There's a lot of discourse on what people should be obligated to do within their community (a recent example).

My general broad stroke political views are: with my family, I’m a communist. With my close friends, I’m a socialist. At the local level, I’m a Democrat. At the state level, I’m a Republican. At the federal level, I’m a Libertarian.

At a world level, I think it’s important for everyone to first understand and hold their own sovereignty. The world is a big place. There are many ways of living. The freedom to choose your own path is an important first step in finding your place in the universe.

The skills, competency, and resources you are born with play into what could be seen as “your self-actualized place in the universe”. But being purely forced there by others (individuals, or societal pressures) isn’t usually a great way for people to find their place.

Kindness is action rooted in caring about other people’s wellbeing.

Kindness has benefits for the person being kind. Those benefits are much more pronounced when the kindness is out of their own volition, rather than forced by someone else.

There are (many) contexts where you enter into an implicit contract about how to act. When you play a sport: your coach is in charge, you’re on a team, and you’re there to win together. When you go to the movies: you turn your phone off, and are quiet. In these smaller, often temporary contexts, you trade a portion of your sovereignty for something else. Sometimes you do it just to follow the rules. Sometimes, you do it because you genuinely care about the other people’s experience.

I’m a supporter of doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Because sometimes you’ll come to find you like doing the “right” thing, and start doing it for the right reasons. It’s kind of like the physical act of smiling will actually make you happier.

For kids, exposing them to many contexts where they trade some of their sovereignty for something else is important. The hope is that they learn the benefits of all the other things in the world that are at odds with sovereignty. And that they choose to do things that are so much better when they’re done out of choice, rather than by force - especially kindness.

But never should we forget that our self sovereignty, our right to govern our own lives, make our own choices, and be the ultimate authority over our actions, comes first.

I am the Founder of the Anti Anti Social Club (not to be confused with the Anti Social Social Club - I am very pro socializing).

The Anti Anti Social Club’s core value is simple: Being for something is much more positive than being against something. By its nature, being for something requires a more rigorous degree of thinking, and takes more effort.

To put it concisely, the Anti Anti Social club is against being against things. We are anti anti statements.

These signs are prime examples of anti statements; they radiate negativity to everyone that walks or drives by.

Why do people love anti statements?

1. They’re easy. It’s easy to criticize, it’s easy to see something you don’t like and say “Not that. I don’t know what instead, because I haven’t thought about it much, but definitely not that”.

2. Negative emotions are often more intense and visceral than positive ones. and it’s easier to bond when people are all feeling the same strong emotion.

3. Evolutionarily, a common enemy may destroy you and others, and it’s important to rally together to live to see another day. Uniting around something positive is not as urgent as a life or death situation.

Why is it better to be for something?

1. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." - MLK Jr.

2. Being for something is at minimum attempting to find a solution, or a better way, to do something.

3. Being against something can be a short term solution. Being for something can be a long term solution. 

In what areas of your life do you find yourself standing against something and making anti statements?

In what areas of your life do you find yourself standing for something and providing a potential option or solution? 

Join the Anti Anti Social Club today! Mint your membership card on Zora.

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Between her, and my 150+ coworkers I had started a correspondence with regarding our upcoming IPO, I reflected on my relationship with money. I grew up with what I consider a healthy relationship with money, and I believe others having a similar relationship with it will benefit both them, and the world - especially if you make a bunch of it and didn’t really know you were going to.

What I ended up writing was a poem

A poem about money

~~ What is Money? ~~
Money is a tool.
Money is the Swiss Army Knife of life.
Money is the liquified version of time, of energy, of value created.
Money is the dehydrated, ground up, soulless representation of anything else:
  Heat on a cold winter night.
  A well-prepared meal.
  A direct flight to see your parents.
  Art.
  Fancy clothes.
  A piano lesson for a child.

Money is Time. Money is Health. Money is Power.
Money is Education. Money is Compassion.

~~ What is Money Not? ~~
Money is not immoral, it is amoral.
Money is not evil.
Tools themselves cannot be evil.
Only the use of a tool can be evil.
To be in control of money is to have
    the most versatile tool known to humanity at your disposal.
Money is not something to be scared of.

At the behest of a few encouraging friends (LDF, Chase, Parker, Reka), this poem is mintable on Zora.

First, it’s great for you, for the experience. There is nothing more human, more natural, more alive than reproducing. To not have kids is to miss out on such a large piece of the human experience. 

It’s also great for you because when you’re old, sure you’ll have friends and hobbies, but what you’ll look forward to most is hanging out with your grandkids. Watching your kids raise their own kids will be a treat. There’s nothing like family when you’re old.

Second, it's great for the world. You and your husband are in the 0.1% (0.001%?) of people in terms of actively thinking about how to make the world a better place, and have the resources to give your kids a stellar foundation to become conscientious, peaceful, happy, contributive citizens of the universe. We can always use more people like that around. (And if you’re subscribed to this Substack, this is probably true for you too). One of your kids could be the one that solves our carbon problem, or has first contact with extraterrestrial life, or solves an unsolved math problem.

Third, for them. If you don’t have your kids, they literally won’t exist. The gift of life is the greatest gift you can give. To experience life is unlike anything else. No one can hit *start* on their own life, only their parents can do that for them. And at some point, they’ll thank you for it.

The idea that you’re handed a torch with the most brilliant fire you’ve ever seen, and you might decide to watch the flame until it burns out, instead of passing the flame on and let someone else watch it burn for a while, is just unimaginable to me.

And there are also a few good reasons to have at least 3 kids.

First, the mortality rate for individuals before having children is not zero. Which means if every couple only replaced themselves by having two kids, humanity would dwindle. As someone who loves humanity, I think we should grow, not dwindle. And the next whole number after two is, as you know, three. So either you’re helping humanity grow by having three, or contributing to the dwindling by less.

Second, for their upbringing. It’s more like real life, and they’ll get a higher variety of interactions while growing up. The chance that they’ll get along with one of their siblings is higher. And the chance they’ll have to learn to get along with a sibling they don’t get along with is also higher. Sometimes they'll find themselves in a two-against-one scenario, which is more akin to real life. Sometimes both parents will be occupied with their siblings, and have to figure things out themselves. 

Third, is a bit darker of a reason, but worth mentioning. God forbid, something happens to one of your kids, the other two will at least still have each other. Imagine how hard it’d be to lose your only sibling. Or in the case of having only one child, how hard it’d be for you as parents if you lost them.

You might say, with this logic, you should have as many kids as possible! Sure - these reasons all work as to why to have 4, 5, 6, 12 kids. I understand there’s some constraints. Money, time, and balancing child rearing with everything else you can do in life. There’s some amount of diminishing returns. 3 is a sweet spot (and if you were thinking about having 0-2, probably easier to think about having 3 than 4+).

She seemed to like what I had to say, because by the end, she was intent on having 3 kids. Now it was time to work on her husband…

Progress, Exploration, Adventure, Improvement, Ambition, Innovation and Expansion, are all part of Human Nature. As a species, we will always look to increase our standard of living, provide more opportunities for our kids, and push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Increasing a population’s standard of living requires using more resources. And energy is the main resource at the foundational level. To increase the standard of living, we need to use more energy.

It is against human nature (and therefore impossible, without mass coercion) to hinder the increasing standard of living for populations across the world - especially in developing geographies like India and Africa. It follows that it’d be against human nature to restrain increasing energy usage.

Excess carbon is a real problem that negatively affects the entire world, and will continue to become a bigger problem. We won’t stop creating excess carbon until there’s a cheaper, easier way to create energy.

The only way to do this is lean into Human Nature’s propensity for Ambition and Innovation. Direct more resources towards things like fusion, which can lead to cheaper, cleaner energy creation, and carbon sequestering. Fighting against human nature is losing battle. We need to flow with our power, not against it.

The Only Way Out is Through

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My friends and I shoot the shit often. Sometimes I have many conversations on the same topic, and an observation or point of view emerges. The observation or view starts to seem obvious as something one might have. Whether it is or not, I’d like to share these thoughts with a broader audience for two reasons:

• To spark more conversations on the topics I write about (with or without me as part of the conversation)

• To find more folks that like talking about these topics, whether or not they agree with me

My mindset, your mindset, our collective mindset

These ruminations are often half-baked and un-researched. Strong opinions weakly held. My thoughts evolve over time, as most thoughts should. I don’t ever mean to offend anyone. No malice is ever intended. When reading a post, please read it with knowledge that I am well-intentioned and open to discussion.

I prioritize letting potentially fringe ideas hang out in the daylight over making sure everyone is comfortable.

Where Does “Avanthropology” come from?

Anthropology is the study of humanity. Avanthropology is the study of the future of humanity.

When’s the first actual post??

I’ll be sending out the first actual post by this Thursday, October 5th

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PS I got the initial email list from my other Substack publication - if you’re not interested in this one, feel free to unsubscribe 😌