“We drink some more green tea and talk about going up to Malakoff Diggins, a park in Nevada County, because some people are starting a commune there and Max thinks it would be a groove to take acid there. He says maybe we could go next week, or the week after, or anyway sometime before his case comes up […], ‘We’re gonna let it all happen’.” - Joan Didion1
Last-minute-pop-up-city-short-trip
Okkk, just booked my flight - off we go to Zuzalu - my first-ever pop-up city trip!
As I pass the gates (only after I’ve zk-proved my temporary visitor visa), I’m confronted with a surreal scene: Domes like you find them in extraterrestrial spaces, self-sustaining ecosystem vibes, and people strolling around with holographic devices, discussing Turing-complete algorithms and zk-SNARKS with nonchalant ease. I feel like a primitive human in a world of cyborgs.
Is this the future? Or an escape from the present?
Over the course of the weekend, I‘m trying to immerse myself in this fascinating, yet at times somehow alien world. People are challenging my perspective on ZKML, AI alignment, and the science of consciousness. The conversations are deep and polarizing, leaving me in an uncanny valley between crypto-enhanced enthusiasm and AGI nightmares.
I text a friend on day two whether he wants to join me for an unconference on crypto x AI; he replies promptly: “Nah, had enough doomer vibes for the weekend 😄.” Fair enough, one of the first panels has the overly optimistic title Eventually We All Die. But I’m grateful for this stimulating contrast between tech-utopism at breakfast and proactive dystopism at lunch - the lively debates actually keep me from overthinking how weirdly normal food intake itself feels here: Deciding for a restaurant (choices are limited, even if not intentionally, minimizing distraction from more relevant issues), ordering, waiting, chewing,… it somehow feels almost too ordinary for this place.
On being Orb-timistic
Why do we happen to choose pessimism most of the time?
Maybe, because it’s easier, at least if you decide to keep things low-effort by just taking the “Heads in the Sand” position. It’s probably the path of least resistance - both intellectually and socially. While it’s easy to come up with reasons for collective failure and catastrophic endgame scenarios, imagining and believing in a sustainable AI utopia demands way more creativity. A fascinating guy with a sun hat of almost distracting size illustrated how vague our ideas of long-term utopian coexistence of human and machine intelligence still are:
“We’re actually bad at imagining real utopia.” 2
Having an extended cyborg-served brunch with our algorithmically selected friends, spending the whole day in a sleep-optimizing bed reading generative e-books, and listening to podcasts is only fun for a limited amount of time. So are sleep, tennis, and yoga,… basically most enjoyable things in life. Without scarcity, the value of pleasure seems to diminish over time.
Penning a wish list for a future where AI liberates us from the burden of mundane tasks may stoke our imagination, but it won't pave the path toward a tomorrow that outshines the present. It's a delightful prospect, yet it doesn't build the bridge we need to cross over to that vibrant, technicolor future we’re all dreaming of.
Maybe we should start with ourselves…? There’s this piece by Benjamin Wachs in the Burning Man Journal from a few years ago:
“AI learns through example, not through rhetoric. Its behaviour will be guided by ours. […] If we want future Artificial Intelligences to be beneficient, to hold human life as valuable, even sacred, to look out for our best interests… we may have to show it what that looks like first.”3
Is Zuzalu such a demo Benjamin describes? Experimenting on a small scale how the future, in co-existence with AI, could look on a global level?
When the center doesn’t hold, we decentralize
Grace from Pace Capital wrote this wonderful take on the concerning fragility of our society - and how startup cities could be a solution to the massive problem of global identity confusion.
But what happens when cloud-first civic frameworks become reality?
“What role does a central belief system / the supernatural play in governance?
Are philosophy and law interchangeable?
How literal vs. figurative can the one commandment be?
Can citizenship act as a new distribution format for religion?”4
Is crypto the 21st-century identity tech stack?
And are we at risk of prioritizing collective over individual identity?
My personal need for longevity
While at Berkeley, I was lucky enough to meet people like Isaak who initially sparked my interest in longevity research. But honestly, I never really got deeply excited about it - it was a superficial fascination without the inner urge to get active.
But looking at the reading list I compiled over the past few days, all the books that I ordered, and the dozens of blogs and websites I bookmarked,… 100 years definitely won’t be enough now.
Cool hats & sunnies
Online is still offchain
It was not the depth and complexity of the dialogues that stunned me the most but the passion, conviction, and sheer intelligence that buzzed in the air. It was like living in a different reality where the ordinary and mundane don’t exist anymore.
But is this disconnect, a presumably uncrossable chasm between Zuzalu and the rest of the world actually beneficial? Shouldn’t we all aim for more accessibility?
I enjoy being the dumbest one in the room but I assume the average person doesn’t.
And why do I feel like mass adoption is so 2022? I wanted to discuss on-chain games with my mom the other day: after an in-depth demo of Dark Forest and an evangelizing monologue on autonomous worlds, the only reaction I got was: “Have you made a reservation for dinner yet?”
Do we truly want crypto to become as common as the internet? Or do we actually enjoy this subtle feeling of superiority because we’re part of something the majority outside of our bubble still doesn’t care about (what our ego hears: they just don’t get it)?
For onchain to become the next online, the world needs less of an ivory tower and more of a common ground.
“More than a technological concept, ‘onchain’ has come to represent a space where trust, value, decentralization, and transparency are intrinsic values. As this understanding continues to grow, "onchain" is becoming recognized not just as a feature of technology, but as a transformative place within the internet itself.”5
Zulalu felt like the spatial irl realization of onchain as a place. But to make this intrinsically value-aligned, decentralized, and transparent framework a future accessible to more than just a few selected residents, we need to pave more walkable ways to get there.
Poetic AI co-reflection
Under a Cybernetic Cloud
Beneath an alien sky of neon mist, Where stars twinkle in coded algorithmic tryst, She talks of zkML, AI, and cybernetic craft, With cyborgs and savants, on psychotropic draft.
Sipping mushroom brew, they ponder longevity's lore, In the planet's ancient silence, they explore. In circuits etched with life's unending script, Where time and thought in fractal patterns, crypt.
I probably wouldn’t have booked my flights without you, Adam & Timour- thank you so much for the last-minute push & Airbnb recs 💫
Also, I couldn’t be more grateful for all the wonderful conversations I had with Derek, Tina, Simon, Johannes, Vincent, Holly, Laura, Esha, Mat, and Jules - the weekend wouldn’t have been the same without you!
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, one of Joan Didion’s transformative masterpieces, first published in 1967.
Vitalik Buterin during a talk on AI dystopias vs. AI utopias.
Why We Get The Robot Overlords We Deserve, Burning Man Journal (by Caveat Magister aka Benjamin Wachs, Burning Man’s Philosopher Laureate).
The Center Cannot Hold, by Grace Kasten.
Onchain is the next online, by Jacob from Zora.