35. Layer-0: Ancient Asian Philosophies and New Worlds - Taipei 2023

[Music] hi I'm so happy to be here in taipe and I think for the last two days there's been so much going on so much mind expanding content um so before I fill you with more information um I'd like to just take a pause for just a moment and if you feel comfortable I would like you all to stand up and just very quickly stretch right up into the heavens the metaphorical heavens and you can feel if you want to stretch left and right and if you feel comfortable you can just stay standing for a few moments uh it's nice to remember that we have bodies as well in addition to our minds absorbing and processing um and if you like you can close your eyes eyes just for a few moments and just ground yourself right here in this space remember that we are also in this space a Commons uh all of us together um here in taipe um let's move into the space of gratitude for the humans that have made this possible uh the humans of Dao taipe of dazo Ty finding the commons let's remember that we all have a shared connection shared motivations feelings and ideas so if you feel comfortable take a deep breath and just keep grounding and I'm just going to play this for a few moments [Music] just feel into the connection that we have the reason that we're here to build this Commons and just thank all the people the land of Taiwan that exists and that has allowed us to have this discussion where we talk about democracy and Technology public spaces and public goods great um you can now sit down or keep standing if you like um I'm just going to put my timer so I stick to time and thank you all for being here and bringing your energy and your ideas um I want to talk about something that I've been working recently on just layer zero are the thinking about new worlds informed by ancient philosophies and I really want to ground into the human right because that's why we're all here I think funding the commons I love that it exists to sort of change human coordination the incentives of human coordination to push ourselves our species that's into something towards public goods public spaces Commons creating uh tools and platforms that can help solve so many of our social problems and it's been wonderful hearing the presentations of the last two days talking about new protocols open source software um hypers certs and decentralized IDs and social bonds and uh you know all these sort of Innovations and the technology stack that so many of you here in the room are building and that's wonderful that you are it gives us it's it's amazing that you're pushing the sort of boundaries in terms of what we can create and one of the things I heard a lot was about incentives right about what makes us do things what makes us share what makes us contribute and I think some of the most important layers sometimes that we don't often bring attention to is the human layer and this is the layer that that I think um call human layer zero this is a a really subtle layer it's a layer of ideas of belief systems the sort of Stories We Tell ourselves about Who We Are as humans why we are here what we want to achieve um the myths and the stories about our culture about where we've come from and where we want to go um our concepts of human nature and self um it's also such a subtle lay of trauma right that all of us as we go through in life from an early age or even our ancestors and this trauma that informs how we feel how we think what we want to share and what we think is right and wrong in this world so in this human layer um you know I I say it's even Downstream from incentives so all the incentives that we try to design in our platforms they all come from what we believe in come from what we think as true to ourselves and what we true as humans and what happens when the stories that we tell ourselves uh are so important because you know we have a lot of examples uh where regardless of the technology that we build uh we sort of seem to be recreating the same mistakes over and over again right um I think so many people in this room here are building tools because you're trying to sort of correct or build something new yet why do we keep reverting back to the same stories um we we keep building tools and platforms of extraction around consumption around ideas of power and power taking from the weak and this being as just this is being as what uh what is fair free basics worldcoin web 2 web 3 are very different uh in in uh function and um you know one of the most successful projects to come out of the last sort of Bull Run if you want to say the the bod Apes project right it's like raising millions of dollars to build another metaverse a game uh push more content rather than you know build things that I think all of us here uh care about right why are we eventually sort of going into that direction of constantly building these kinds of tools I think it's worth reflecting uh and it's not the technology because the technology is always offered us different possibilities but it's what we as humans ultimately feel is in my best interest based on the beliefs and the values that we hold um Tim Wu a Harvard uh Professor Columbia professor in his book Masters which sort of showed how from the throughout the 20th century as sort of media started out de centralized from the telegram to radio film and then the internet um and eventually through the power of Market forces uh becomes centralized captured by the forces captured by Authority and here we come again with web 3 and blockchain trying to disrupt this and we hope and we want and we believe that we're going to build something new but we have to remember that we're fighting against invisible forces powerful forces that exist not just outside but in our minds and we are products and of these very systems that we want to change um I you know I think this is something that uh is really important to consider that our minds from a very early age are are trained just like the AIS in our pockets and in our computers trained to think in certain ways trained to believe that what is what is it that we want from life and what is it that's really important and that's worth fighting over worth going into war over worth abusing worth hating worth disconnecting from um and bringing attention and and it raises a question to me which is how do we how how do I even reimagine when my mind and my ability to imagine itself is the product of the very systems that we all want to change the systems of extraction systems of consumption um and this is sort of uh a landing point that maybe I want to want to leave you with is around how how do we find this change how do we make this change on this layer zero level uh where we can then push on to build the transformative Technologies and fulfill the potential of the technology that you want to build and this is where I come into uh Asian philosophies uh and it's beautiful that we're here in Taiwan a land where so much of Asian spiritual systems have converged Buddhism thaism um we have Zen we have so many powerful sort of humanistic systems that have come together and made this country possible in going over centuries and it's these very roots that I think can be a GPS for us to navigate and for us to Think Through uh in our own inner and outer journeys of how do we make this Evolution and move forward and I want to share uh a little bit u in in the very short period of time I have cuz he's the he's a very huge themes and topics uh but very in the very short time that we have together uh is one of the key principles or the key sort of base of Asian philosophies it's about interconnectedness you know I heard this in Ellie's presentation yesterday in so many presentations about the Shar what is it that makes us human and this idea that we are not separate individuals from each other nor are we separate from our planet or from the technology that we build there's a certain Oneness that brings us all together there's a s Oneness that makes us feel alive and it's this Oneness that sometimes we feel hard to remember we forgotten we've been glued to what is it that we are glued to um and this can be a fundamental principle I think to informed to how we think about ourselves into relation with the world um there's a beautiful sort of framework that I want to share uh which I think can help us think through how we think about our relationship with technology uh yuk a scholar based in Hong Kong in his book um talked about Chinese Cosmo technices um and it's this idea that technology can be a very important layer that mediates our connection with something larger our connection with our life force our connection that makes all of us conscious and alive and it's this relational thinking where technology mediates this reality yet it's not hard to see today that technology in so many ways is taking us apart taking us further way apart and that's also true and that's also happening and what what he shows us is we can imagine a world where we have this unification of The Da and the chi so this is a Chinese concept from from Daoism and from Confucianism this idea of the Dao which is the cosmos and the chi which is the tool of the technque and this idea that we can make technology serve our greater human purpose and keep and and that can be the highest fulfillment of Technology rather than taking us apart um and so this is a question that I think is valid for all technologists in the room or all of us right what are we optimizing technology for what is it that we want to create what is it that really makes us content and fulfills us and makes us happy and um I don't have a lot of time but there's two stories from from the from janga who's one of the most famous well-known Chinese philosophers within the space of DSM um the the Butcher of b poing um which is a famous story which many of you in the room may be well aware of he's a butcher who says that while other butchers change their knives every one month a bad butcher changes M his knife every one month a good one every one year I never change my knife ever because my carving of the bull is Guided by uh sort of an understanding a greater guidance and a connection and awareness of this connection which makes my knife the the the technology even more powerful even more meaningful even more purposeful um and this is an example of Technology Guided by this higher Truth by this sort of nature this other example of how the sort of Technology can take us away from what it means to be human uh is the story of when a a man walks into a farmer and sees him farming the fields and he asks him haven't you heard of this new technology that allows you to water the entire Fields just from standing in this one position and he turns to the man and says I know about this technology but the reason I don't do it because it it will mean I will develop a g scene or a or or a what can be translated as a machine heart but I think the better translation as what yuk explains is a calculative mind because the heart and the mind in in Chinese can be similar similar Concepts and this idea that we will lose focus of what makes us human and got got in this game of incentives and manipulation and extraction and forget what is it that actually we want to feel here alive um so how do we imagine uh uh this new Commons uh how do we imagine this layer zero Evolution so we've talked about you know decentralized infrastructure the plurality and the vision that our friends here in Taiwan have been working on uh and that's so great that we're sort of building this uh uh Michelle b and a scholar talks about this Cosmo local economies and these ideas of sort of new economies and new communities that are possible and that's all wonderful and it's great that all of you in the room here are working and building on these these platforms and tools and I think that's really powerful stuff that's happening um so what could be some of those sort of new values what could be some of these layer zero Evolutions um you know I think here we can sort of bring bring our attention to this idea again of Oneness and move into not just talking about it it's not just lip service it's not just another buzz word but feel it experience it this is what Asian philosophy is all about it's about experiential direct experience rather than knowledge or mind level conceptual um it's about Evolution over Revolution um about being present uh truly being in this moment and knowing that there is no future that mythical future that we're always trying to build through our goal goals and plans but to really ground into where we are today and build the world where we are today um and there's a and I said layer zero uh and because zero has another level of significance uh in in Asia um I come from India and the word sha uh the number sha zero uh represents something much more deeper than zero or nothing it's actually The Emptiness and fullness all together this idea of the Void of uh something much more powerful that it's all in us at a much deeper level um in in Zen Buddhism they talked about the woin or the no mind and this idea of what happens can when you free your mind of all the stories of all the the myths about what you've been told for your entire life about Fame power money identity all of these things to free your mind and find a level of find an inner in intrinsic incentive about why you want to live what you want to contribute and participate in building this new Commons from that space where you can really open up and really build this new world because it's important to remember that we are living in this system of whether you want to call it of consumerism of capitalism I'm not going to be the person that dies in the hill of trying to sort of talk about uh ending systems but I think it's really important to sort of remember that this isn't an outer Journey this this starts at home this starts with all of us and to sort of really bring our attention to what it is what is it that makes us human uh and how can we look towards new Frameworks to build around and to guide us our lives on a day-to-day basis um so these are some of the ideas that I'm sort of hoping to sort of take forward in my own work um I work with an organization called digital Asia Hub we a think tank in Hong Kong and we sort of organize workshops and conferences around how critiquing our relationship at technology a project I'm starting out called light Forest which is looking at how Asian spiritual philosophies can inform our relationship with technology um and I'm based in changai and I would love to sort of have this conversation with all of you learn more about the technology that you're building and see uh and build this sort of new world that I think is happening we can all feel it we can all see it sometimes and and I think it's really great that we all have this opportunity to be here and so again so thankful to uh our host here funding the commons um and gzero tzero uh and all our friends here in Ty so thank you so much and uh safe travels for those of you going back soon and hope to talk to you [Music] soon