aren't even able to benefit from their good reputations. All those Facebook users and their good reputations benefit Facebook directly by providing them with a valuable reputational data point that can be used to attract ad dollars. That said, some may argue that while individuals don't directly benefit from their good social reputation, they indirectly benefit by living in a better society or by being a part of a site that isn't bad (or something).

Others may point out that individuals can still benefit from their professional reputations. But just think about the work your average Joe needs to exert in the real world just to get credentialed, then to maybe get a job, then to maybe find consistent work they can do at said job, then the luck they have to have to maybe get recognized for what they've done up until that point to establish some sort of *localized* reputation. With all those 'maybes' it's kind of surprising that anyone is able to accumulate a significant reputation that travels well in the real world.

The recent rise of social network platforms has made it possible for more people to turn their average credentialed professional history into a portable reputation of sorts. That said, such "reputation" is clunky, relatively undifferentiated and still trivially hard to build. What's more, someone can have a great professional reputation, but be a social cancer, thus rendering professional reputation impotent as a meaningful social proof.

I dare say that it feels like reputation is basically unobtainable for most people around the world, and meaningful reputation - reputation that signifies something more than what it's ostensibly about - is even rarer. It's almost enough to make one think that doing away with reputation altogether may make the world better. Not me though. I think it's far more constructive (not to mention easier) to instead think of whether there isn't an easier way that could allow more people to build better reputation.

Although reputation isn't formally recorded on Cent, it most certainly informally exists. Every user that provides responses to bounty posts is in turn evaluated and judged by the invisible tastes and values of the Centian community. Since the top 10 "best" responses to each bounty post receive a monetary reward, reputation is simultaneously established, improved and validated, 10 users at a time.

In the context of Cent then, a user with a good reputation is a user who has provided value to at least one other user in the form of a response that accurately and compliantly responds to a bounty prompt or request. This sounds a lot like someone who has a good social reputation, but instead of directly benefiting others while only indirectly benefitting oneself, in the case of Cent, a user receives a direct monetary benefit for establishing and/or improving their reputation. Interesting.

What about professional reputation? Whereas professional reputation in the real world relies on a confusing array of proxies like records, certificates, recommendations, atomic evaluations, hearsay, CVs, and other things that sort of attest to some sort of professional reputation, the reputation of each Centian is very simple: It's every single payment they've ever received. And remember, they were paid for carrying out an action that was requested (i.e. work).

When payments can be received for performing non-trivial work that was reviewed and evaluated by a large number of one's peers, that are recorded on an unalterable blockchain and also happen to be forever linked to the original bounty deposit which is also tied to a specific prompt or request, there is no need to solely rely on proxies for reputational proof anymore. That means everyone is effectively free to establish and build out their reputation.

So then what next? Well, I'll let you answer that question yourself.

Getting Things Done

Thanks to a great share by Cam (for those of you who don't know he's the co-founder and CTO at Cent), I came across an efficiency hack that I can easily overlay on top of my note taking app of choice, Diaro.

In Matt Mochary's short but powerful 'Founder to Ceo' that Cam shared with the team, Mochary introduces the Getting Things Done framework espoused by David Allen in his book 'Getting Things Done: The art of stress-free productivity'.

Essentially this framework helps users simply categorize tasks into either daily or weekly review buckets. Next actions (i.e. short, atomic units if work), things you were asked to do by others and (my slight revision to the schema) things you asked others to do (instead of someday/maybe tasks) constitute the items you should add to the daily review work bucket.

In the weekly review bucket one should add agenda items for each person you plan on meeting with as you think of the item to talk about in addition to whatever projects or bundles of 'next actions'. The idea behind 'Agenda' is that you will be able to pull up that agenda list once you meet or call that person so you can discuss each agenda item all at once (as opposed to a spot-basis when you think of each item).

As you can see in the above screenshot I have added tags for each of those items (in addition to the team members that I know I will have things to talk about with) as well as a specific group called 'Get Things Done'. I did this so I can quickly bring up any items that need to get done (by selecting the group) and then if need be selecting each tag individually during either my daily or weekly review.

One super important tag that did not make it into the screenshot (or in Allen's official framework for that matter) is a tag labeled 'Finished' where I will tag every completed action, agenda item and talking point with as soon as they are completed so that I will have a running list of what I have actually accomplished.

Well, I officially feel like an old man now. Who gets excited about efficiency hacks? Anyways, I will put this bad boy framework to use beginning today, and hopefully provide an update sometime in the future about how it's worked out or not worked out.

Podcast of the Week No.11

Every time I hear Airbnb co-founder, CEO and head of community Brian Chesky speak I usually walk away chewing on some kind of new, novel thought.

Kara Swisher released her talk with Brian at the recent 2018 Code Conference on her Recode/Decode podcast channel [here] and I'm still chewing on a new concept I learned listening to Brian: Community marketplace.

Airbnb has a community of over 3 million passionate space sharers. All around the world. And over 2/3 of them only list on Airbnb. That is an incredibly powerful locked-in base of users. Can you imagine what you can do besides sharing spaces with that community base?

The possibilities and execution of ideas related to those possibilities is exactly what Brian is focused on. It was interesting to listen to him talk about 'experiences' just one of the ideas he has on how to pull on and grow that powerful community.

Cent also has a strong community. It's still small by Airbnb standards right now, but users are passionate about the product and some are consistently providing sincere responses. Imagining what may be possible when we grow those users into an army of consistent and sincere responders is pure gas to the fiery passion I have for this project.

My Running Mantra

I guess you can call it my running mantra, but the saying that I repeat over and over as I run is this: Practice - practice is carrying and conducting oneself in solidarity; solidarity of course being the basis and foundation of social reason.

It's a very ancient phrase (or fragment to be precise) attributed to Heraclitus that I came across while reading Gadamer.

Thinking of practice in this way makes clear, for me at least, how logic is something that's common to all. It also highlights the tragic ignorance of many who seem to act as if it is something unique to them.

All of us Centians, by bounty posting and responding, are practicing at living, having fun and (in a small way now) making a living in the digital world where logic holds sway in the most definite way. So keep practicing, and Cent on👊

Work Bounties

Work bounties or work-based bounties are still top of mind for me.

One of the most important things one can do when trying to spread new ideas is nail down the basic concepts and definitions of what you're trying to talk about.

So here is my stab at trying to clarify the concept of work bounties: Work bounties are a specific type of bounty where the bounty poster is expecting specific and relatively undifferentiated responses from a non-trivial minimum number of responders (e.g. product feedback, polls, surveys, simple sequences of digital work, referral/affiliate link usage, etc...).

Stats on Work-based Bounties on Cent

You may remember my stab at classifying the types of bounties that we've been seeing on Cent over the past 10~11 months where I broke down bounties into three specific types (work-based, semi-formal, and playful) in this blog post [here].

These days work-based bounties, or bounties where the bounty poster is expecting specific and relatively undifferentiated responses from a non-trivial minimum number of responders (e.g. product feedback, polls, surveys, referral/affiliate link usage, twitter follow boosts), are the type of bounties that have me most excited.

They have me so excited because it feels like the first instance where a broader community (i.e. those not already on Cent) can easily join the Cent community and instantaneously see the value that the Centian community can provide. That and they are putting a decent chunk of change into Cent.

So I went back and looked through all the bounty posts made over the last 100 days or so and found some interesting stats. Over the past 100 days a total of 36 work bounties worth $953 were posted on Cent. Of those, 23 work bounties worth $507 were posted in the last 30 days alone, so they are definitely catching on (thanks in no small part to the amazing work @pavan has been doing).

We got great feedback (e.g. shout outs on Twitter) from 6 projects that posted work bounties, but we also received some constructive feedback asking for more control or better responses. The numbers and responses are definitely a good sign, but far from optimized. It'll be very interesting to see what kinds of decisions get made about these types of bounties heading forward.

Wanna be a Crypto CEO - Read This

Charles Hoskinson of IOHK published an interesting piece looking at the crypto space (like all of it) from the perspective of CEO.

There are a ton of irresolvable conflicts and tensions that any crypto CEO needs to be aware of and make tradeoffs that they may not feel 100% comfortable making, just because they may be put in a lose-lose situations from time to time.

You should all check it out [here] but I will share some of my favorite quotes from it below.

"The point of our movement has been to develop better tools to identify when and how we can remove middlemen we don't want; not to blindly kill all middlemen for the sake of killing them. Centralization or federation can dramatically reduce costs, improve efficiency and sometimes is necessary to improve privacy.

For example, Lastpass [a centralized product] provides a great solution for me to manage my many, many password, but doesn't actually have access to my passwords. I'm sure such a solution could be decentralized, but I don't see a point. Replicating an encrypted dataset, which I could already store locally anyway doesn't improve my security. It just seems to drive up costs and reduce user experience.

And frankly there are hundreds more examples. Abstracting my point, it's not about decentralization; it's about control. People want more control over their data, identity, reputation, assets and commercial relationships. Decentralization is a tool that can be used- with other tools- to achieve these ends, but isn't an end in itself."

"Modern communication tools are incredibly good at keeping us all connected and informed, but they are useless for promoting empathy, building real relationships or proactively communicating implicit concerns."

"In a way, I think this gives some justification to the enormous market capitalization we [crypto] are seeing alongside the cult like enthusiasm. From a practical sense nothing has been produced by Bitcoin or any other project to justify a cumulative valuation greater than some of the world's largest companies and even countries. From a social view, how much is the freedom to re-imagine the entire fabric of the world's marketplaces worth?

Money and governments are artifacts of promises and future commitments. They don't actually exist, but the belief in their power is what actually gives them power. It seems the belief that Bitcoin is worth a 100 billion dollars or that one social contract is superior to another is all that is really needed to actually realize it.

Thus to all future leaders of our space, I'd like to say separate your objective from subjective, clarify relationships as well as understand conflicts of interest and stick to your principles even in the face of conflict. And try to have fun while riding the roller coaster, it's sure to be an exciting journey."

Notes on Zcon0 Keynote Panel: Cryptocurrency Governance

I've tidied up the notes that I scribbled down while watching the great Zcon0 keynote panel, and I think they're worth a share.

For me personally, Vitalik stole the stage, but the other panelists Zooko, Jameson Lopp and Jill Carlson, not to mention Peter Van Valkenburgh (the moderator) all shared some great thoughts.

You can check out the talk [here].

And here are my notes:

• Decision (Change) Function Theory of governance - top down, bureaucratic, corporate (it's better if there is a precise process that as much as is possible is a function that has to have some outcome).
• Coordination view of governance - for any potential set of arbitrary choices 'a' and 'b' (e.g. protocol changes) depending on what 'a' or 'b' might be 'a' may be "better" than 'b' or 'b' may be "better" than 'a', but the group will be better off if they all choose either 'a' or 'b' instead of being split between both and/or not doing anything.
• Many equilibria within the 'coordination games' that get played benefit from coordination (e.g. see 'a' vs 'b' protocol change above).
• Within coordination games you get these equilibria where if there are an arbitrary set of norms and expectations - that can be precise or imprecise - for how people arrive at decisions (e.g. tend towards picking 'a' or 'b' protocol change) it makes sense for any one person to follow, or a sort of pressure to conform is in play, which in turn leads to those norms becoming stickier over time.
• The real subject of blockchain governance ends up being what all those 'coordination flags' end up being "stuck" over time.
• There is strong demand for governance rules that can avoid the need for large bureaucracies. 
• Within coordination games, you have many individuals making individual decisions, but because of the underlying architecture/design of what we're making decisions about, there's a strong incentive to align around a common decision.
• We need to design protocols in a way to prevent opportunities for super-linear resource allocation (e.g. someone with 2x more of money/token they are able to return 2.1x return).

Degree for the Internet

On Cent's Telegram, Summers Haley left a comment suggesting that setting up a TCR (Token Curated Registry) could be a useful way of helping to improve the quality of sorting on Cent. TCRs are definitely going to be super interesting, but I'm not sure if their time has come yet, particularly when it comes to a project like Cent.

As it stands, industry incumbents and those with established reputations/credentials stand to gain the most by getting their name on a TCR, but the incentive(s) to join any TCR is unclear as of now. Also the politics and management assumed by TCRs seem to contain a ton of slippery slopes (e.g. determining who should be kicked off, deposits withheld, etc...).

For a much larger number of individuals around the world lacking such reputations/credentials, even if they have something unique to offer, it seems a bit cruel to demand they deposit something (that they probably don't have).

That said, the social signal that those lists can and will broadcast is super interesting. And what kind of signal would they broadcast? For individuals, getting their name on a list would probably be akin to what diplomas have done for decades: signal that one has what it takes to follow a set of arbitrary rules for a non-trivial period of time, perhaps with some specialized knowledge to boot.

Cent sort of does this already with the leaderboard. Users are ranked based on their 30-day earnings. Behind the rankings though is an ETH address that's basically a record (or proof) of work they put in and got paid for. Instead of a diploma that is a signal of some future potential, the Cent leaderboard generally, and the work that individuals do specifically, provides proof that users have been able to consistently draft responses that are sincere enough and of a significant level of quality to get paid based on the validation and approval of their fellow Centians.

Proof of being able to consistently do something with sincerity and at a sufficient level of quality in the digital realm: that's basically the equivalent of a degree for the internet. If there isn't value in that for any individual who puts work in on the internet, or for the site or organization they belong to, then I'm not sure I know what's up and what's down anymore.