The Padverb Podcast with KMO

Ben Blatt is a former staff writer for Slate and the Harvard Lampoon. Ben is a numbers guy who has taken his fun approach to data journalism to topics such as Seinfeld, map-making, the Beatles, and Jeopardy. This conversation centers around Ben's book "Nabokov's Favorite Word is Mauve" (2017). It's a book about what we can learn about writing and authors based not on what they say, or what impressions we get from reading their books, but on something that results from applying rigorous data analysis to their actual texts. Specifically, KMO and Ben discuss: 00:25 – Moneyball and its influence on Ben 02:12 – The attraction of baseball for analytical people 04:25 – Ben's interest in numbers and writing 06:40 – Patterns, correlations, and writing advice 10:00 – -LY adverbs 12:00 – British vs American English 14:40 – Bloke, blimey and the Harry Potter Effect 16:00 – Loud vs quiet verbs 19:08 – Pronoun and characters stats 20:00 – Comparing authors' noise levels 23:00 – Gender differences in literature 27:50 – Professionals and amateurs: the statistical differences 30:25 – Reading fan fiction 32:50 – Restraining style choices to foster creativity 34:50 – Revising one's novels 36:00 – Fame and success affecting one's writing style 38:00 – Data tools 40:15 – Vonnegut 42:10 – The validity of "write what you know" 43:10 – Digital Humanities and Franco Moretti's "Atlas of the European Novel" 47:15 – Ben's advice for aspiring writers 50:15 – Creating writing and progress in AI 52:05 – Ben's next project Ben (The Guest): Twitter: @BenBlatt KMO (The Host): Twitter: @Kayemmo en.padverb.com/kmo Padverb: The Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

George Zarkadakis is the author of both fiction and non-fiction books, who describes himself as a science communicator, an artificial intelligence engineer, a futurist, and a digital innovation professional. His most recent book is called "Cyber Republic: Reinventing Democracy in the Age of Intelligent Machines" (MIT Press, 2021). In this conversation, KMO and George discuss: 06:05 – Why democracy needs to be reinvented 06:50 – Incorporating technologies into democracies 18:10 – Animal labor's role in creating inequality and its implications 25:40 – The psychological dimension and transforming spectators into actors 32:40 – Financial time machine 37:30 – Running out of units of measurement 41:30 – Obviating the need for trust with the blockchain 46:00 – Precarious creative gigs and AI's progress with artistic tools 57:20 – Blockchain technology in search of problems to solve 65:05 – The current web's dysfunctional nature 01:07:50 – George's book George (The Guest): Twitter: @zarkadakis georgezarkadakis.com KMO (The Host): Twitter: @Kayemmo en.padverb.com/kmo Padverb: The Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Francis Nimmo is a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research specialty is understanding the structure and evolution of rocky and icy planets. KMO and Francis discuss: 02:30 – The importance of the James Webb and other telescopes 03:40 – NASA probes, the AI connection, and technical challenges 08:30 – The possibility of finding life and the radiation factor 09:45 – Europa and Enceladus 10:42 – Breaking molecules at fly-by speeds 11:50 – Technology limitations and ambiguity in our search for life 14:40 – The question of independent emergence of life 16:05 – Subsurface oceans 18:40 – Moons 23:25 – Saturn's rings 26:05 – The Kuiper belt and beyond 28:00 – Autonomy and hibernation 29:25 – Gas giants vs ice giants 31:25 – Pluto 35:50 – Mission re-assignment 40:10 – Canned apes and getting to Mars 42:30 – Sci-Fi future we were promised 44:15 – Venus 49:40 – Mercury 53:45 – Comets 56:05 – The Earth 57:40 – Deep Time Francis (The Guest): websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~fnimmo/ Francis Nimmo @ Wikipedia KMO (The Host): Twitter: @Kayemmo en.padverb.com/kmo Padverb: The Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Lauren Aguirre is an award-winning science journalist who has produced documentaries, short-form video series, podcasts, interactive games and blogs for the PBS series "Nova." She has covered everything from asteroids to human origins to art restoration, but is particularly fascinated by the brain. "The Memory Thief" is Lauren's first book. In this conversation, Lauren and KMO discuss: 02:03 – Lauren's memory incident 06:42 – Waking up and not knowing where you are 08:28 – Retrograde and anterograde amnesia 13:10 – The fentanyl connection 20:53 – Experimental brain surgery 24:18 – Amnesia sufferers' self-worth 29:13 – Faking anterograde amnesia 31:18 – Science communication 33:38 – Disappointment in science 34:53 – The Memory Thief's target audience 36:28 – Multilayer narratives 39:13 – Our shared experience of forgetting 43:08 – Remembering our remembering of events 44:38 – The trauma connection 47:35 – Optogenetics 49:08 – The scientific process and the pursuit of truth Lauren Aguirre (The Guest): laurenaguirre.com @lsaguirre KMO (The Host): Twitter: @Kayemmo en.padverb.com/kmo Padverb: The Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Carla Diana is a designer, author, and educator who explores the impact of future technologies through hands-on experiments in product design and tangible interaction. Her latest book, "My Robot Gets Me: How Social Design Can Make New Products More Human," published by Harvard Business Review Press, came out in March 2021. Carla and KMO discuss: 02:20 – Carla's book's title 02:30 – What 4D design is 04:40 – Robot friends 13:05 – What a robot is 21:10 – What "entities" are 28:55 – Robots' association with labor 33:28 – Robots interacting with the environment 37:15 – Robots, faces, and shared attention 44:45 – Whether humanoid robots a good idea at all 48:50 – Science fiction affecting robot design and key concepts from Carla Carla (The Guest): carladiana.com KMO (The Host): Twitter: @Kayemmo en.padverb.com/kmo Padverb: The Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast Featured quote “Humans were still not only the cheapest robots around, but also, for many tasks, the only robots that could do the job. They were self-reproducing robots too. They showed up and worked generation after generation; give them 3000 calories a day and a few amenities, a little time off, and a strong jolt of fear, and you could work them at almost anything. Give them some ameliorative drugs and you had a working class, reified and coglike.” ― Kim Stanley Robinson, 2312

Michael J. Spivey is a professor of cognitive science at the University of California Merced. He earned his BA in Psychology at the University of California Santa Cruz and his PhD in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester. After 12 years as a psychology professor at Cornell University, Michael moved to UC Merced to help build a department of cognitive and information sciences. He has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters on the embodiment of cognition and interactions between language, vision, memory, syntax, semantics, and motor movement. His most recent book, published in 2020, is "Who You Are: The Science of Connectedness." (MIT Press) In this conversation, KMO and Michael discuss: 03:20 – The book's title and table of contents; externalism and egregore 07:30 – The role of the prefrontal cortex in our conception of self 11:30 – Non-scientific view of interactions between brain parts 12:50 – Mental representations of the world and the tricks they can play on us 15:35 – Letting go of oneself 17:25 – The value of familiar environments 18:45 – The futility of widely used time-management tricks 19:40 – Extending our mind past our skin 25:20 – The skipped question of emergent group intentions and desires 26:15 – Connecting to other bodies and life forms; emergence, again 28:25 – Murmurations and being in charge of a flock 28:45 – Boundaries between objects 35:20 – Perceiving objects as extensions of ourselves 37:02 – Virtual reality and tracking the direction of gaze 43:15 – AI and dogs 44:55 – Computer-generated imagery; deep fakes and their antidotes 49:35 – Extending your sense of self to the planetary scale 53:55 – Apocalyptic predictions, prepping, and the future of civilization 55:47 – Going beyond our planet and contacting life elsewhere 58:20 – Anti-natalism, suffering, and feeling one with the universe 1:02:28 – Michael's closing points; practical advice in the book Michael (The Guest): Michael's page at ucmerced.edu Who You Are at MIT Press KMO (The Host): Twitter: @Kayemmo en.padverb.com/kmo Padverb: The Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

James Fodor is a science podcaster, an essayist, and currently, a PhD candidate in computational neuroscience and computational linguistics at the University of Melbourne (Australia). His intellectual and research interests cover such diverse areas as cognitive science, computer science, philosophy, theology, and economics. In this conversation, KMO and James discuss: 02:07 – A brief history of "The Science of Everything" 10:08 – How neural networks learn vs how humans learn 12:52 – The uncomfortable question of back-propagation 16:00 – Acquiring language and concepts 19:52 – Why and when machines' way of learning is important 23:22 – Illogical language models and the Internet lurking behind 25:52 – Conversation starters and GPT's talking to one another 27:45 – Modeling the mind vs the "just a neural network" cop-out 33:08 – A space of possible minds and complementing human intelligence 36:50 – Idiot chat bots and fearing AI 38:15 – The near-term future of AI 41:38 – Predicting the prosperity of nations James Fodor: The Science of Everything Podcast : fods12.podbean.com The Godless Theist Blog: thegodlesstheist.com James on YouTube: youtube.com/c/JamesFodor/ KMO: Twitter: @Kayemmo en.padverb.com/kmo Padverb: The Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Dr Jean-Marie Volland is a scientist at the Laboratory for Research in Complex Systems and an affiliate scientist at the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute. He is also the lead author on a recent research paper that announced the discovery of something that most people, including biologists, had scarcely thought possible: a gigantic bacterium which is thousands of times larger than its fellow microbes – so large, in fact, that it can be seen with the naked eye. In this conversation, KMO and Jean-Marie discuss: 01:50 – Thiomargarita Magnifica and its discovery 05:05 – Geography refresher 06:25 – JM's stumbling into biology 10:20 – Etymological remarks 10:55 – Sulfur-eating lifeforms and KMO's mammalian privilege 13:15 – Bug size competition 13:55 – The three-domain classification (Eukarya, Archaea, Bacteria) 16:45 – Taxonomy of the living forms 18:38 – Reproduction and evolution 22:13 – T. magnifica's unusual structure (with a brief mention of Anton Petrov's YouTube videos) 26:20 – Evolutionary advantages of being large 30:00 – Cooperation and competition in the natural world and beyond (way beyond, including the economy); ramifications of this dichotomy; symbiosis, parasitism, and commensalism; why is symbiosis so abiding when its game-theoretical disadvantages are also evident? 44:40 – JM's two closing take-home messages Host and Guests: KMO: @Kayemmo | en.padverb.com/kmo Jean-Marie Volland (LRC Systems) Links and Resources: Thiomargarita magnifica (Wikipedia)

Dr. Batja Mesquita is a social psychologist, an affective scientist, and a pioneer of cultural psychology. She is the author of "Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions." In this episode's first interview, KMO and Batja discuss: 03:10 – Batja's background and story 04:26 – What's WEIRD about Western countries 05:46 – US vs Netherlands: cultural differences 10:30 – Translating emotions between cultures 32:48 – Batja's take on the KMO's interview with Rich Firth-Godbehere 36:08 – The nature-culture dichotomy Our second guest, Simon Ager, is the founder, developer, and proprietor of Omniglot.com, an online encyclopedia of languages and writing systems. In this episode's second interview, KMO and Simon discuss: 47:40 - Learning Japanese writing 51:58 – Change in language learning methodologies 52:33 – Writing scripts on Omniglot 53:16 – Tolkien's invented languages 54:32 - Sonja Lang's Toki Pona 55:48 – Emojis 57:20 – Making random changes to the Klingon grammar official 58:18 – Languages, pidgins, creoles, and dialects 59:18 - Mastering accents as adult learners 1:01:37 – Watching foreign media and acquiring fake accents 1:06:23 – Omniglot's unusual pedigree as a one-man linguistic orchestra Host and Guests: KMO: @Kayemmo | en.padverb.com/kmo Dr. Batja Mesquita: @batjamesquita | www.batjamesquita.com | Wikipedia Simon Ager omniglot.com/aboutme.htm | @Omniglossia

Dr Paul Thagard is a Canadian cognitive scientist and philosopher of mind. He is the author of many interdisciplinary books, including, most recently, "Balance: How it Works and What it Means." In this conversation, KMO and Paul discuss: 03:32 – Balance, Paul's book of two parts 04:47 – The inner ear and its role in balance 06:50 – Comparing balance and scales 08:40 – Using metaphors, Scott Adams, and Sam Harris 15:52 – Toxic metaphors and AI monitoring live conversations 20:00 – How prevalent misinformation is 22:52 – Opinions on vaccination 23:28 – The notion of consensus reality 25:40 – The no-longer binary (strong/weak) nature of AI 30:48 – The vacuously eloquent linguistic models 34:32 – Panpsychism and its relation to neuroscience 37:38 – Neural representation of meaning 41:08 – Whether larger brains means more intelligence 45:22 – Cats vs Boston Dynamics robots and the generality of human skill 47:26 - AI ethics 50:20 - Our future moral duties to suffering-capable AI entities Host and guest: KMO: en.padverb.com/kmo | @Kayemmo Dr Paul Thagard: paulthagard.com Links and references: Overpopulation on Mars - quoteinvestigator.com/2020/10/04/mars/ Eliezer Yudkowsky – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky

Dr. Brooks is an evolutionary biologist, the author of two books ("Sex, Genes & Rock ‘n' Roll" and "Artificial Intimacy"), and the founder of the Evolutionary Ecology of Sexual Reproduction Research Group at the UNSW, which group's research focuses on the big questions surrounding human sexuality. In this longer-than-usual conversation, KMO and Rob touch on a number of sensitive questions, such as: Is an excess male population a danger to society and its rulers? Was monogamy a stabilizing force allowing to channel free (and often destructive) male energy toward something positive? Are today's incels correct in pointing out the inherent inequity of the sexual market? Is income inequality one of the drivers of involuntary celibacy? If so, might we be better served by addressing the root cause or providing accessible, if only crudely imitative, substitutes… that might still be better than nothing? 03:35 – Incels and the supply and demand problem of the mating market 09:47 – Young males taking risks, for good or ill 13:15 – Evolutionary psychology and its fans and skeptics on both ends of the ideological spectrum 18:10 – Christopher Ryan's "Sex at Dawn" and the advent of monogamy 20:10 – "Chads," "betas," and the "Genghis Khans" 23:06 – Monogamy stabilizing society 27:45 – Incel language and the connection with economic inequality 30:20 – Aibo by SONY 32:10 – KMO reciting a scene from Steven Spielberg's “A.I.” 37:25 – Getting a family dog, and how dogs have changed humanity 40:00 – Whether machines can really do intimacy 41:40 – The symbiotic relationship between humans and dogs and the transactional properties of sex 45:30 – William S. Burroughs's “Words Of Advice For Young People” and a less-than-rosy view of the good old times 47:45 – How the world has changed since KMO's and Rob's teenage years 49:52 – Enter the algorithms: making dating apps addictive 58:35 – Sex robots and how they are no way close to human 1:04:15 – Virtual reality sex giving sexbots a run for their money 1:07:50 – “Futurama” character dating a robot and the attendant motivational traps 1:09:26 – Dismissive views of artificial substitutes for sex and intimacy and why they might still be better than nothing Links: Robert Brooks: www.robbrooks.net | @Brooks_Rob KMO: en.padverb.com/kmo | @Kayemmo The Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Sacha Altay is a cognitive scientist and researcher at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. His research is focused on misinformation and (mis)trust. In this not-to-be-missed conversation, Sacha and KMO discuss: 03:20 – The difference between dis- and misinformation 06:40 – The varying levels of trust in science and media 07:40 – Bias, introspection, and brainwashing (with sporadic references to US elections) 11:35 – The era of minimal effects, confirmation bias, and reputation management 17:30 – AI detecting misinformation 18:45 – Watching “Behind the Curve” and KMO's unexpected connection with a "flat earth"-believing street performer 21:40 – Examples of deprecating language to describe people and their beliefs 22:25 – Flat Earth Theory and its attractiveness 24:30 – Joe Rogan's dalliance with "horse medicine" (according to CNN, that is); his mainstream media haters 28:45 – Whether people should trust the mainstream new media 30:40 – Having a strong opinion on media personas you don't follow 35:00 – Whether trust is tribal: whether we form derivative opinions 36:50 – Ayn Rand's hatred for Immanuel Kant and trusting one's network 40:10 – Misconceptions about misinformation 44:10 – Skeptics, news avoiders, and egocentric discounting (valuing one's own beliefs too much) 47:10 – KMO's media diet 51:00 – Reasons for the lack of studies on television news 51:55 – Limitations for use of ML/AI in media studies 54:00 – Needing more access 54:35 – Reprise: the difference between dis- and misinformation 55:10 – Misleading with truthful statements leading to false conclusions 56:20 – Filter bubbles created by social media algorithms and being exposed to diverging opinions 60:00 – Sacha's concluding statement about valuing each other's opinions Links: Sacha: @Sacha_Altay | sites.google.com/view/sacha-altay/ | en.padverb.com/sacha.altay KMO: @Kayemmo | en.padverb.com/kmo The Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Dr Adam Izdebski is a paleo-scientist and historian. He leads a multi-disciplinary research group at the Max Planck Institute which explores climate change, historical epidemics and their causes, the economy of past European societies, early attempts at regional integration and their traces in today's landscape, and many other things. In this conversation, Adam and KMO dig very dip and unearth a bucketful of topics, including: 07:20 – Multidisciplinary studies, "Consilience" by E. O. Wilson, and non-overlapping magisteria, and unifying diverse positions 11:10 – Adam's team's research scope and specialization 14:45 – The early globalization in the Mediterranean 15:55 – Bronze Age collapse and the multi-causal nature thereof 17:57 – Popularizing science 19:55 – Kyle Harper's “The Fate of Rome” 25:40 – Plagues in the Roman Empire, ancient DNA studies, and using the Black Death as a model for other pandemics 30:34 – How pathogens may spread and cause pandemics 34:20 – Intermission (KMO's solo riff) 41:15 – The geological epochs chart 47:45 – John Michael Greer's critique of the notion of the Anthropocene 52:10 – Humanity's role throughout the (geologically, very recent portion of the) history of our planet 59:35 – Three practical uses of the research work's results 01:02:40 – Engaging in public outreach 01:03:35 – The misanthropic aspect of humanity and staying optimistic Participants: Adam: shh.mpg.de| en.padverb.com/adamizdebski KMO: @Kayemmo | en.padverb.com/kmo Books and Articles Discussed: "The Fate of Rome" by Kyle Harper press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691166834/the-fate-of-rome "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge" by E.O.Wilson en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience_(book) "The Myth of the Anthropocene" by J.M.Greer resilience.org/stories/2016-10-06/the-myth-of-the-anthropocene/ Geological eras and epochs (visual aid): i.imgur.com/TAeY5yw.jpg Don't forget to join Padverb's Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Stefania Barbaglio (Steffy B, @stefixy) is an international businesswoman, a podcast host, a keynote speaker, and a former fashion model. She also runs an award-winning PR-IR agency which has helped many a blockchain application-focused company. In this conversation, Steffy helps KMO go somewhere he has never ventured before as a host, subject-wise: the world of fashion. They discuss: 02:05 – Steffy's path from fashion to finance 05:00 – Becoming a podcast host interviewing crypto thought leaders 06:15 – The Cardano blockchain and the role of digital identities 09:05 – Charles Hoskinson (co-founder of the Cardano blockchain) 10:55 – Government, decentralization, and DAOs 13:40 – Blockchain applications outside the world of finance 15:20 – Fast fashion, overproduction, and buying second hand 19:25 – Environmental aspects of crypto mining 21:15 – Checking product authenticity with NFTs 23:55 – Blockchain platforms' UI and the Metaverse 28:25 – Learning from Zoomers in a changing world Links: Steffy B: steffyb.io | @stefixy KMO: en.padverb.com/kmo | @Kayemmo Padverb Telegram Channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Jesse Berger is a media and technology entrepreneur and also, a movie producer whose six films, combined, have generated over $850 million worldwide. In this eclectic conversation, KMO and Jesse discuss: 01:20 – Studying film and getting into the biz 03:30 – What a film producer does and what the "executive" label means 06:20 – 'Oblivion' (2013) and why a graphic novel may be turned into a movie before getting published 13:20 – Why some movies credit dozens of producers 16:00 – The 2008 crisis, Bitcoin, and the dawn of the iPhone era 19:05 – Fast-forward to 2017: smart contracts and using the blockchain to increase transparency in the film industry 28:05 – Going "lower in the stack" and the genesis of the PKT network 33:15 – Decyphering the eclectic lingo: waterfall payments; IoT 34:25 – True proof-of-work vs premining 40:40 – Fostering an on-chain reward mechanism for sending and receiving data 43:20 – Smart contracts, the code-as-law paradigm, and the possible future of the legal profession 48:00 – Linking media production and distribution; evading the gatekeepers 51:25 - How the PKT network would work 54:05 – Similarities with other providers and the zero-base-price philosophy of the project 55:50 – Why speed issues are endemic in the industry 1:00:05 – Building the gig economy of internet sharing 1:09:05 – The real-world utility value of the blockchain Links: Jesse Berger: www.linkedin.com/in/jesseberger00 | instagram.com/jesse_berger KMO: en.padverb.com/kmo | @Kayemmo Comments? Join our Telegram channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Richard Firth-Godbehere is an independent researcher and consultant in the history, language, and science of emotions. He is also a witty, entertaining, charismatic, and "occasionally funny" man. This conversation goes "all over the place" with stops at: 01:50 – Feelings throughout history and the changing vocabulary to describe them 04:15 – Narrating one's own book 07:15 – Convergent evolution in different religions' stance on desires 11:33 – Ashoka the Great and Buddha "the fat guy" 16:45 – Abiding neurotransmitters and their role in emotions 19:05 – Defining love 21:07 – Reading Marcus Aurelius vs laughing at proto-scientific papers on evolution 22:05 – Scientists moving things forward (despite lacking in eloquence) 25:20 – Desire-led need to know things and the scientific revolution 26:44 – Emotions in decision making and the archetype of Mr. Spock 33:30 – Chipping away at jobs, task by task; paying humans to observe their emotions 35:35 – Emotions being the hardest nut to crack in creating genuine "General AI"; needing bigger "roomfuls of computers" 38:25 – Solipsism 2.0 and the future of emotions 39:05 – Passing the Turing test vs being sentient 43:50 – Digital communications and the wielding of one's "offendedness level" as an argument 47:05 – Getting freaked out by new information technology, on a global and historical level 48:25 – Changing culture of letter-writing and interpersonal communication (and the oxytocin connection) 51:45 – Pursuing copycat happiness and letting Instagram and TikTok be our guide doing it 54:30 – Modern art, filters, attention, and social media apps 57:15 – TikTok being better than YouTube at guessing the user's interests 61:20 – Computers telling us what we really want Links: Richard Firth-Godbehere: @DrRichFG KMO: @Kayemmo | padverb.com/kmo Comments? Join our Telegram channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Filip Dousek is the Prague-based founder of a recently acquired AI-augmented analytics startup, a connoisseur of the "illusions that create our world," and the author of "Flock Without Birds," a book which actually seeded his startup idea… and took him more than a decade to write. The conversation focuses mostly on Filip's literary output and touches on: 05:26 – His multi-dimensional two-part novel, in which the protagonist, himself a data analyst, turns "big data" into a source of theological inquiry 12:20 – Truth, complex systems, and predictive utility 17:18 – Exploring rationality, consciousness, and subjectivity 20:16 – The importance of keeping different perspectives 23:52 – The perennial question of the existence (and the nature) of God 31:36 – Looking for God in data 38:00 – Cultural detour: “Pi” and other films by Darren Aronofsky 39:05 – Finding fractal patterns and similarities 40:32 – AI and the Gartner hype cycle 49:12 – Brief story of Filip's start-up; its product and vision 53:28 – The book's structure and Filip's translation methodology 57:41 – Prague's literary milieu and building a network in the larger English-speaking world Links: Filip Dousek: www.dousek.com | Twitter: @fdousek KMO: en.padverb.com/kmo | Twitter: @Kayemmo Comments? Join our Telegram channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Max Osbon is a mathematician, an athlete, and the founding partner at Osbon Capital Management. This conversation covers: 02:10 – State of the crypto market (and KMO's alt-coin portfolio) 05:00 – Tokenizing real assets and the significance of USTC 06:45 – Lack of safe havens and inflation hedges 10:50 – Linking stagflation and complex systems theory 12:45 – Impact of geopolitics on the global economy 16:30 – Need for leadership, libertarian ideals, Stanley McChrystal's "Team of teams," and George Friedman's “The Storm before the Calm” 22:30 – (De-)globalisation, COVID-19, ASML, TSMC and why it's not so easy to re-localize semiconductor manufacturing 24:15 – Risks of an off-shored high-tech industry 29:40 – Zeke Hausfather's view of climate science and the doomsayers' secret desire for collapse 33:55 – Putting worrisome things in perspective 35:25 – Whether we've already experienced the bulk of the tech revolution 38:10 – The promise of tokenization with NFTs 41:10 – Regulating crypto and why regulation is needed for wider adoption 43:25 – Securities vs commodities 45:10 – James's question re: fighting corruption with the blockchain 46:30 – Balaji Srinivasan's upcoming book and why the bitcoin and the dollar are opposites 49:15 – Swallowing the pill and sticking around cities 50:40 – What Web3 really means 58:00 – Permissionless Swift alternatives 60:10 – Decentralization vs fragmentation on the blockchain 63:10 – Some men just wanting to watch the world burn and the promise of globalization Links: Max: mobile.twitter.com/maxosbon Osbon Capital Management: osboncapital.com KMO: mobile.twitter.com/Kayemmo | en.padverb.com/kmo Comments? Join the Padverb Podcast Telegram channel: t.me/padverbpodcast

Conversation with Douglas Lain on: 01:45 Good old times 04:55 Doug's podcasting and publishing career 09:54 Producing a personal interview podcast under a corporate brand 11:40 The challenges of transitioning to a different brand 14:49 Hedging one's bets in the age of cancel culture 20:26 Listener engagement on YouTube vs in audio podcasts 23:00 Losing one's motivation for podcasting and how to avoid it 26:29 Putting in some unpaid labor to get the paying audience 28:40 Not having talked since over a year ago 32:56 Ted Kaczynski and the delusions of the right and the left 36:40 Sublation Media's take on the left's crisis and the opportunities it may afford 41:00 Oppressed media elites 44:40 Decentralizing the increasingly irrelevant media 50:05 Unpacking independence in 2 minutes or less Douglas Lain: @douglain Sublation Media: https://www.sublationmedia.com https://twitter.com/sublationmedia KMO: padverb.com/kmo | @Kayemmo

In this episode of the podcast, we are going to take a look at the concept of the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). You will first (02:30) hear from Jimmy D, who is part of a group called the Uplift. The Uplift is an online world. It is a place where people gather together and build and it uses the game Minecraft as a game engine, but there's more going on here than just a multi-player Minecraft game. In fact, the Uplift is now governed as a decentralized autonomous organization. I won't steal any of Jimmy's thunder and explain why the Uplift chose to govern themselves as a DAO, but as you'll hear, his reasoning is very different from that of the second guest (46:30), Hannah Kirby, whose project, Indaod.io, is using a decentralized autonomous organization to manage vacation rental properties. Now, a DAO is not a magic wand. It doesn't eliminate all the problems that come from governing a large organization or a business, but DAOs do have some distinct advantages that we will hear about, starting my first guest, Jimmy D. Jimmy D: https://twitter.com/kansai_krypto https://theuplift.world Hanna Kirby: https://twitter.com/HannahK78096405 https://indaod.io KMO: https://twitter.com/Kayemmo https://en.padverb.com/kmo

A conversation with Gordon Eriksen on: 02:15 Gordon's film pedigree 07:45 Making films with iPhones 09:15 Podcasting explosion 11:00 Selling film rights and living to regret it 12:05 The changing nature of movie-going 13:45 Making food movies 17:30 Martial arts films 19:45 Curing Instagram Attention Disorder 24:45 Crashing Chelsea gallery opening parties while being neither young nor a millionaire 28:15 Shooting movies in New York 34:15 Recognizing others in highly Instagrammable locations 36:00 Instagram and Twitter (the host and guest trade their tips and tricks) 38:45 Predicting the future of media 42:00 Interface lessons from the era of newspapers and magazines Gordon's web site: http://gordoneriksen.com/ KMO's profile: https://en.padverb.com/kmo

Vishnu Seesahai is a systems architect, mathematician, and former indie film actor. In addition to that, he is a martial artist and he served as a fight choreographer in several films. 01:33 – “Zombie Strippers” and film production 04:00 – Getting into bitcoin mining 10:37 – Decentralized finance 17:15 – Cyber attacks, the energy marketplace, and quantum money 22:38 – Mining costs 30:00 – Why proof-of-work is better than proof-of-stake 35:45 – Decentralized vs centralized authority 41:20 – What is the Fediverse? 42:18 – Elon Musk, space exploration, AI, and workplace racism 47:05 – Technological unemployment (aka robots that will steal our jobs) 49:48 – UBI, Central Bank Digital Currency, and moving money 54:16 – The future we got is not the one we were promised Follow Vishnu's podcast appearances: https://en.padverb.com/vishnuseesahai KMO: https://en.padverb.com/kmo