There's a lot of really inspiring stuff in here, to me at least it's rare to see an imagination of space colonization that involves natural harmonies at each step along the way. Without that though, outward expansion lacks a certain warmth. I'm not sure how I'll be able to incorporate flows into my own relationship with land right now, but it's a thought that will stay with me.
Stocks v. Flows is one of my favorite Blackthorn Hedge ideas thatt I hope gets revisited often. The focus with "stocks" in current political, economic, and cultural problems means any lasting correctives anywhere will have to have more 'flow' wisdom. Human capital, health, and digital attention all seem ripe for rich flow analyses. Illustrating the dichotomy with the most vivid and ambitious example here though is a good start!
I had two thoughts in series thinking about the wet path to the stars. The first is a practical consideration of how the wet works out, the second about an edge-case (or misinterpretation?) of flow economies that may affect that outcome itself.
I agree wet and dry space exploration paths are not mutually exclusive. But how that evolves looks complex. If Elon's descendants focus on dry, and a hypothetical Nole focuses on wet, the easiest way for them to *not* get into a mutually exclusive competition for inspiration and capital is if shared costs of the launch, habitat, and space-based compute, power, and communications stack get cheap enough they do not have to. The tradeoff being the dry has the momentum now and will probably do the subsidization. The relative ease of Mars - despite the relative lower payoffs (which I agree with!) - makes that a good target to get that tech commoditized.
But if they do compete... That's a battle of attention (inspiration, then capital, then talent).The capital economy is an attention economy. That got me thinking, although a little off topic again, is the digital attention a flow economy as well? Are media network effects flow effects?
My first guess is "Yes, with an extra term." There are flow-like effects that then become attractors. Facebook's monopoly is a monopoly on the future flow of everyone getting on Social Media who wants to talk to the maximum number of people. This is rough, but my attention went there fast once I saw the future potential competition as an excuse to do so.
Thanks, John, I won't pretend to ownership of "stocks vs flows" here but I do hope to keep applying it! It's one of the perennially important binaries for framing any material system analyses.
On the last points there, on the attention economy: I started getting to exactly that issue by the end of my letter "Fracking the Collective Unconscious," where the "stock extraction" metaphor of fracking for outrage was giving way to a "flow harvesting" metaphor of "farming engagement." With attention economies, I don't think we know what is renewable and not yet, and I'm worried. I'm particularly worried that social media feed algorithms and LLMs are currently driving something like an "engagement farming Dust Bowl," and I may write about that soon (but I didn't want to begin with ML/AI here: that would not have been consistent with making a brake for the trampled fields, that would have been starting with trampling myself). Here: https://blackthornhedge.substack.com/p/fracking-the-collective-unconscious
Regarding the immediate prospects for competition between wet route and dry route, I see so many more complementarities than exclusivities I haven't worried too much about the latter! Maybe once there's some momentum to some of the early wet route projects, then I'll start seeing those challenges to come.
There's a lot of really inspiring stuff in here, to me at least it's rare to see an imagination of space colonization that involves natural harmonies at each step along the way. Without that though, outward expansion lacks a certain warmth. I'm not sure how I'll be able to incorporate flows into my own relationship with land right now, but it's a thought that will stay with me.
I am still contemplating that footnote as well 😅
Thanks, Hayden! If you do find hints of a regional vision for your land, I'll be interested to hear about them.
That footnote has definitely gotten some people in trouble. From Austen's Miss Bennett to Dostoevsky's Rogozhin...
Stocks v. Flows is one of my favorite Blackthorn Hedge ideas thatt I hope gets revisited often. The focus with "stocks" in current political, economic, and cultural problems means any lasting correctives anywhere will have to have more 'flow' wisdom. Human capital, health, and digital attention all seem ripe for rich flow analyses. Illustrating the dichotomy with the most vivid and ambitious example here though is a good start!
I had two thoughts in series thinking about the wet path to the stars. The first is a practical consideration of how the wet works out, the second about an edge-case (or misinterpretation?) of flow economies that may affect that outcome itself.
I agree wet and dry space exploration paths are not mutually exclusive. But how that evolves looks complex. If Elon's descendants focus on dry, and a hypothetical Nole focuses on wet, the easiest way for them to *not* get into a mutually exclusive competition for inspiration and capital is if shared costs of the launch, habitat, and space-based compute, power, and communications stack get cheap enough they do not have to. The tradeoff being the dry has the momentum now and will probably do the subsidization. The relative ease of Mars - despite the relative lower payoffs (which I agree with!) - makes that a good target to get that tech commoditized.
But if they do compete... That's a battle of attention (inspiration, then capital, then talent).The capital economy is an attention economy. That got me thinking, although a little off topic again, is the digital attention a flow economy as well? Are media network effects flow effects?
My first guess is "Yes, with an extra term." There are flow-like effects that then become attractors. Facebook's monopoly is a monopoly on the future flow of everyone getting on Social Media who wants to talk to the maximum number of people. This is rough, but my attention went there fast once I saw the future potential competition as an excuse to do so.
Thanks, John, I won't pretend to ownership of "stocks vs flows" here but I do hope to keep applying it! It's one of the perennially important binaries for framing any material system analyses.
On the last points there, on the attention economy: I started getting to exactly that issue by the end of my letter "Fracking the Collective Unconscious," where the "stock extraction" metaphor of fracking for outrage was giving way to a "flow harvesting" metaphor of "farming engagement." With attention economies, I don't think we know what is renewable and not yet, and I'm worried. I'm particularly worried that social media feed algorithms and LLMs are currently driving something like an "engagement farming Dust Bowl," and I may write about that soon (but I didn't want to begin with ML/AI here: that would not have been consistent with making a brake for the trampled fields, that would have been starting with trampling myself). Here: https://blackthornhedge.substack.com/p/fracking-the-collective-unconscious
Regarding the immediate prospects for competition between wet route and dry route, I see so many more complementarities than exclusivities I haven't worried too much about the latter! Maybe once there's some momentum to some of the early wet route projects, then I'll start seeing those challenges to come.