Welcome to the Journal of TechnoWizardry

Week 1 - An Introduction...

What is this Journal?

tldr: I want to make the world a more magical place. Join me as I learn how to do so!

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For some reason, I’ve been obsessed with changing the world since I was in grade school, and with sharing my journey along the way.

The ‘TechnoWizard’ moniker is the most recent of iterations, and perhaps the most cohesive so far, to encompass my passion/interests for technology, magic systems, futurism, and so on. 

I’ve been documenting my journey via podcasts, videos, and blogs… but my friend, Zach, suggested I do a newsletter. I loved the idea! So here it is.

This will be a necessarily more refined summation of my other content, but it will still be fairly raw and a constant work-in-progress. 

I find myself constantly starved for deep conversation on big, broad topics and always searching for people who find me interesting or valuable enough to want to change the world together. 

I know my ambitions may be a silly or naive or narcissistic and aspirational desire to have… but I have them nonetheless. 

As a recompense, I do my best to learn from as wide a variety of good sources as I can; so if I ever do truly get the chance to make a large impact, it will be a well-educated and positive one.

Thus, throughout this newsletter, expect long tangents, eclectic topics, and radically ambitious ideas. I can only hope they will all be intelligent, insightful, and interesting as well… whatever that means. 😅

Without further ado, welcome to my journey to change the world, and other arcane arts.

What I am learning:

• Anarchy
  This week, I’ve been reading the introduction to the Anarchy.Works primer. It explains what anarchy is, why it is so crucial a goal today, and how we can begin to learn about it while still respecting the indigenous cultures that have been living anti-authoritarian lives for generations without calling themselves anarchists.

  I could (and probably will) write an entire essay on my journey into anarchy, but I’d like to keep at least this first newsletter at a reasonable length. I will just say this, for the uninitiated, please realize that anarchy does NOT mean chaos or ‘disorder’ … it is not a synonym for all places that happen to be stateless, but devolved into despotism, run by cartel drug lords and the like… those are by definition authoritarian cesspools. 

  Anarchy, in its simplest terms, means ‘without rulers’.. It can easily be described as the natural form of life. In which systems of organization emerge via different organisms working with each other, and no authority is coerced on others. 

  Many ‘old school’ anarchists don’t like any sort of hierarchy, but either way, so long as its voluntary, then you have a better system. 

  Coincidentally, Lex Fridman did a great interview with Michael Malice, who wrote the Anarchist Handbook. Michael seems to have an anarcho capitalist slant though… which I think many other anarchists would have a problem with. But much of what he says about anarchy seems to match very well with the Primer by Peter Gelderloos mentioned above.

  Again, there is SO MUCH to be said about this concept, but I hope you engage in the topic yourself… and also, I will be including new things I am learning about anarchy pretty much every week anyways. :D

  Some things I will probably get more into next week are all the anarchic channels that I’ve been introduced to through the International Anarchist Cooperation community. 

  Additionally, I want to learn about all the words they’ve been throwing around in that community (Neoliberalism, Liberalism, Libertarianism, Tankies, Vanguards, etc).

  I also have learned more about Luddism and how the Luddites were right!

• Philosophy
  I’ve also been continuing my slow but engaging read-through of Hegel’s The Complete Phenomenology of Spirit! It’s been an absolutely fantastic (if dense) introduction to classical philosophical texts. 

  I’ve only covered the first 6 sections of the Preface 😂  as I am recording my readthrough while watching Gregory B Sadler’s explanations of it to help digest and understand Hegel’s writing. 

  So far, it seems Hegel is introducing his book by talking about how writing a preface for a Philosophical book is insufficient… while writing a preface! By doing so, he introduces the idea of philosophy being more than just some conclusions or ideas that may or may not be ‘correct’.. But is instead the process of grappling with these ideas yourself, ie a ‘dialectic’. He begins talking about how in order to therefore truly do philosophy and critique it, you must engage with it as an entire System, rather than just some notes on it.

  I am so very looking forward to engaging in the Hegelian system in the coming weeks, months, and years!!

  I’ve also been learning a bit about Postmodernism, Post-Structuralism, Nihilism, and more.

• Design (User Experience)
  Since 2019 I have been learning about UX Design. Again, I can write an essay or two about my journey into this space.. But for now, I will just cover what I have been learning this week.

  Every week, I make a 15-20min video about my readthrough of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. I covered the end of the Faceted Navigation chapter, and am now going into the Research chapter, which introduces the process of information architecture development.

  

  This shows the importance of doing IA (and much of design) outside of Agile sprints, as it requires a level of thought, research, and iteration that productivity-based agile frameworks simply don’t allow.

  Furthermore, I technically have now finished my Ask Like A Pro Observer class… but I have been falling behind for weeks now, so I am going to go back and start over. Nonetheless, watching the ‘All-ins’ present their research findings to the Usability Hub stakeholders was really cool and insightful!! I am proud of what they accomplished (and learned), and I hope to be even half as thorough as them for my own self-made research project.

My Projects:

Speaking of, below I will share allll the projects that I am already doing or planning to do very soon. It’s a lot! But I am learning that I am most productive, consistent, and motivated when I am doing a lot of things that I feel passionate about, rather than simply focusing on 1 or 2 projects at a time. For some reason (perhaps my undiagnosed ADHD?) I actually am able to focus More when I have tons of things on my plate rather than when I have less, even if that one thing is something I feel very passionate about.

Anyways here are my projects thus far:

1. Project Sankofa - This is the new business I spoke about many times. I want to make it easy for people to experience healthy Transcendence and be their best selves. This will likely start with a personalized platform for curated, personalized content; where I will share with people the best, most actionable content for their specific needs, struggles, and background.
   Help needed! I need more researchers, some therapists, and soon UX Designers and engineers.

2. Personal Content (YT, ToaT, AMDF, etc) - I am sharing my journey via my YouTube where I post 4-6 times a week, my Audiojournal podcast that I recently renamed to Thoughts of a TechnoWizard (instead of a Trillionaire), A More Delightful Future where I interview people designing emergent technology, and now this newsletter!
   Help needed! I would like more editors. I don’t like editing and it takes SO much time for me to do. I have an editor for AMDF but he is working for free and I don’t want to overwhelm him with everything else. If you don’t mind working for free or for trade (for now) HMU!

3. Project Community - I want to create a business plan for my ideal Innovation Lab/Community Center/Virtual Reality Arcade. My dad seems to have networked himself into the folks building a new Black Wall Street here in Georgia, so I want to see if I can pitch them my idea.

4. Working with Zach - I want to work with Zach, someone who has consistently supported me and my content for the last 2 or so years. I am always in awe with his insights and ideas so I figured why not work with him?! We have decided to build a platform that will help connect people with good information. More on that soon! Keep an eye out in the next few weeks for more details. :D

5. HEY Atlanta Website Redesign - My SO started working at this great nonprofit… but their website is quite bad. I figured I’d volunteer to redesign it, with the help of my mentors and more talented peers to make sure I deliver something high quality!

6. Interactive Emotion Wheel- Somebody in my discord wanted a legible version of this emotion wheel:

   

   I was working on using something like that for the startup I was contracting with a few months ago. I figured I could build a simple, interactive tool for them.

7. Positive Futures book - We’ve been inundated with dystopian fiction for years now… I'm sick of it. And it predisposes many people to be cynical, pessimistic, or just unimaginative in the type of world we could be living in. So I’d like to create some fictional worlds that engender hope, spark inspiration, and hopefully motivate more people to build a better future. I talked about this more in this episode: Non-Dystopian Futures.
   I will likely share more in the next newsletter.
   Help needed! Whats some good science fiction or fantasy from indigenous peoples, the Global South, and/or featuring positive anarchic/anti-authoritarian communities?
   So far I have Octavia Butler’s Lilith's Brood, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, Coyote and Crow, and Walkaway by Cory Doctorw on my list.

8. Website for Mom - My mom is finally getting some huge opportunities to grow her event coordination and crafting business!! She will probably need a website soon, so I want to help her build that.

9. Holopractice - Christopher Lafeyette and Ippolito, a molecular biologist, started an interesting program to support medical/science companies in the XR space. I expressed my interest to join the team as a designer (or rather an ‘Experience Architect’). More details to come.

10. Personal Website - I want to revamp my website to include more than just my portfolio! Feel free to check out some of my ideas in my Drafts doc.

11. iSimu VR - Looks like I’ll be back working at the arcade soon! But this time as a manager/owner with more control over what we can do. I’m going to have to figure out how to save up/earn enough to get my own car and/or move closer to make it sustainable. Unfortunately, housing is super expensive right now!

12. Futurus - I technically had my last meeting for this contract on Friday… We delivered the experience and the client loved it. They only had minor things to change… but I am hoping that the company gets more clients so that I can keep working with the wonderful team. Ideally, I’d be able to work here full-time instead of the arcade, it's just a better fit for my current financial needs and career growth.

13. DeltaCX - I am stuck waiting for the client’s dev team to implement our designs so we can do some hotjar testing and see how it performs in the real world. Again, I’d ideally be able to work here more as well, but alas…

14. Anonymous content platform - I may be working with someone to create a cool platform for anarchic or far left anti-authoritarian information. Idk if I should be saying this much… but I am a transparent person at heart lol, and it’s nothing illegal. Just want to respect their anonymity. 

15. OMI Website - I have been attending weekly meetings for the Open Metaverse Interoperability group. They are trying to make sure that the future of the internet is a more open, fair, and shareable place. They are developing a website, and I want to help them figure out the information architecture.

What I’m thinking this week (Big Ideas):

• Positive Futures
  Not only do I want to write a book, but also craft worlds that envision positive futures for people to be inspired by. I will start with a scifi book, but eventually I’d like to have a whole storyverse with comics, shows, movies, games, and even virtual worlds you can interact with! 

  Here’s a quick intro to three possible futures I began thinking about during my audio journal:

  1. Humanistic Capitalism - Refining capitalism to have a triple bottom line, where profit is dependent upon measurable quality of life and multiplied or divided by environmental impact.

  2. Anti-authoritarian socialism/communism - Distributing resources through a decentralized blockchain, allowing no one exclusive access to those resources, therefore eliminating the previous methods used to co-opt it.

  3. Global Anarchy - Dissolving states, nations, and large organizations via voluntary association from childhood. No more citizenship at birth. People can freely leave a community at any age. All systems are fractalized, hyper-local, and utilize trade for large-scale projects or non-local resources.

• Youth Liberation
  This video is a great introduction to the idea, but in short, we seriously need to stop treating children like property of the parents. There is this idea that people can do basically whatever they want to children in the name of ‘parenting’ such as corporal punishment and other forms of coercive discipline, as well as not respecting a child’s agency and of course indoctrinating them in the prison-like routine of school institutions. 

  We routinely don't allow kids to make their own choices, roam free, or experience the ‘real world’ for the first 2 decades of their life… yet we expect them to be independent, free-thinking, creative, and resilient … not realizing how the way they are parented in such paternalistic manner is antithetical to these goals!
  This is something I’m sure all of us can relate to in some way, and I think its going to be one of the most difficult areas of societal change going forward. So long as we do not have youth liberation, we will not have true freedom.

• Redefining free will
  Do we have free will? This age-old question is more important than ever today as science seems to be once again tackling the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness. Sam Hariss often champions determinism, the idea that we do not have free will and are more so riding on this roller coaster of a life. Others claim we do have free will, while still others are compatibilists, who recognize that determinism makes sense, but that there are areas of randomness, like with quantum probabilities, that bubble up into having limited free will.

  I am just an amateur, but I find it very fulfilling to think through these ideas on my own. I have talked about my ideas on this several times. Most recently, I have come to the (momentary) conclusion that we do not have free will in the typical sense.. Studying physics has shown me that space and time itself is relative. That it is possible for everything that can exist to already exist. There are actually multiple theories of physics that explains this too.

  So I figured, what if we do live in the ‘many-worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics? What if every choice we make is really an aspect of reality that already exists, rather than one that is being made on the fly? And so that means consciousness is not the experience of making choices… but the experience of being aware of our environment and ourselves.

  I think that free will should be either thrown away or redefined as self-referential awareness. The more you are aware of the environment, yourself, and your thoughts (and how you think about those thoughts), the more you can become more conscious.

  I think this conception of free will is better than the typical idea of it.. Because it explains a lot more about human behaviour. Traditional free will leads people to believe that the reason they do or do not take action (and thus their success or failure) is mostly because of their ‘willpower’ or ‘motivation’.. But many psychological studies have disproved that. We know from humanistic psychology that people do or don't do things as a result of everything from their genetics, to their upbringing, to their habits, to their environment… ie all causal factors. 

  Therefore, the more aware you are of the role each of these play in our lives, the better life you can experience. 

  There is much more to be said here, but I’ll end it there for now.

• How to grow XR
  The last ‘big idea’ I had this week is around the XR industry (Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality). The industry has been seeing slower growth than expected over the last few years. The hype is dying.. Now that we are getting into the trough of disillusionment, I hope we can find and invest in better use cases. Here are a few of them:

  1. Asymmetric experiences - We need more games like Acron: Attack of the Squirrels and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes to open up the door to folks who have still not tried VR, and then to adoption.

  2. Mixed-use physical and virtual spaces - Imagine being able to go to a physical meetup and talk to people who are attending virtually as if they were there too. Or vice versa! Now imagine being able to do work remotely that way… or have your family visit you virtually if they can’t make it physically. We need to fuse the physical with the virtual to create true ‘mixed’ realities!

  3. Cross platform - Being able to play with your friends on Xbox while you’re on PS5 is awesome. Imagine being able to do that with VR games. But to keep it ‘fair’.. Instead of forcing everyone to play the same way on each device (which is impossible), you instead allow each platform to have a unique playstyle! Similar to asymmetric games, but for persistent experiences like an MMORPG or Battle Royale where every device has its own unique abilities.

  More on all of these in the coming weeks.

What I’m worried about (Concerns and failures):

This newsletter is long enough already lol. But I think this section will be super important going forward. Not enough journeys talk about failures and insecurities… so I want to make sure I include that, if only briefly.

• Money
  I am worried, as always, about money. I need to be able to afford a car, and/or deposit for rent, and to continue helping my family. I also need to get a new laptop as mines is really slow. It seems every time I have some opportunity to make good money, its too inconsistent to depend upon. I need to figure out a way to get more consistent monies… but I also am all too willing to sacrifice monetary stability via traditional jobs in favor of freedom and impact. How can I make the best of both?

• Personal insecurities (skills, networking, habits/consistency)
  I often find myself feeling worthless or just frustrated at my own lack of skills. I wish I could follow through with my desire to reach out to folks like Lex Fridman and Kevin Kelly and to build out my own ideas. Why do I keep feeling so very insecure even after everything I have done and learned?

• Gender Fluidity
  I have always been reluctant to think about myself as a ‘man’ in the typical sense… I’ve always felt a bit… cosmopolitan or just tangentially a ‘cis male’ because thats how I was raised. But just as I have come to accept pansexuality, I am also coming to accept my gender fluidity. How can I embrace these aspects more without feeling like I have to defend myself against people who deem this sort of thing as trivial or ‘liberal’ (even though I dont actually care what they think).. Or by the other token, identify with more outwardly fluid people who may see me as ‘straight-passing’?

• Loneliness
  I feel so very dumb and silly saying this… ungrateful for all the amazing people in my life such as my friends, colleagues, mentors, family, and partner… but I still feel fairly lonely in my life. Particularly when it comes to actually sharing, learning, and trying to build upon my ambitions to change the world for the better. I find it difficult to feel like I can bring my ‘full self’ to any of my relationships. Not only do they each have their own issues and ideas and ambitions.. But I feel as if my own ambitions and issues are just not as… important in light of theirs… either that or the importance of my thoughts go under their radar. Perhaps because I am just a tiny bit too narcissistic as to think that I could really have any meaningful impact on the world at large… because I am just not nearly as interesting as I sometimes think I am (I mean why else would I feel the desire to share my thoughts to the world in such a detailed way if I didn’t think my thoughts were interesting. LOL smh)
  I really really hope and wish that someone else is interested in all or some of these things that I think about… and that we can discuss, learn, and build together… 😰

Favorite 🎶 songs/artists this week:

As many do, I love music!! But I have very eclectic tastes. I find that I often listen to a lot of underground/underrated music, so I’d like to share songs and artists that stood out to me each week. 

• Lil Nas X - Album Preview
  This was so Epic and creative!! I hope Disney doesn’t come after him though.

• Teezo Touchdown - The Cave
  This artist is soooo creative and unique! Kenny Beats is talented AF of course, but I really love how he always brings out the best in his artists in a fun way.

• Mark Rebillet - The Cave
  An oldie, but a great one. Found myself replaying it repeatedly for that Stank!

• BTS - Ugh and Dope
  Okay… though I am not new to K Pop (EXO K where you at?!), but this is my first time actually listening to some BTS. I went through all the songs they had on Beat Saber, and these were my favorites! Really incredible!!! But why aren’t they on SoundCloud?!

• Imagine Dragons - Warrior
  Another absolute Banger! Love the ‘epicosity’ of it. I kept playing this on Expert+ in Beat Saber.. Haven’t passed it yet, but one day!

• Tyler the Creator - Corso & Juggernaut
  Tyler’s recent album was absolute FIRE!! These two are probably some of my favorites.

• 21 Savage - Brand New Draco
  I don’t listen to much Trap music, but when I do, I listen 21 Savage. He has been especially fun, creative, and hilarious with his videos lately too.

• Post Malone - Motley Crew
  I am not a fan…. But damn does he know how to make some catchy songs.

• Paris Texas - HEAVY METAL
  Underrated!! We need more metal/rock influenced hiphop!!!! Shout out to Kenny Mason too!

• Panic! At the Disco - I Write Sins Not Tragedies
  This is an old one, but everytime it comes up in my playlist I have to replay it! I also really enjoy “Death of a Bachelor”

• 2WEI - Burn
  High Epicosity!! I like a lot of their songs, and this track does NOT disappoint. Absolutely going on my Epic playlist!

• Sylvan LaCue - Really underrated artist who is finally making new music again.

• Tobi Lou - Absolutely love Tobi’s unique sound and style!!

• HDBeenDope - This dude is Talented! He always has dope bars, beats, and flows. It will be a crime if he doesn’t pop off soon.

• Deonte Hitchcock - Definitely on the come up! Can’t wait for the new album.

• Akintoye - Found through TikTok, always astounded with how talented he is!

• Tierra Whack - Hands down one of the most creative, skilled, and visionary new artists in HipHop! Really really hope she makes another project soon!!

Some other stuff I could talk about:

• New apps/website I found/am using (Last.fm, The Storygraph, Chime, etc)

• More music stuff (My thoughts on XXL, recent albums, underrated artists, etc)

• Cool articles I’ve read (Quantum Computing breakthroughs, new discoveries about space, debates on consciousness, etc)

• Cool Youtube videos (PolyMatter on Singapore, MMORPG news with KiraTV, Noel Miller talking about Kart Racing, etc)

• Other media (DC movies, Rick and Morty, Loki, Settlers of Catan, etc)

• Fictions I’m reading (Wandering Inn, Dungeon Crawler Carl, This Quest is Bullshit, etc)

Feedback Wanted!!

How do you feel about the length of this newsletter?

• Too Long

• Too Short

• Perfect Length

What should I call this Newsletter??

• The Journal of TechnoWizardry

• Quantifiable Magic

• Saving the World and Other Arcane Arts

Always be plugging:

• Thoughts of a TechnoWizard - Check out my (almost) daily audiojournal if you want to hear my unrefined, raw ‘train(wreck) of thought’

• A More Delightful Future - Listen to interviews with incredible people designing emergent technologies.

• Becoming a TechnoWizard - Watch me learn about all manner of things on my quest to build a better, more magical world on my YouTube.

• Path of a Trillionaire/TechnoWizard - Feel free to support me on Patreon! If you think this is a lot, watch what I do when I have some actual money in my pockets!!

• This Newsletter - If you like this so far, please get the word out!

Thanks so much for reading this (or just for signing up to receive this at all)!! I am really excited to share more of my journey and what I am learning with you.

Feel free to reply back with some highlights of this post and any ideas you have for the next one.

Remember, keep being awesome!!