Prelude:
I found an old rant saved to my desktop - some late-night stream-of-consciousness voice-to-text garble. As an experiment, I dropped the rant into ChatGPT and asked it to be rewritten in the style of Aldous Huxley (rather randomly) with a Tweet and some bullet points at the start. I tweaked it a tiny tiny bit…
ChatGPT version is here:
Tweet:"In the realm of digital transformation, must we be confined by old paradigms? Crypto challenges norms, not just in finance but in how we perceive value, access, and power. Let's break free. #DigitalEvolution"
Five Key Points:
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The potential of Web3 goes beyond aiding the unbanked; it heralds a paradigm shift in how we move value digitally.
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NFTs offer more than just digital art; they represent a fundamental change in ownership and value.
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Political figures like Elizabeth Warren risk stifling innovation by failing to recognize the potential of crypto.
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Cryptocurrencies face undue regulations, hindering their transformative potential.
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The ICO is revolutionary, democratizing investment opportunities beyond the elite.
In our swiftly evolving digital age, the discourse around Web3 often revolves around the unbanked and marginalized. While this narrative is commendable, it merely skims the surface of a much grander, more profound shift in how value is perceived and transacted. To reduce the digital renaissance to incremental remittances and finance tweaks does a disservice to its transformative potential.
When we think of NFTs, the collective imagination often narrows down to digital pop art (promising, for sure). Yet, isn't the essence of a non-fungible token so much more? It's about redefining ownership, value, and the very fabric of digital interactions. It's about merging the tangible and intangible in ways previously unconceived.
Unfortunately, political landscapes, populated by figures such as Elizabeth Warren, seem poised to curtail this evolution. What's bewildering isn't their caution, but their seeming unwillingness to truly understand. Their pursuit of control threatens to stifle the innovation that blockchain promises, effectively casting shadows on a future brimming with light.
One of the stinging critiques leveled at the crypto community is, "What has crypto truly accomplished?" The reality is that the true potential of crypto remains shackled by legalities and outdated regulations. Consider the ICO, a groundbreaking mechanism democratizing investment. Its promise, however, is dimmed by laws that perversely preserve elite monopolies rather than empower individuals.
In conclusion, it's imperative we see beyond the immediate. We are rewiring value flows across every photon of the physical and digital world. Cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and ICOs symbolize more than just speculative experiments; they're harbingers of a new world. Instead of constricting this vision, let's embrace it, evolve with it, and champion the promise it holds for us all.
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Source “Material”:
Alright can you hear me now alright alright alright OK so this is the thought you always hear people talking about our web three is going to help the unbanked there's all these people in Africa and we're going to roll a crypto and now they have access to financial systems and so amazing and you work in Mexico you share your families in Mexico and you're cleaning your house and you can send money back and it doesn't cost as much and that's great and this is this incredible thing and I don't have a problem with that I think those are obviously things to work on but but but but but but but but funny that uh the voice to text can't make but but with like 15 use in the middle right so it's like bud long form anyways um but but but but but right that's not enough it's probable that the rate determining step to fixing people's lives in that are unbanked has more to do with running water distribution and by antibiotics and other things you know Wi-Fi but we're worried about this this all this is we always bring up this mythical story about how we're gonna make remittance is better and I'm just like that's not why I'm here and it doesn't mean I don't want to fix the third world but I actually don't even know if that can fix the third world because like I said it might be that what we need to do is just take the time that it takes to get people to move into a city like the sheer scale of the size of the humanity the billion people that don't live in cities right and moving those people out of like they don't need a smart wallet so for me that doesn't I just I'm so sick of hearing that that story that bleeding heart story and I think it plays right it plays to people but the thing that made me quit what I was doing and start working in crypto was that value can become digital and I have a lot of problems with this idea that that means oh you have a JPEG that has value and you can't right click save it it's like isn't that a good thing that we could actually be in a digital space and we could right click save things and now there's no scarcity isn't lack of scarcity and I get it you get really good thinkers figuring out that actually you need scarcity and that creates this engine and this Pearl and all of that but for me I like this you like that we wanna trade it you own it I don't own it we trade it right and where there isn't scarcity you give it to me because you love me and that's beautiful and that's the path right and we don't have to have these parties were only people with the right NFT you can get access and all that stuff that shouldn't be the focus the focus should really just be value exchange in a digital sense and um it's happening it's being worked on right and it's it's going to come to pass and it's so unbearable that um you know that that you hear the Democrats and the wonky Democrats that I want to love like like Elizabeth I want to love Elizabeth Warren and she's just against crypto at all costs and it's just so sad and disappointing and it's like no I get it she doesn't want to have an end to an American dollar and I actually you can see some ideas there that that are meaningful on it I think having a governance facility on top of a currency is interesting right and we have that we have a democracy and we have actual civil resistance to our democracy right civil SY B Sybil resistance to our democracy there are two in it within our democracy there's civil resistance Sybil resistance not civil and yeah so I think what I want to say is there's a lot to work on and it's exciting but for me yes scalability get this thing to cost nothing so that we can transfer value for free that there doesn't have to be some ******* middle computer in the middle of a transaction called a validator or sequencer or a node operator or whatever new term we have for some person making money on top of the world computer and we just have a world computer that works and within that world computer we have the ability to have a functional database that is not not gonna be rewritten and not gonna have you wake up in the morning and be like oh snap I don't have any of my photos anymore I was saving them on Google or shoot you know my Gmail is from 20 years ago I've been I made unaccessible whoops you know uh any other horrible first world thing with intact because this is a step forward it's so clearly a step forward value can be exchanged digitally. Drop the ******* mic who cares about the second world or the third world or the the logarithmically better world that's happening in some Martian ecto verse in the ice ice girl I ice girl installation near the private jet landing pads just outside of Burning Man so that's what grinds my gears can we please stop talking about the third world because and let's be clear yes we should provide financial assistance services that make their worlds better yes we should provide remittances that are 0 cost yes but that's not what's up digital value being able to be moved and tracked and made sense of and in the sense the meaning can be recreated within the digital space which allows for an economy which allows for sustenance anyways that's it that's all yeah just give me a sec
ChatGPT 2nd Pass:
I confess ChatGPT had a first attempt at a rewrite. It was very similar to the one included at the top. After reading it, I couldn’t resist adding a second stream-of-consciousness “guide” to help generate the final post. You can imagine the iterative process shining this turd, but I stopped with pass-2:
“Okay, this is pretty good. I'm going to weave in some additional dialogue. Firstly, I'd like five key points. I think the five key points, let's start there. Fixation of Web3's potential impact on the unbanking. Okay. There's lots of things to work on. Sure, saving money on the unbanked. Improving the lives of people in far-off distant lands with slight improvements in remittances and so forth. I think that's useful and valuable. But it's a very small piece of this massive, massive change, paradigm shifting change, where we can have value move digitally. And on the back of that, everything that is digital and everything that is real needs to merge, change, and respect this evolution. And it's annoying when you think about NFTs being the only concept for NFTs. Pop art being what we're using a non-fungible token premise as. And Elizabeth Warren-type political figures, who it turns out are just power-hungry nanny-state fools. I mean, I just don't want to believe it. I want to believe that the Obamas of the world are on the side of the future. Not looking at this great opportunity as something that has to be controlled and neutered. I guess one of the big frustrations I have is people saying, What have we done with crypto? And me saying, we haven't been able to do anything with crypto because crypto is illegal. But, you know, let's talk about some of the things we've done. Non-fungible tokens, sure, cool. The ICO. The ICO is an incredible change. Of course it's illegal. Of course it's scary. But you know what's really scary? Telling someone who isn't an accredited investor-level multi-millionaire person that they can't participate in any of the value exchange that happens when new businesses and new opportunities are created because they're not sophisticated enough investors. Telling someone, no, you don't have the right to do that with your money. It is absolutely unconstitutional. I'll leave it there. Spin it all together and make a new take on it. Again, five bullet points and a tweet.”
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grinding my gears is a family guy reference when Peter had a brief stint as a TV op-ed / thought leader guy with his “Grind My Gears segment — also think about grinding gears spinning out content for social media — s 750 — Image #2 @malinpaul