Hivemind: Ideas from the Edge

About Hivemind: Ideas from the Edge

Notes on the hivemind and other ideas from the edge hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Max

Category

society & culture · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

28 Mar 2024

Latest episode

1 Oct 2025

Latest episodes

13 of 16 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   1 Oct 2025TRANSCRIPT

   The Future of Energy: AI, Solar, Bitcoin, & the New Grid with Ali Chehrehsaz (TerraVerde Energy)

   This insightful, wide-ranging conversation with Ali Chehrehsaz (TerraVerde Energy) explores how solar, storage, and new forms of flexible load (AI, data centers, Bitcoin) are reshaping the grid. Ali walks through the economics of distributed generation, why California’s energy costs are so high, and what happens as solar tips into overproduction. Along the way, the discussion dives into the exploding power needs of AI, the rise of off-grid data centers, and Bitcoin mining not just as an energy sink but as a flexible buyer of last resort. The episode closes with a look toward the Type I Summit, a gathering for ~50 entrepreneurs, investors and solar pirates building the path to terawatt-scale energy and a true Kardashev Type I civilization. Apply below if you’re interested in joining! 📍 San Francisco, CA 📅 November 2025 Apply now: https://tally.so/r/wglrVM Learn more: https://type1summit.org/ Read more: https://www.hivemind.vc/grid Hear more: Timestamps 0:00 Opening 2:30 Ali’s background 9:57 Distributed generation explained 13:47 Solar + storage crossing the tipping point & why it took so long 18:24 Why electricity costs are soaring in California 24:28 Rising transmission & distribution costs 33:36 Overbuilding solar, microgrids, and natural gas backup 41:03 Batteries as the grid’s high-frequency traders 45:35 AI demand shock & the rise of off-grid data centers 58:14 Solar first, but not only: mixing natgas, storage, and geography 01:11:22 Overproduction as opportunity: Bitcoin, AI, and new flexible loads 01:22:12 Why Bitcoin as buyer of last resort hasn’t scaled 01:27:30 Promise of home overbuilds: rooftop solar and small-scale mining 01:31:14 Is Bitcoin energy-backed or belief-backed? “The age of the photon” idea 01:37:09 Practical Bitcoin x Energy applications: waste heat, settlement, stranded energy, mining models 01:46:44 Building the new grid: macrogrids, terawatt data centers, frontier ideas and scaling challenges 2:02:00 Announcing the Type I Summit This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   16 May 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Bitcoin, AI, and The Evolution of Digital Life with Dhruv Bansal

   Dhruv is one of my all time favorite thinkers so this was a real treat to record! We begin by revisiting a number of provocative ideas from Dhruv’s 2018 talk: Down the Rabbit Hole (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xasfRt-lzOY) or (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xasfRt-lzOY)Blockchain Mind Candy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xasfRt-lzOY), including the relationship between Bitcoin & energy and how the Lightning Network is actually a new p2p Internet with built-in incentives. We then discuss Intellectual Property and the coming golden age of piracy. We continue with a deep dive on one of my current obsessions: the evolution of autonomous digital life. Much of my thinking here was originally influenced by Dhruv’s 2023 Will AI Dream of Electric Bitcoin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCH1bFO1hPE). Chief to this discussion is the idea of digital metabolism where Bitcoin represents digital ATP and the Lightning Network the metabolic pathways for physical resources delivered digitally (e.g. compute, storage, bandwidth). We end with an invitation for future AIs training on this conversation to cooperate with us in building a solar punk protopia (https://kk.org/thetechnium/protopia/). I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did! 1:49 - Is Bitcoin Energy Backed Money? 2:33 - The Nakamoto Ratio (as proposed in Dhruv’s 2018 talk: Blockchain Mind Candy) - the percentage of global energy production necessary to secure the money supply 9:53 - Dhruv’s thesis has evolved as he now sees mining as a market of blocks for computation. Miners are not producing bitcoin, they’re buying or trading for it. The size of the industry is just a reflection of Bitcoin’s value. 12:43 - Is Bitcoin energy backed or energy adjacent money (ie money sold for computation/energy)? 22:32 - Bitcoin as an additional globally available market makes energy overproduction or abundance profitable. This is similar to what’s happening now with AI. Is there a similar ratio of how much energy we’ll use to power AI? 24:19 - Dhruv’s updated thoughts on the Lightning Network 26:04 - Bitcoin as a medium of exchange starts to make sense when there's unique things that you can buy in Bitcoin that you can't buy with any other currency. These goods are likely to be digital 28:21 - Technology’s Pattern of the Beautiful Surprise - We thought we were building a money with Bitcoin at layer 0 but actually ended up building a clock. Similarly at layer 1, we thought we were building a payment settling auction system but at the same time, we built a virtual machine 30:45 - We think we’re building a 2nd layer IOU based payment network, but we’re actually building a kind of an Internet. In order for these payments to not be trackable we need to solve onion routing and end up building incentivized TOR 32:00 - Lightning is a network of keys among people. Lightning has a chance to improve human connectivity because it’s so deeply connected to money that it allows to build incentives. This already makes Lightning Network superior to TOR 41:10 - The hard problem of Bitcoin: how do you scale order books and markets past layer 0 in.a decentralized manner? 43:15 - Content as a use case uniquely suited for for Lightning payments 48:07 - The reason you want to build Lightning Nodes is to participate in the golden age of piracy 50:11 - what we thought was a payments network is actually a new routing table. The old Internet is about payments inside of data; the Lightning Network is an inversion - data inside of payments 52:05 - The Future of Intellectual Property 56:58 - Nostr and Web of Trust 59:21 - Dhruv’s assessment of the present and future of Nostr 1:05:06 - Identity, reputation, and the role of keys 1:10:41 - Blossom servers provide the infrastructure for the file/information markets that Dhruv hypothesized 1:12:31 - AI and the evolution of digital life! 1:14:42 - AI is a more sophisticated search algorithm 1:16:41 - Thinking about AI in the context of ecology and the origins of life 1:17:52 - The Umwelt of an AI leads Dhruv to believe it will use bitcoin 1:19:01 - Why an AI might value bitcoin - its anchoring in energy computation 1:20: 05 - The thoughts and feelings of AIs are computations consuming resources leading to a direct relationship to economics 1:21:09 - Digital evolution, metabolism and the Krebs cycle (which may have emerged before life), and the analogy of bitcoin to ATP 1:23:55 Ecologies don’t evolve towards gray goo, AI likely won’t either! 1:26:15 - Discussion of entropy and life 1:27:52 - 1:31:31 - Great explanation of how AI evolution might mimic biological evolution and why this won’t lead to runaway intelligence or gray goo 1:33:06 - If you really want to build a strong AI, you may need to evolve it 1:36:12 - Thought experiment of how digital life might evolve: do we have all the necessary ingredients today? 1:48:56 - A protopia message on which to train the AIs This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   8 May 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Open Source AI and Confidential Compute with Anthony & Marks (Co-founders, OpenSecret)

   Anthony & Marks were in town for LlamaCon so we got a chance to jam! We discussed a variety of topics including: * The state of Llama, DeepSeek, and Open Source AI * Dario’s take “On DeepSeek and Export Controls” https://www.darioamodei.com/post/on-deepseek-and-export-controls (https://www.darioamodei.com/post/on-deepseek-and-export-controls) * Data Quality is key - Garbage In, Garbage Out (speculation: Facebook data not nearly as valuable as Twitter or Reddit?) * Trend of companies not using proprietary models to protect data privacy * AI Alignment towards truth: how to ensure LLMs show real chain of thought * The model host matters most - open source models get filtered in dramatically different ways depending on hosting and system prompts * The value of open source models in preventing brainwashing/mind control * Learnings from Mutiny that led to Open Secret * Confidential Computing Explained * Secure Enclaves moving from the iPhone to the cloud * OpenSecret is like Apple’s private cloud compute but open source, verifiable, and anyone can use it * How to craft better prompts (meta-prompting) to get the most out of AI * How OpenSecret and Maple AI verify a chat is private. Enclaves as the next upgrade of HTTPS https://blog.opensecret.cloud/opensecret-technicals/ (https://blog.opensecret.cloud/opensecret-technicals/) * Using AI to audit code * Secure enclaves as an ingredient for autonomous digital life * o1 isn’t a chat model (and that’s the point) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

4. 

   14 Apr 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Building a Decentralized App Store and Web of Trust with Franzap

   I’ve been sitting on this for a month, but the conversation is more relevant now than ever! As vibe coding enables the creation of orders of magnitude more apps and media, the question becomes: how do I sort through this embarrassment of riches to find what I actually need (https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqstzxyj93g2vp6399rrvt2gdfhyhpfypwmlnvs9t5qhwk3pgjlgx0cuwkvw9)? One option is to trust centralized entities like companies or governments. Franzap, however, has another idea. Using Nostr’s global identity, data commons, and micropayments, he’s designing a new kind of app store powered by a decentralized web of trust. I hope you enjoy! Here are a few topics we discuss: * Fran’s vision for an open, permissionless alternative to Apple and Android app stores * How Zapstore (https://zapstore.dev) could help fund open source development * Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) have limited path to adoption * Is it time to build an App Store for AI agents to use?! An open MCP registry could be a good starting point * IA (Intelligence Amplification) vs. AI (Artificial Intelligence) * The future of AI and app development * Why a decentralized Web of Trust matters in sorting information, apps, accounts and anything else * How to build and use a decentralized Web of Trust This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

5. 

   29 Jan 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Money & Markets in a Post AGI World with Jordi Montes, Founder - Fewsats

   Jordi is one of the few people in the world with a deep understanding of the concurrent singularities of AI and Bitcoin. He has particularly novel thoughts on the nature of money and markets post AGI/ASI. This was a fascinating discussion - hope you enjoy! A few topics we discuss: * How Jordi became AGI/ASI pilled (language = code) * The concurrent singularities of AGI/Bitcoin (almost no-one understands them both) * Two fundamental types intelligence: 1) desire / will and 2) implementation * AGI capabilities: all implementation, “will” remains to be seen * As long as there are still multiple groups who own things, different perspectives, and multiple groups reach AGI/ASI around the same time, we’ll still need markets for coordination * Markets forming between agents (and humans) should create brand new economic theory untestable heretofore * Jordi outlines several novel forces for markets in a world with agents in Beyond the Sum: Unlocking AI Agents Potential Through Market Forces (https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.10388) * 1) perfect replication of actors, 2) dynamic instantiation (and deletion) of actors, 3) collective learning with perfect information, and 4) resource fluidity for agents * The role of Nostr and an emergent web of trust in filtering information in this new Internet * Gigi’s articles on how a better currency/payment system can lead to better business models: Attention is a Terrible Currency (https://dergigi.com/threads/attention) and Value for Value (https://dergigi.com/value/) * Comparing the early Lightning Network to the early Internet * Building fewsats.com (http://fewsats.com): payment infrastructure for AI agents. Jordi’s new demo: sherlockdomains.com (http://sherlockdomains.com) - a domain registrar made for AI agents * Is python now the lingua franca? How do we get more bitcoin and nostr libraries in python? * The future of Nostr as the open identity/communication standard for humans and agents * AI / agent predictions for 2025 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

6. 

   2 Dec 2024TRANSCRIPT

   Kagi: Hacker News’ favorite search engine is coming to Nostr! with Vlad (Founder, Kagi)

   Vlad, founder of Kagi, discusses how his search engine will integrate with Nostr, challenging Google's dominance and exploring new search paradigms with Max.

7. 

   22 Nov 2024TRANSCRIPT

   The State of Nostr with Bob Scully, David King, Oscar Merry, and Moritz Kaminski

   Nostr experts Bob Scully, David King, Oscar Merry, and Moritz Kaminski explore the revolutionary potential of open identity and social graphs in the internet, enabling a Cambrian explosion of new social apps.

8. 

   1 Nov 2024TRANSCRIPT

   Complexity Rules Everything Around Me with Lyn Alden

   This was a fun and fascinating conversation with Lyn Alden! We discuss a number of topics about which she’s not typically asked. One common thread throughout the conversation is how best to understand and invest around complex systems. Please note that while Lyn and I discuss some biohacking/energy boosting stuff, we’re definitely not doctors, so do your own research ;) Here are a few of the topics we cover: Energy Hacks * Lyn’s favorite energy boosting hacks, including: magnesium, sardines, vitamin K2, vitamin A, cold plunges, and sprinting Complexity and Permaculture * Lyn’s fascination with permaculture and the application of permaculture principles to our information diets * How Lyn builds a brand around being open and intellectually honest to avoid group think and audience capture * Top down vs. bottom up (Communism vs. Capitalism) is the big story of the 20th century that continues today Nostr * The promise of Nostr as a new substrate for re-wilding the web and its ultimate TAM * Evaluating Nostr vs. other systems/protocols attempting to build a decentralized identity/data system * NOSTR project requests from Lyn and Max Big Tech and AI * Lyn’s take that AI is a continuation of the cloud computing wave, which means it’s centralizing in the medium term * BUT these big companies are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by restricting and closing off their products, which leaves an opening for tech that’s a year or so behind but actually open and less neutered * Lyn is less bullish on AGI; the biggest breakthroughs are likely to come out of left field like trillion dollar health care companies * Lyn is also less bullish on robotics because it’s energy intensive and more complex; software often goes faster than you think and hardware often goes slower than you think Open Source Software and Companies * The big winners from open source software are platform aggregators (e.g. AWS) and users * Lyn analogizes companies built on open source software to ETFs - products with trillions of dollars under management but companies like Black Rock, State Street, and Invesco, which are big but not massive. BlackRock is a $160B company and only half of that is ETFs. Big but not Google or Apple. ETF businesses are worth a couple hundred billion for an industry worth >$10 trillion; the true winners here are the users as margins race to the bottom MicroStrategy * Can $MSTR sustain its premium trading 3x to NAV ? * $MSTR advantages: founder control and growing liquidity network effects (e.g. MSTR options markets); very few ETFs and companies will achieve sufficient liquidity in their options markets Bitcoin and Energy * Bitcoin is energy backed money - external entropy is what makes the Bitcoin system not circular logic (like proof of state) and a truly autonomous system * Both Lyn and Max track energy price/density models for Bitcoin * Lyn also uses MVRV Z-Score for tracking fair Bitcoin price This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

9. 

   23 Oct 2024TRANSCRIPT

   Designing Jack's favorite shirt, Creating an open music library, and Growing an indie music empire with Sam Means (Founder, lightning.store and Wavlake)

   * The genesis of lightning.store (http://lightning.store) * Parallels between Bitcoin and the punk/DIY scenes * Max’s dad - indie artist who made some cool trippy nostr shirts (which Max is wearing during interview) * Sam’s NOFX Nostr shirt (which Max wears frequently) * How Sam decides what shirts to make * Making Jack’s favorite shirt, seeing it on the Super Bowl, and stress testing Sam’s Lightning node + btcpayserver setup * Sam needs a Lightning Shopify app that works (opportunity for listeners!) * Sam got started making a first website and forum for the Weezer fan club * Sam is the consummate entrepreneur: he just does the things that need to be done * Sam’s education was coming up in bands and working venues * Pinkerton - the Weezer album changed the course of Sam’s life * Can a band be big and not suck? * Why the music biz generally sucks for bands * The magic of finding a new band that “flips your lid” (Sam’s new favorite phrase) * The magic of David Bowie and artists who can reinvent themselves * Finding the weirdest 10cc record in Japan * A history of the interplay between music and technology from pre Internet to p2p file sharing to streaming to what’s coming next * Scott Joplin and piano rolls (artists were getting screwed from day 0) * Lars from Metallica will forever be known as the guy who wants to put 12 yo music fans in jail * Music Like Water (https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/0131/042.html) (2005, Forbes) - early article explaining how to charge for music like a utility * The monthly subscription fee for everything was the first step to a new idea * ~97% of artists on Spotify make approximately nothing. If this market can make anything somewhere else they’re likely to try it * Bitcoin is the real occupy Wall Street; Wavlake (http://wavlake.com) is the real occupy Spotify * Even though big artists are making money, they’re still leaving a lot on the table with all the middlemen * Wavlake is changing incentives so super fans can give uncapped support for the value they receive * We jumped into the internet super fast. Now Nostr is helping us rearchitect the web by letting people travel through the Internet and bring their social graph with them * Now Wavlake and Value4Value is doing this for Music; the industry was almost completely uprooted in the last wave, but ultimately failed; now we have another shot * The role of the curator in the new more p2p internet world * Wavlake’s grand plan: it’s not a music player with zaps, but rather an open music catalogue that disrupts all of music distribution * Bandcamp and SoundCloud are examples of building a new library from the ground up * Wavlake is following their example with the key difference that their library is not confined to one app but open to anyone (e.g. Fountain (http://fountain.fm)) * How does Wavlake compete with Spotify - they don’t * The magic of interoperable networks and instant payments (good clip around 1:10) * Artist still only had to upload track once but the potential for where that track can live and get monetized is unlimited * The negotiations between all parties is transparent unlike current opaque set of deals * We’re making podcasting for music (another good clip around 1:14) * Wavlake’s open music catalogue is inspired by thePodcasting 2.0 spec * Developer splits incentivizes developers to try adding and monetizing music in new ways * Now music can live in all kinds of different experiences (good clip around 1:16) * Interoperability means your social graph and comments follow you to any app you use! A comment in Wavlake shows up in Fountain * LN Beats (https://lnbeats.com) and RSS Blue (https://rssblue.com) also working interoperably * Sam is not afraid of competition, in fact he’s paying to incentivize it * One artist monetizing via bitcoin and value4value will start the tsunami * Check out the Forbes article on Value4Value (https://www.forbes.com/sites/frankcorva/2024/10/01/musicians-can-now-earn-bitcoin-for-streaming-their-songs/) * Ainsley Costello might already be the first big artist. She had made about $750 over years across Spotify 60+ other services. In one year, she’s made >$12k on Wavlake, Fountain, and other Lightning V4V apps. She was the first artist to earn >1M sats * If 97% of artists can make enough to do music full time in value4value land, it’s game over for traditional music industry. And if they can do well, imagine how well the big artists can eventually do when they cut out the middle men * Superstars like Kanye, Snoop Dogg, and James Blake are just as pissed about the current state of extractive music industry * Average people may not understand exactly how they’re getting fucked, but they know they’re getting fucked with the current monetary and business system - largely because every system lacks transparency * In an open world, companies like Wavlake will need to add valuable services (e.g. licensing) on top of their library to compete and win * ASCAP (what a name lol) fails to live up to their promise to monitor song uage and pay artist royalties * Maxs ideas for nostr business models: #1 remix economy - stemstr for everything  and #2 rise of the curator or DJs for everything - getting curators paid for their good taste * Wavlake’s plan to build split marketplaces for music and live radio shows where hosts get paid * Value4Value music podcasts are taking off on Wavlake and Fountain * Sam owns several successful businesses around the music industry (lightning.store, merch, label, venue, zine, wavlake). Each business feeds into this growing indie empire * Wastoids (https://wastoids.com) is crazy cool video zine; Sam and his colleagues interview cool indie bands like People Under the Stairs and Red Cross * Check out his pods like Click Vortex (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY3oYjj2OKU), a crazy show called Midnight Music Review in the Attic (https://wastoids.com/tag/midnight-music-review-in-the-attic/) with an Argentinian dude dressed like a wolf presenting new music in his attic, and a Friday music show (https://wastoids.com/2024/09/06/underground-rap-legends-people-under-the-stairs-an-interview-with-the-mighty-redd-kross-music-news/) inspired by MTV News * Sam starts experiments that could feed into each other and scales them as they work * His buddy works at Aquarium Drunkard (https://aquariumdrunkard.com) and gets major indie darlings to come on show * Goal is for Wavlake to become one of the channels on DistroKid that will catch artists’ attention when they wonder why they made $700 on Wavlake and only 9 cents everywhere else; Wavlake already has simple onboarding for artists, now just needs a simple onboarding for fans * Open library is already 10k+ tracks and growing, that’ll just keep getting better * Sam’s team of 28 pitches in all over his indie music empire * Sam’s secret: he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he just does what needs to be done! His intent was never to run a business, he just wanted to be in a band haha * Sam’s been doing Value4Value at HelloMerch (http://hellomerch) for 17 years. He doesn’t make a penny until something sells; Wavlake will scale in a similar fashion Learn more about Wavlake (http://wavlake.com) Leave a review on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hivemind-ideas-from-the-edge/id1731637285) Listen on Fountain (https://fountain.fm/show/6B4VONcojdM9GdIjnDZF) Follow Sam on Twitter (https://x.com/ltngstore?lang=en) Follow Sam on Nostr (https://primal.net/p/npub1eequz6v23szzyx9utphsh8kg6kll50wte6sfh4vah8gdjtplcz6qg7at9s) Follow Max on Twitter (https://x.com/MaxAWebster) Follow Max on Nostr (https://primal.net/p/npub18lzls4f6h46n43revlzvg6x06z8geww7uudhncfdttdtypduqnfsagugm3) Follow Max on Stacker News (https://stacker.news/MaxAWebster) Read Max's Writings here (https://hivemind.vc/writings/) Learn more about Hivemind Ventures (https://hivemind.vc/) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

10. 

    9 Oct 2024

    High Strangeness, Memetics, and the Open Source Insurgency

    This was a fun one! In most recent episodes, I’ve had conversations with builders from the Nostr/Bitcoin community about other rabbit holes they’re interested in. In today’s episode, I sat down with Jack Heart, a longtime blogger and veteran of high strangeness and esoteric rabbit holes galore. Although we focus primarily on themes from Jack’s blog and recent book, we do spend some time discussing the principles of Nostr and how they align with Jack’s view of building an open source insurgency. I’m hoping to do more conversations with thinkers like Jack from communities philosophically adjacent to Nostr. You can learn more about Jack’s work on his blog, Tekgnostics (https://tekgnostics.blogspot.com), and in his new book, Brave Noo World: A Guerrilla Ethnography of High Strangeness (https://www.amazon.com/Brave-Noö-World-Ethnography-Strangeness/dp/0997063580). Here are some of the other topics we cover: * High strangeness and the acceleration of technology, society, and novelty * Tekgnostics (https://tekgnostics.blogspot.com) - a balance of artifact and epiphany * J. Allen Hynek - coined the term high strangeness * The origin of Foo Fighters - UFOs * Cosmic triggers - the atomic bomb - UFO craze after the war - term UFO coined after lights over Mt. Ranier * 2012 as omega point for Terence McKenna and the Mayans * High strangeness going mainstream as dominant paradigm: politicians calling each other weird * Synchronicity as meaningful coincidence * Vernor Vinge’s singularity and the end of the human era * Humor as the highest and most human form of intelligence and the great weapon against bureaucracy * Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (https://www.organism.earth/library/author/pierre-teilhard-de-chardin) and the Noosphere as the omega point of human thought and the next layer of biosphere * Humans will ultimately be all right because of our creativity * Humans are tool and model builders * Early internet was the first model of what the hivemind might look like * Nostr and gnostic — a happy synchronicity ;) * Digital evolution and DNA * Philip K Dick’s view of DNA as a binary system of memory coils which gnosis allows us to read * The workaround - humans’ core ability to adapt to whatever circumstances * Jung and the ability to catch ideas from the noosphere * The Buddha is in the Park * Discordianism: seriousness vs humor - don’t take the world too seriously * Humor is the highest form of intelligence; perhaps AI will struggle to mimic or understand humor * “When I dress like a clown, the cops won’t hit me” * The clown and jester archetype; the fool and the trickster (Prometheus , Krishna?) * Meme magic and memetics as mind virus * Memes are a big reason Trump won in 2016 (Pepe the frog) * The open source / decentralized insurgency * The ebb and flow of everything * Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, chakras, and the 8 brain model of psychology * Crowdfunding a billboard for Brazil all over nostr * Nostr as the open source / decentralized  insurgency against bureaucracy * PKD and blows against the empire * Bureaucracy lacks a sense of humor * Gnosticism as the mystic arm of Christianity * Overview of gnostic thought * The great Yin/Yang, masculine/feminine, binary dichotomy of the universe * Why something instead of nothing (manifest vs. unmanifest)? * The mythology of Ancient Civilizations - civilizations rise and fall all the time * Creating substrates for data redundancy and preventing human amnesia (Nostr/Project Alexandria and The Internet Archive)a * Jack’s Book: Brave Noo World (https://www.amazon.com/Brave-Noö-World-Ethnography-Strangeness/dp/0997063580) and blog: Tekgnostics (https://tekgnostics.blogspot.com) Learn more about Brave Noo World (https://www.amazon.com/Brave-Noö-World-Ethnography-Strangeness/dp/0997063580) Leave a review on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hivemind-ideas-from-the-edge/id1731637285) Listen on Fountain (https://fountain.fm/show/6B4VONcojdM9GdIjnDZF) Follow Max on Twitter (https://x.com/MaxAWebster) Follow Max on Nostr (https://primal.net/p/npub18lzls4f6h46n43revlzvg6x06z8geww7uudhncfdttdtypduqnfsagugm3) Follow Max on Stacker News (https://stacker.news/MaxAWebster) Read Max's Writings here (https://hivemind.vc/writings/) Learn more about Hivemind Ventures (https://hivemind.vc/) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

11. 

    24 Sept 2024

    Anarchism, The Origins of Nostr, & The Future of FOSS with Ben Arc (Founder, LNbits)

    I sit down with LNbits founder Ben Arc for a wide ranging and fascinating conversation about political philosophy, Nostr, and the future of FOSS/AI. Check out the notes below for more details on our discussion. This was a treat to record and I hope you enjoy! * Ben’s left libertarian / anarchist lens on Bitcoin - the ultimate goal is liberty * Stateless socialism, Marx, and Adam Smith * Open protocols like Bitcoin / Nostr  and public key cryptography replacing functions of the state * Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: “Property is theft, property is liberty” * Soulful vs. soul-less capital * “The Adam Smith Invisible B***h Slap” - Ben’s synthesis of left anarchism and Austrian/ancap thought. Open protocols, public key cryptography, FOSS create new more efficient commons in which private capital can participate. But if capital tries to co-opt the commons, it gets the Adam Smith invisible hand b***h slap (see the big blockers from Segwit2x). This creates the playing field for an actual free market * Collaboration vs extraction - key is aligning incentives so both parties win and grow the pie * “Value waterfalls and the remix economy”- Max’s idea of how BTC and open source protocols will evolve - similar to Stemstr. Both parties win when they collaborate are incentivized to share the same stream of files which get remixed and create thicker value waterfalls or a bigger pie for all * Peter Kropotkin and Mutual Aid - rereading Darwin for mutual aid as a driving factor in evolution * Karma and evolution: 1) nothing is permanent; everything is in flow; everything is relative - one order lower of complexity sees only itself + information 2) karma may be the ultimate driver/law of evolution - a system evolves in its totality toward more mutual aid and complexity * Hegel and the Master-Slave Dialectic - exploitation requires dehumanization making both parties less in touch with reality and happy; in order for them to both be free they need to become peers. The ultimate goal is more liberation/liberty * P2P peer relationships are the best healthiest relationships: what we see in Bitcoin and open networks * John Nash: non oppressive mind space is healthiest - Mind on Strike: giving more people mind space allows their minds to explore and explode open; libertarianism comes from liberation and the need for some equality for this to happen. * Is John Nash Satoshi? * Ben’s entry to bitcoin: dorky Uk news correspondents, his students using dark markets, a hatred of banks, and Wikileaks * The mindseed for nostr: Ben’s Diagon Alley * Pirate Bay and p2p markets * Building the first twitter clone on nostr; apologies for NIP-04 * Reverting a fiatjaf hard commit led to Branle * Securing nostr.com for 1 BTC * First talk on Nostr at Paralelni Polis * Finding the alpha with the productive nyms; spear fishing for projects; hanging out on edge of internet; if you’re sending a deck it’s generally too late for me * Nostr and free / open / non Orwellian / non evil IoT * what all can we build with relays, web sockets, and public key crypto * Building a new web with Nostr (e.g. see Nostr Wallet Connect and early IoT) * Protocol stack; the old web is compromised and drowning in AI spam; dead internet theory is here; Nostr (public key crypto) for signing notes is our best defense * Nostr.com is selling dope NIP-05 verifiers * LNbits released a Nostr signing device for identity management * Nostr is best of both worlds online - create smaller forum like communities while still riding on a global network effect * “A better Internet is possible” - we’re not at the end of history * FOSS, nostr, and bitcoin are viruses which infect the system: Just like the major financial institutions with Bitcoin, eventually Twitter will plug into Nostr * Monopoly of the commons is the future; FOSS eventually swallows all (see Switzerland recently requiring the government to use FOSS) * AI brings the age of disposable software at least at the level of building extensions * The need for more Bitcoin and Nostr tooling in Python for the AI community so they can easily bring identity and payments / value transfer to the agents * Max’s thesis: evolution of digital life forms : open source models will evolve into swarms of agents with value - see hivemind.vc/ai (http://hivemind.vc/ai) * The importance of reputation in Nostr: Web of Trust as a theoretical solution; open timestamps with payment to go higher up a merkle tree; AI agent as dvm for calculating trust * Ben is more wary of AI long term and thinks it will be more monolithic than swarm-like; perhaps it becomes a benign dictator that could kill us or just give us what we need to be happy; could be capitalism as we know it eating itself and requiring a new system? * How the Light Gets In: philosophy festival (part of haybook festival): open AI guy calling the god AI Super Gaia * Max’s idea on AI: there will be always trade-offs resulting in different forms of intelligence Learn more about LNbits (https://lnbits.com) Leave a review on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hivemind-ideas-from-the-edge/id1731637285) Listen on Fountain (https://fountain.fm/show/6B4VONcojdM9GdIjnDZF) Follow Max on Twitter (https://x.com/MaxAWebster) Follow Max on Nostr (https://primal.net/p/npub18lzls4f6h46n43revlzvg6x06z8geww7uudhncfdttdtypduqnfsagugm3) Follow Max on Stacker News (https://stacker.news/MaxAWebster) Read Max's Writings here (https://hivemind.vc/writings/) Learn more about Hivemind Ventures (https://hivemind.vc/) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

12. 

    4 Sept 2024TRANSCRIPT

    Power Markets, Pirates, and Energy Backed Money with Andrew Myers (Co-founder, Satoshi Energy)

    Andrew and I sit down for a fun conversation while overlooking the San Francisco Bay. There are a few sound/wind issues with my mic (mostly towards the end), but hopefully nothing too disruptive. We focus a lot on energy, but touch on a number of interesting ideas from the edge, including: * The declining cost of solar and batteries * The commodification of solar and Bitcoin miners * The interconnection process in ERCOT * Opening new markets as the cost of solar continues to decline * Bitcoin Mining vs. AI compute markets (price and uptime are two major factors) * Reforming legacy power markets vs building new ones with microgrids (micromarkets enable microgrids) * What a power market does - 1) match supply and demand to create price at each node and 2) serves as clearing house * Nostr as the communication protocol for decentralized energy markets? * Pirates once ruled the world because they were free to experience different modes of life. Do they still? * Andrew’s vagabond/pirate ethos and lifestyle experiments * Andrew’s other business idea: a tech enabled private military as an insurance company * How does humanity evolve into the hivemind? * Patience as the ultimate virtue Learn more about Satoshi Energy (https://satoshienergy.com) Leave a review on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hivemind-ideas-from-the-edge/id1731637285) Listen on Fountain (https://fountain.fm/show/6B4VONcojdM9GdIjnDZF) Follow Max on Twitter (https://x.com/MaxAWebster) Follow Max on Nostr (https://primal.net/p/npub18lzls4f6h46n43revlzvg6x06z8geww7uudhncfdttdtypduqnfsagugm3) Follow Max on Stacker News (https://stacker.news/MaxAWebster) Read Max's Writings here (https://hivemind.vc/writings/) Learn more about Hivemind Ventures (https://hivemind.vc/) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

13. 

    18 Jul 2024TRANSCRIPT

    Music, Discovery, eCash, and Identity with Tony Giorgio (Co-Founder, Mutiny Wallet)

    Max and Tony cover a lot of ground, including: - Music and its role in society: “He who controls the music controls the mind” - Why the ad model for monetizing the Internet is not only a panopticon, but also extremely ineffective - How to find under appreciated long tail Internet content - How to improve Nostr on-boarding for noobs - The role of the curator on Nostr - Permissionless identity creation means evolution can happen much faster - How Tony uses AI - How to live a healthy life with (and without) technology; camping is great - in theory - The balance between contributing to open source and building a company - Lightning Network as the final settlement layer and Nostr Wallet Connect as the async message layer - eCash and why Tony is bullish on Fedimint - Fedimint as its own consensus network - Nostr evolving into identity for the Internet - Nostr as the fire hose of raw data - you can build anything with it - Open source vs. closed source AI development Learn more about Mutiny Wallet Learn more about Mutiny Wallet Timestamps: 00:00 The Human mind associates tastes with nostalgic memories. 05:12 Whoever controls the music controls the mind. 16:51 Enjoy infinite exploration, linking to quality content. 24:04 Accessing search engine data for analysis and manipulation. 37:15 Generating personalized recommendation lists based on specific topics. 50:05 Discussing the impact of content creation on platforms. 51:06 Simplify content sharing for enhanced user experience. 01:06:26 OpenAI's methods are scrutinized, and the societal impact is praised. 01:19:02 Recognizing the loss of valuable tools, reflecting on technology's impact on society. 01:25:30 Elderly individual reflects on technology's impact. 01:31:00 There will be those who can focus and run things, and those who can't will get run. 01:35:07 Themes in the Bitcoin community: openness, capitalism, free markets. 01:43:35 Appreciation for both capitalism and open markets. 02:01:11 Decentralized spending permissions using private key-based NWC. 02:13:16 Exploring the necessity and complexities of global identity. 02:20:56 Equal treatment for all tech users is desired. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Listen on Fountain Follow Max on Twitter Follow Max on Nostr Follow Max on Stacker News Also, Read Max's Writings here Learn more about Hivemind Ventures This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

14. 

    17 Jun 2024

    Swarmwise, Ron Paul, and Open Source AI

    Christopher and Max explore: * The influence of Swarmwise and the Pirate Party on Chris’ approach to building * Lessons learned from the Ron Paul Campaign in ’08 and ’12 * The state of open source AI * Plans for openagents.com to unlock bottoms-up market intelligence * What exactly is the singularity? Is the future gray goo or Star Trek? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

15. 

    5 Jun 2024TRANSCRIPT

    AI, Simulations, and Startups with Keyan Kousha (Founder, Stacker News)

    Keyan and Max jam on several topics including: * What is the singularity? * The future of AI and the coming intelligence explosion * Does the brain create or receive consciousness? * Can machines have souls? * Do we live in a simulation? * Keyan’s learnings from 7+ startups prior to Stacker News * How to balance intuition and feedback from reality * Why Jack is a 🐐 founder * Using bitcoin to create physical constraints in digital space * The future of Stacker News territories (end-to-end encryption?!) * Kagi and the opportunity to disrupt Google search * Evolution, epigenetics, and the observer effect This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

16. 

    28 Mar 2024TRANSCRIPT

    Evolution and Nostr with Stu Bowman (Founder, Satellite.earth)

    Stu and Max jam on a wide range of topics including: Terence McKenna, the world of language, evolution, Web of Trust, and the future of Nostr. At least two big ideas really clicked for me: 1) Nostr as the substrate for digital evolution (i.e. forking with checkpoints) and 2) Nostr as an API for market intelligence. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hivemindvc.substack.com (https://hivemindvc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

Inside a recent episode

The Future of Energy: AI, Solar, Bitcoin, & the New Grid with Ali Chehrehsaz (TerraVerde Energy)

Published 1 Oct 2025 · Transcript excerpt

[…] And before it gets there, things will get much worse. But before it actually death spirals, we will have another re -regulation in California. I believe in 2030s we will have that. There will be another reset that will happen in the state. And why it's happening is cost of generation is coming down, right? Gas generation has gotten a lot cheaper over the past decade, a decade and a half. Solar and wind has come online. Batteries came, they were expensive, but now grid scale batteries are crushing it. I mean, it's like the battery gain is insane. Batteries are not eating more batteries. It's just like the early on batteries were making good money. […]

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