18 Comments
Oct 25, 2021Liked by Packy McCormick

I think this one finally put me down the rabbit hole...

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2021 has been a historic year, and I finally feel like I'm an actor in it. Two moments:

1) getting vaccinated at Javits Center. Reminded me of WW2 rationing or women helping out in the factories.

2) witnessing web3 flourish everywhere. Similar to Enlightenment Paris, Renaissance Italy, early 20th century Detroit etc. Scenius. Love it. Read Edward Glaeser's "Triumph of the City" for another discussion on how

Loved reading every line of this!

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Oct 25, 2021Liked by Packy McCormick

As usual, fantastic article. That being said >>> fall of the western roman empire is not 1300. nor 1000. it is more or less 473 (!) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire) You might have confused with the the fall of the EASTERN roman empire (Constantinople fall in 1453 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople ), which reportedly / supposedly indeed brought a lot of immigrants from Constantinople to the West (but it is debated)

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> There would be no web3 renaissance without all of that time and attention seeking novelty and distraction online [enabled/caused by the Pandemic].

I would argue this point. The web3 notion, principles and even technologies are much older than the Pandemic.

It's likely that it got buoy'd up by the increased focus on online activity, but without Pandemic, it likely would have taken off anyway, albeit a bit slower perhaps (and even that remains to be proven).

There's a lot of talk of "magic happening" when the conditions are right, but that determinism would be important to be scrutinized a bit more.

How many timeframes and moments can we identify where the Scenic factors were present, but no significant jump in progress or productivity occurred (compared to the period before or after)?

An attempt at falsification should be made.

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Might be my favourite Not Boring piece. WAGMI

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Really like this - your framing up front was awesome, and I'm *almost* bought into the idea of the web3 / crypto Scenius...

I appreciate how you frame the conditions enable these sceniuses to thrive - one area that I thinks merits a bit more exploration is the idea of new surpluses or abundances. Sometimes these are big and obvious (in the Industrial Revolution in Britain - cheap coal, capital looking for returns) but in other cases (Physics in the 1920s perhaps - exemplified by the Solvay photo https://www.openculture.com/2021/01/the-most-intelligent-photo-ever-taken.html ) there was just this ongoing drying out decayed wood that kept building up until it enabled the smallest spark to become an inferno. Instinctively this feels the piece that needs to be unlocked - certainly by governments wishing for their country to host the next silicon valley or whatever...

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This is a super helpful framework that helps explain the incredible inflection we are seeing in web3 today. I appreciate how you built on the Scenius framework that others have created, adding a few attributes, and explaining how web3 maps to this framework.

This reminded me of a framework I have been following closely called The Rainforest, which describes how to create highly innovative ecosystems like Silicon Valley. I would recommend it, and imagine some of the concepts described can be ported into the Scenius framework as well. The authors do an incredible job of introducing concepts from a ton of different disciplines. A lot of overlap between a Rainforest and a Scenius. The book is a bit of an academic read, but worth it: https://amzn.to/3GksCNT

The authors also created a guide for anyone trying to create their own Rainforest: https://amzn.to/3pAMpTb

- Amit Mukherjee (@Amit Mukherjee)

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Hey packy, very inspired to read, I joined the Constitution DAO by buying the constitution article earlier, it made me a lot of money, here you said that the Constitution DAO team is building a new DAO, can you tell me more? So that I can join their new project as soon as possible. Thank you very much for sharing without reservation.

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Brilliant article. Have a look at www.supermind.design many - many - similarities, and happy to talk more if of interest

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"The list of challenges facing humanity is long and complex..."

...and many of them completely human-made.

Gonna be fun when we experience the next level of disaster unleashed by this cohort of utopians unprepared for "unforeseen consequences".

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sad truth is less than 1% are actually going to. make it. nice try though.

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Awesome read. One question I have is how do the expansions/contractions of bubbles fit within the framework of scenia? With every new bull cycle there is an acceleration of development built on previous bull and bear market dev. Do you think that today, in 2021, we are post-cyclical and firmly in perma-scenius?

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Thanks Packy. You might enjoy a book complimentary to your thesis written by Carlos Perez in 2002 called “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages”. Kindest, Cam A ps: love The Wanderers, thanks for the tip. I am 8886.

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This is one of the most inspirational bits of writing I've ever read. I see a lot of arguments now that rely on a *refutation* of hype associated with web3 to argue its relevancy in the long-run. I've never read a pro-web3 argument that so emphatically and convincingly *embraces* the hype surrounding crypto, and contextualizes it in historic hype cycles. Like Jeff, I think this finally pushes me over the web3 precipice. Fantastic stuff.

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