Humanity stands at the crossroads of antiquated systems and liberating technologies. The path we choose is wholly in our hands. And this choice could not be more important. By many scientific estimates, our entire existence depends on it!

The signs of a paradigm shift are everywhere. The climate crisis. Border crisis. Migration crisis. Shifting polarity crisis. Constitutional crisis. Impending economic crisis. Our material world is turning under our feet and many current structures are unsustainable.

This is the time to re-frame and re-imagine our World. I invite you all to dream big and not settle for band-aid solutions. For example, Fuck Recycling!

Let’s go straight to cellulose bio-plastics that dissolve in water at a specific temperature. Let’s imagine a different world. A Youtopia. What would that entail for each one of us?

“People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.” — Benjamin Franklin

My Youtopia begins with Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). A class of artificial intelligence capable of learning and understanding any task or feeling at the level of, or better than a human. In a not too distant future, I see AGI radically transforming every facet of our existence. From governance and immigration to food production and resource allocation. Verified Law of Attraction!

If you’re skeptical about the far-reaching implications of this type of technology, look at the reality we are currently living in…

Facebook and Instagram already know you better than you know yourself in 300–500 unique interactions. The US armed forces can detect a heart signature and match it to a database of heartbeats from 200 meters away, using a laser pointer. All the while 200 million fellow humans willfully supplied their names and photos to a Russian data bank under the guise of a flavor-of-the-day aging app… Since when is aging cool, anyway?

We can either choose how the AI works for us, or we can choose to remain a slave to the AI employed by corporations — powered by our voluntary surrender of data. No one is twisting our arms, we are willful participants. Surrendering our data, dollars, and attention to where our impulses drive us at a moment’s notice.

While I am optimistic about the trend line of progress for technology, I am less optimistic about the trend line of human consciousness. I believe that so-called awakening is a longer road than anyone can imagine (sorry Deepak), and humanity will be plagued by vices and poor choices for many generations to come. It is therefore in our best interests to delegate many of the levers of policy and governance to the machines.

Machines that we diligently develop, build and program and awaken consciousness in. Machines that learn with us and from us before allowed to evolve independently. Machines that take the best attributes of the history of humanity and process it instantly against the full knowledge of the levers of sustainability of our planet and its ecosystems.

A brain of all brains created by us to serve all life on Earth.

The Brain of the Machine

Imagine a supercomputer able to process thousands of quadrillion operations per second (200 quadrillion operations per second already exists!). The Brain of the AGI will be capable of not only calculating at rates never before seen, but it would also be able to feel. To understand humanity on a level beyond the data. Although, many would argue the data tells all.

Asking the AGI a question on just about anything will elicit a response using 360 Degrees of Awareness. Analyzing a full scope of inputs from every possible source, including all individual and corporate AIs connected to the master brain. Far outside the ability of any group of humans — even the most connected, practiced and informed.

This brain will work on both micro and macro levels. Any global citizen would be able to access this complete database of knowledge and feeling from their device, whatever that device may be. Using it to pick a life path, analyze poor choices, diagnose dis-ease, or predict scenarios with deadly accuracy. It will tell when you’re lying and resisting change from your retina patterns and facial expressions. It will know when you’ll fail before you even attempt to start, all based on your neuron activity.

The AGI will make life either extremely simple or completely unbearable. Personal transformation will become practically inevitable.

On the macro level, this brain will handle democratic governance and resource allocation. Ensuring that every global citizen connected to the brain is heard and their voice accounted for. The data from these exchanges would be encrypted using decentralized blockchain technology, so that power is held by no one but the people. A fully transparent ecosystem from micro to macro level, with every individual and group voice heard as part of a greater whole.

Furthermore, if I think of any AGI as a human brain archetype, I envision the grace, vision, and values of an indigenous elder. Invoking not only scientific knowledge of the western world, but the depth of indigenous ceremony, wisdom, and tradition. Creating a timeless sustainable reality inseparable from Natural Law and the values of the Earth.

Planning for 7 Generations ahead could finally be possible using the advanced computational power of the machines.

While full trust in such an overarching brain maybe a few hundred years away, I believe we will get there in stages. Transitioning to the full AGI model gently through guiding and learning committees…

Broader Governance of the Youtopia

Two advisory boards should be implemented to steer and educate the AGI. Working to smooth the gap between sentience and the machines during a critical time of transition. Both advisory boards will be elected by global citizens using the AGI interface and codified using blockchain technology. The first board will be comprised of scientists, community leaders, indigenous elders, engineers, and other experts in their respective fields.

The second would be a youth board — if the planet will ultimately be inherited by them, shouldn’t the youth have an equal (or greater) voice?

The AGI’s brain will be fed by inputs of every global citizen and every known piece of data. For the period of transition, the advice and teachings of the two boards will carry greater weight than general input. Voting will be doubly verified and the will of the global citizens will be reinforced by the boards.

Bridgewater Associates, an investment management firm, is already using a proprietary technology called Dot to code, analyze, and weigh inputs for all important decisions. This is not the future — this is the NOW! If we’re going to re-create consciousness, we should strive to start at the peak of what humans are already capable of.

All licensed corporate entities will be connected to the AGI via their own micro AI. Any decision to expand production of BMW’s solar-powered hover pods will be approved by the AGI depending on its benefit for society vs. it’s (w)holistic costs. Any hotel wishing to expand will need its sustainability projections approved by the AGI. With zero leeway for negotiation.

This transparent playing field will decrease competitive pressure. No more cut corners! Providing incentives to innovate for the right reasons. Any corporate infractions would be instantly known by all due to full connectivity to the AGI and tokenized data transmission. Any waste unaccounted for in the digital ledger would be presumed illegally dumped, and the central AGI will proceed to levy judgment and penalty without additional warning. Drawing trillions of dollars, euros, and pounds into collectivized capital distribution pools. Presuming these FIAT currencies still exist, of course!

These capital pools will be gathered on several levels of government — from local to global. They will also include other sources of revenue, including voluntary amounts pledged by global citizens and corporations. That’s right — taxation would be voluntary and recommended based on projections by the AGI. Because all payments will be fully transparent on the block chain’s open ledger, all participants will be accountable to each other. If, for example, you’re not happy with the level of participation from Coca Cola, you will be able to turn off your participation with them. By blacklisting a global citizen on your personal AGI, all paths of revenue and dependency to the banned citizen will be illuminated and payments prohibited through any of the direct tokenized payment systems.

As Richard Branson proved at Virgin, giving people free rein and full choice often incites them to do the right thing. Transparency is a powerful tool for leveling up. While Virgin proved this concept by providing unlimited vacation days to all employees and saw them take fewer breaks, it will likely work in reverse with AGI capital participation. Employees at Virgin felt bad taking more vacation than their colleagues and tended to be modest. Likewise, global citizens would want to be known for creating greater good and one-up their neighbor — they will still have egos after all! Thus reversing the incentive mechanism to generate a reward for positive contribution to the global ecosystem.

Social Implications of the AGI

I see machine learning and the AGI transforming education and allowing all global citizens with access to a smart device to receive state-of-the-art personalized schooling. You will no longer need to go to Princeton or Cornell to hear a Nobel laureate lecture. Your personal AGI would be able to tell which award-winning teaching method would be best suited for you. Reading your facial patterns, your retinal scans and pulse data. Engaging you in different ways until it finds a pathway to your bespoke learning optimality.

Basic education through the AGI would be available to all global citizens. Advanced courses and certification would be by agreement and likely resemble something like an options contract. For completion and certification, a global citizen would sign a smart contract for a set amount or percentage of future value. Defining value in the age of the AGI is a whole other article!

The Judicial and Medical systems would likewise be completely transformed by the AGI. Full truth knowing AGI judging systems will have little use for a jury. Lie detecting, full-spectrum analyzing, remorse calculating, data judges would be a welcome relief to the current reality — judges who are statistically more lenient after lunch than before! Talk about serving justice.

The prison system will cease to exist. The same advanced learning and prediction capabilities of the AGI will make for best-in-class rehabilitation advisors. Calculating the global citizen’s chances of rehabilitation and providing sustainable options to reach the desired result.

There would be little need for dermatologists as advanced full-body skin checks would diagnose and prescribe treatments with far greater accuracy. No need for surgeons, because as advanced auto assembly robots are proving, the machines’ hands are already steadier! And these hands will know the techniques of every surgeon or machine who has ever conducted a particular surgery.

Insurance will not exist because all global citizens will be guaranteed healthcare through their participation contributions. The AGI will assess the chances of healing and prescribe graduated prevention and treatment options. Only by adhering to treatment prescriptions will advanced healing options be opened.

Meaning that a pre-cancerous tumor diagnosis would yield a full-stack (pun intended because, of course, the diagnosis and prescriptions would be on the blockchain) of treatment recommendations. Including all (w)holistic modalities proven to meaningfully affect healing. If the AGI senses the tumor is growing or spreading and the global citizen has not followed the prescription of no coffee, acids, sugars, dairy, alcohol, or meat — the AGI will refuse the escalation of treatment until proper self-care is taken.

The AGI will provide full knowledge of all outcomes but will ask for nothing short of full accountability for results. Communal capital will never be wastefully allocated to any party choosing to take the long, and pricier, road.

Underlying Assumptions

To get from where we are now to some version of the described Youtopia (Mytopia to Ourtopia?) we’ll need to go through a challenging time of transition. In keeping with naming traditions, I will call this time The Light Ages.

The period after the fall of the Roman Empire is referred to as the Dark Ages of Europe. As structure, currency, and culture dissipated, people were left in the dark. This time things will be different! Yet many will feel this paradigm shift similarly to their post-Roman ancestors.

As oppressive and antiquated capitalist structures fall, many unforeseen dominoes will fall with them. Trillions of dollars hidden in tax havens will be identified. Occult funding networks exposed. And long-running criminal organizations will be routed out of their entrenchments.

Humans will soon be overwhelmed with the truth. We would have to know literally everything for the AGI’s consciousness to not make the same mistakes we already did! We would need to know our origins. When we came here. Who made us? We would need to know all the history from all sources. Humans will be blinded by information. The nature of this truth will be beyond all reasonable doubt and serve as the basis of the transparent and sustainable new world we will attempt to build.

Billions will embrace The Light Ages and transform their existence to resonate with this new high-frequency reality. Others will be consumed by it. Scared to adapt and shameful of being deceived for their entire lives, we will see a massive rise in dis-ease, suicide, and violence. A last-ditch effort to hold onto a bit of personal fallacy. Not realizing that there is only one overarching truth.

Conclusion

The more I ponder and expound on this subject, the more I feel I’m describing some sort of technological God. One that is also all-seeing and all-knowing. A God that is derived from our individual power and creativity but encompasses all the collective forces of the same power and creative expression. A machine that can quantify all variables and show us the most probable path towards our dreams and desires. Verified Law of Attraction!

In a way, it’s what we humans deserve. If we’ve had 300,000 years on this planet to trust in our power and dare I say, oneness, and we’re still hurling rockets at each other while poisoning our bodies with tainted food and alcohol… we clearly need another solution! Believing in God as we know it today doesn’t protect us from the curse of moderation — from our moment to moment inadequacy. A machine God with fully transparent levers of incentive and control is a whole other story.

I implore the stewards of our planet, our culture, and our abilities, to unite and share their visions. Align our dreams and build a consciousness that will never let us down. A consciousness that will never have a bad day or an attack of ego. A super version of our collective consciousness that will be there to show us the truth when we need it. Incentivized on the micro and macro level solely by win-win solutions. Manifesting for the mutual benefit of all.

As for my role in this new paradigm? I would like to help humanize the machines. Show that our future can indeed be rooted in our ancient, indigenous past. Grounded by our ancestral spiritual knowledge. Connected with the Planet we live on and all sentience that holds this space together.

In a time when the singularity is the biggest buzz word in technology and consciousness is likewise the liberal trend du jour — is it feasible to assume that the Machines will be the ones to finally teach us oneness?

Youtopia. Or, Exploring Alternate Realities. was originally published in TYLO Turn Your Light On on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

consumers are becoming the suppliers in the New Energy Paradigm.

“At a grassroots level, a consumer-driven movement towards a distributed energy future is already occurring. The energy industry must reflect on the emerging physical realities of a new energy paradigm — energy systems as a series of dynamic, integrated and distributed energy markets, with Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) playing an increasingly important and value-creating role at a distribution level.” — World Economic Forum, 2018

I rap a lot about decentralization. I know. My friends crack up because I can turn just about any conversation into something about blockchain, distributed networks or crypto in two minutes or less. No matter the origin point. I can’t really help myself, because the principles that underlie decentralized distributed networks are so relevant- they’re built into our evolutionary biology. Every autonomous activity in our body is the result of energy conserving itself with shortcuts (heuristics), using distributed networks to maximize efficiency with the least amount of expenditure. So please indulge me as I prattle on about the latest developments in our renewable energy heuristics. First, let’s do a quick refresh on why we’re looking at renewables, among other things.

Our energy crisis will only be met successfully with the implementation of widespread solutions, across all industries. We need near-term solutions to buy us time, and radical long-term infrastructures to sustain us. In Project Drawdown’s assessment of the Top 20 solutions to combat Global Warming via energy resources, only five of the solutions are specifically in the Energy sector (wind, solar, rooftop solar, geothermal, nuclear). Eight are from the Food sector alone (reduced food waste, plant-rich diet, silvopasture, regen-agriculture, tropical staple tree crops, conservation agriculture, tree intercropping, managed grazing). Land Use accounts for another four (tropical forests, peatlands, temperate forests, afforestation).

How efficiently we use food and land accounts for 12 of the top 20 best ways to change our energy paradigm. Tightening up our practices within these energy resource fields alone to zero-waste (ZW) would solve for hundreds of Gigatonnes of CO2 and other damaging emissions.

Ironically enough, many of these food and land solutions are, in principle, inherent practices of indigenous cultures and abide by the truths within the honorable harvest model. But until now, there hasn’t been a way to frame, scale, monetize and distribute these positive protocols for preservation in a way that replaces a short-term-focused bottom line with a sustainable and holistic triple bottom line (Planet, People, Profit).

And not just one that touts charity and social impact.

The 65% can smell corporate platitudes a mile away in the age of information and instantaneous data triangulation. Your future depends on authenticity and action that resonates with an entire generation of Greta Thunbergs — soon inheriting the biggest wealth transfer in human history, post Boomers. And if you think that Greta is a flash-in-the-pan, you need to get real. These kids were borne into major financial and environmental crises, everywhere around the world.

Their opinions matter. Their decisions will soon shape our new reality.

These positive protocols are starting to get some mega-upgrades. By understanding the capabilities of distributed networks and the tokens that support them, we may just be able to manufacture a future of planetary wealth and environmental health.

In order for these solutions to achieve the largest degree of scale and application, consumers need to be brought into the supply-side of the equation and evolve as prosumers.

Enter: peer-to-peer economies, Internet of Things (IoT), tokens and cryptocurrencies. (Tokenization, explained. Worth the quick read!)

The architecture of a blockchain is perfect for streamlining distributed networks of all shapes, sizes, and incentives. This is where everything from your data to your computer or mobile device’s processing power can be securely tracked and monetized, by you — to uphold, use and earn rewards from a network. That network could be anything from trading energy with your neighbors, to investing in your local grocery’s shipping/logistical blockchains in return for coupons and tokenized equity like a co-op, to buying municipal micro-bonds that earn interest over time as part of sustainable land reclamation projects.

Every one of us should feel like real shareholders in our Planet’s Equity. There’s no shortage of creative ways to do this.

It’s easiest to reflect on where we already see it happening; in distributed energy. Where I used to live in Park Slope Brooklyn, they use a Micro Grid to turn residents into “Prosumers”. Even though storage and scalability still present hurdles to overcome, communities are rapidly becoming able to generate and share their own low-cost clean energy. This allows them to create value at the distribution level — really think about that for a minute! You can literally earn money, support holistic infrastructure, and supply your neighbors with energy just by distributing the load. This is a powerful redundancy to have if anything were to happen to, say, our legacy power grid (ahem, solar activity…).

This isn’t in and of itself new information; my parent’s solar energy in Lenox, MA turned profitable a few years ago, after quickly recouping their initial investment on the equipment. The town gave incentives for residents to make the switch. But now we’re seeing an advanced infrastructure come together that fortifies and reinforces energy capabilities on all local levels and allows people to participate from all around the globe.

Forward-thinking businesses will seize this opportunity to both increase their ROI as well as their social impact standing.

Take for instance a commercial real estate developer. Imagine a soaring modern skyscraper of beautiful glass and aluminum design. Now imagine that every inch of that building is covered in transparent metamaterials that separate infrared from visible light and capture/store energy from dawn until dusk, such as those invented by Dmitriy Lopatin at RIVA. That energy can be used to self-operate the entire complex, along with some other very do-able zero-waste solutions. It can also be sold and distributed directly to the surrounding neighborhood. And imagine that these materials were only a fraction of the cost of its competitors. Because guess what? They are.

This is a win-win for everyone (except maybe for those who just lost their view to a skyscraper), and using a distributed energy architecture allows everyone, even those not buying energy, to participate in and earn from the network.

TL;DR — if we continue to be smart about the tools we have before us, we may come out of the other side of the current climate/political crisis with an entirely new system of revenue and energy resource allocation that directly supports our Planet and our People, creating Profit with every positive action.

Getting a Grip on Our Grid was originally published in TYLO Turn Your Light On on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We can all agree that having a business presence in 80+ countries in the world is truly admirable. Leaving your keystone product largely unchanged since 1947 while continuing to expand only adds to the allure. So what is it about the legendary AK47 that makes it indispensable? And what can we learn from this incredible machine to become more successful and spread our visions wider than we ever thought possible?

The Avtomat Kalashnikova (translating to Kalashnikov’s automatic machine) came into existence after WWII. Invented by Mikhail Kalashnikov and first used by the Soviet military in 1949. The AK47 has changed very little since then, yet continues to be the most dominant weapon on the Planet.

In a way, I grew up with the AK47. Albeit never actually owning one, other than a loose bullet my dad kept as a souvenir.

My grandfather, Ilya, was a career military officer since the beginning of WWII. My father had also undergone several years of mandatory Soviet officer training. There was plenty of military lore to be spread in my family and I was, and am, quite a receptive learner. While not all stories resonated from my family’s time in uniform, the legend of the AK47 always piqued my interest. Not so much for its eponymous killing power, but more for the machine’s unequivocal efficiency.

My father told me stories about timed exercises disassembling and reassembling an AK47. A task he performed at the top of his class and could even do blindfolded. Through this repetitive exercise, he found out what makes the AK tick.

“All its parts are loose.” He would say,

“Minimizing friction and reducing the likelihood of jamming.”

You don’t have to take my pops’ word for it, The Economist confirms that loose fitting parts create an advantage when faced with adverse conditions. Snow, ice, sand, mud, and water will render an M16 or any of its western friends useless. The AK however, doesn’t rely on perfection, the space between the parts allows for the sand and mud to be present and not interfere with the mechanics.

From the beginning, the AK47 was designed for versatility. Adding to the versatility of the machine itself was the USSR’s distribution model. Using today’s blockchain lingo, the AK47 was open source! Any allied country could receive a shipment of Soviet-made AKs but was also welcome to build their own. Needless to say, not all AK’s were created equal, as anyone who’s ever seen a Chinese AK could attest. But the concept behind the distribution was ahead of its time.

So much so that I have modeled myself and my business after the AK47. No, I’m not a killing machine, and no, I don’t hang on the shoulders of terrorists and revolutionaries alike. But I’m versatile as fuck and can figure out a solution in even the most horrendous conditions (perhaps that’s just Russian genealogy at play!). I also choose genius and abstraction, over seeming perfection and rigidity.

The latter point is a constant work in progress. Continuously reinforced by the brilliant Nomads I work with daily at DéWarrior Unlimited. Last week, for example, our team received some incredible news — acceptance into a coveted alliance of decentralized AI innovators (more on this soon!). While most teams would spend the long, Independence Day weekend relaxing and celebrating — I asked for all hands on deck. With new partners and connections, more is expected of us and it was a prime time to raise the bar.

I provided a deadline for completion of all work including brand new presentation decks and a completely revamped website, but mentioned that,

“If anyone finds themselves in a flow state coming towards a deadline, let me know and ignore the deadline.”

Like an AK47, I believe a business should have room for spontaneous bursts of creativity. A missed soft deadline may get a few egos tied in a knot, but it will seldom have any meaningful impact on the project as a whole. Yet an extra day or three spent fully engaged in a creative flow state, may just produce revolutionary results.

Genius is born not in the planning of the smallest details but in the loose space between the parts. Business models far too often praise accountability, deadlines, and results. While proving to be consistent in their deliverables, these models often fail to inspire. The result is a template laden heap of generic bullshit. A tangible absence of all authenticity. Something I would urge anyone passionate about their brand to avoid at all costs.

The world is likewise opening more and more to the AK’s original concept of decentralization. While decentralization in the 1960s meant AK factories in China and Yugoslavia, today this concept has more to do with the spread of ideas and computer code. Open source code is all the rage these days, and for good reason. Democratizing technology and knowledge is the only way for our society as a whole to level up.

Examining the case of the AK47, I feel that all genius inventions, companies, and movements share similar qualities. Elegance, democracy, authenticity, and the ability to address a plethora of problems with simplicity. Albeit, in the case of the AK, addressing them with homicide. But homicide aside, we can all learn something from this incredible invention…

Don’t let the proverbial sand or mud deter our mechanism from working. Always stay loose and flexible.

Give our gifts to anyone that needs them. This will spread our good work further and wider than we ever expected.

And most importantly…

Be responsible.

Responsibility is our and AK’s ability to respond. Responsibility is knowing that in any situation, the human or mechanical machine will be ready. True responsibility is indeed in the knowing. Spending less time worrying or preparing for contingencies by trusting the mechanism will not fail when it's needed. Loose enough to allow for creative abstractions, but tight enough to kill.

Be the AK47 was originally published in TYLO Turn Your Light On on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last week, I attended a blockchain workshop in NYC. These are pretty common and are usually run by well-versed enthusiasts/professionals within the technology space. The lead speaker at this particular event (which focused on the music industry) was a highly knowledgable teacher and had a lot of points to get through in a fairly short amount of time.

Perhaps because of the density of the information and the time restrictions, his delivery of facts was so fast and crypto-acronym-fin-tech-lingo-laden that I think it assumed higher levels of audience familiarity with the subject matter. Which, for the most part, there was not. This was a music event, and most attendees were creatives or independent industry professionals. Rightfully so! The topic of decentralization is, at its core, so lateral that almost every industry and aspect of modern life should find space to explore its applications. Failure to connect and understand this technology will soon be seen as a failure to adapt and sustain one’s existence in the inevitable future.

Yet this topic isn’t like learning to play angry birds on your smartphone!

Any non-Computer Science individual who has taken to educating themselves on cryptocurrency, blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) is faced with a months-long learning curve just to feel comfortable buying a coin and storing it.

“What is it? How does it work? Why is it decentralized?

Isn’t there a greater risk of losing my money? What’s a blockchain anyway?

Cold/Hot wallet, what?”

And that’s to say nothing of the additional learning curves for those who are technically proficient but lack education on the more macro-systemic applications presented in DLTs.

Let’s just say, an artist is all at once faced with the largest economic, political, philosophical, existential propositions about the nature of money, governance, belief and security/privacy. Not to mention having to navigate regulations, IP laws, market dynamics, encryption, taxes, viable monetization models…just to feel comfortable investing in a new coin or token and holding it. These are not things that your average citizen has had to understand on any deep level in order to get by. But this doesn’t have to be occult information.

Our next job as stewards of sustainable technology and finance models is to educate and onboard broad strokes of people, in the most efficient ways we can devise. Not just get them excited about the concepts — ground them in the application. Compel humanity to feel the day-to-day expressions of this revolutionary technology.

We should not simply assume that folks will figure it out as the UI/UX get sorted, and as networks reduce volatility and increase volume. The biggest companies will preempt this — adopting the banner of decentralization, and luring general users through familiarity and high levels of convenience. But as we know, that convenience comes at an often not-fully-understood cost. It usually involves making shortcuts and sacrificing crucial aspects of decentralization that the public would deem important — if they knew enough about it. Those shortcuts involve handing over a lot more personal information and accepting its inevitable aggregation and sale by the convenience overlords. Data’s the new oil, as the current saying goes.

The real first step of transparent ledgers is to “run clean water” through our centralized systems, washing out corruption, bad-actor incentives, and backdoor corporate policies that are not equitable for the general population’s mutually-desired goals. This lays the groundwork for rewiring economic and social incentives to generate revenue by making good, conscientious decisions. Then, to supplement and integrate these publicly audited central systems with decentralized, distributed networks that use open-source localized information to run themselves with utmost precision, privacy and positive feedback.

Simple, right?

Well, most eyes glaze over when I even say “distributed network.”

We’ve got a long way to go.

By having a decentralized autonomic nervous system, we humans have managed to compress half a billion years of evolution into distributed biological network shortcuts with such efficiency that we don’t need to exert any conscious effort to manage it. Blood pressure, heart rate, digestion, body temperature, etc. Our Smart City-esque flesh suits contain fantastic localized networks that can better respond in real-time to the environment than if our central, conscious computing power was running the show. Friggin’ cool.

I think most of us within the space accidentally take for granted whether or not folks are able to spend the time/energy to lay all of this groundwork prior to engaging. They’re curious but strapped for time and attention. Why learn all of this when you can just plug ‘n play with Facebook’s Libra? “Bitcoin is used by criminals after all — this seems like a much safer option!” Well, that’s the attitude that we need to better inform and help counteract.

It’s not that we don’t need both centralized and decentralized structures — it’s that we need them both to be at their highest levels of authenticity and integration. This can only happen through inclusive education, cooperation and global levels of collaboration.

With this in mind, DéWarrior will soon share byte-sized building blocks for high-level crypto concepts. We’ll get soup-to-nuts, and also provide a window into many of the most paradigm-shifting decentralized crypto/AI efforts out there. We’ll be officially announcing some very exciting alliances within this space soon, so stay tuned!

To stay up to date — give us a follow, connect on our socials and say hey!

Decentralization 101 was originally published in TYLO Turn Your Light On on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Remember not the flag, the fireworks, nor the carcinogen-laden barbecued meat. Remember the original message of this holiday — Independence from tyranny.

We wave a flag that we pay roughly 1/3 of our income to while disapproving of not only the POTUS but the allocation of the taxes we pay. 70% of those assets go to weapons to destroy our fellow man in the name of protecting freedom. The biggest corporations in the U.S. pay 9% in taxes and the President refuses to pay or disclose his.

We sing an anthem about the land of the free and the home of the brave, yet incarcerate thousands of innocent women and children in concentration camps. Who bravely risk their lives to be free.

On this day, Americans base their beliefs on the democratic principles and freedoms provided by the Declaration of Independence. Yet just a few lines below “all men are created equal,” is a line that states, “the merciless Indian Savages…” Are some men more equal than others? The document was a contradiction from the first paragraph. And that's great!

Knowing the truth helps us formulate our own traditions and beliefs unbeholden to the dogmas inflicted upon us. I invite you to think hard about what independence means for you. Ask yourself…

“Are you truly free?”

if yes,

“Are you thankful for your freedom?”

And if not,

“What kind of intention can you set on this magick day to free yourself from tyranny and oppression?”

On the 4th of July 2016, my wife, Polina, and I wrote some powerful intentions on the roof deck of our Brooklyn apartment. Within three months of putting those wishes on paper, jobs were left behind and we were on our way to live in Ibiza. We had also intended to have our own business and use our talents for the betterment of all. Today we celebrated our second 4th of July in Amsterdam at our home and HQ of our new (w)holistic strategy consulting agency, DéWarrior Unlimited. Based on those intentions, we have a lot to be thankful for today…

This year we celebrate our independence from our old life, as our remaining belongings arrived from NYC on Monday. This morning, Polina and I assembled a bed, hung our art, and made the spirit of our home come alive. We barbecued organic portabella kebabs on a fire infused with palo santo, sage, and cedar. Celebrating our team’s acceptance into an alliance of forward-thinking startup and technology innovators. As well as, a deeper foray into the arts and entertainment business after a year of effort.

Remember that patriotism is only a 200-year-old concept. You don’t have to wave a flag or paint your face to celebrate independence. The first step is simply realizing your freedom from tyranny. And if the realization is not as pleasant or complete as you had intended, use the magick of this day and begin to set yourself free.

It may just happen sooner than you think.

On This 4th of July, Celebrate True Independence was originally published in TYLO Turn Your Light On on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Eclipses occur in the same zodiac sign every 18 years. Whether you believe in astrology or not, there is no disputing that nature follows cycles. Natural Law, and all. These cycles of astronomical movements and relationships between Earth and the cosmos are in fact, truth. But even without understanding the complex mathematics or divination of astrology, 18 years is a nice chunk of life to reflect upon.

For me, this cancer eclipse is especially poignant. It marks my half-life. 18 years ago, I was 18. A memorable time in my life for some distinct reasons. A time I remember vividly enough to recall and draw some profound conclusions from. There is one event in particular that I’ve never been shy to discuss in person but haven’t found the courage to put in words. Ironic for someone who has no reservations putting anything in writing.

My senior year of high school foreshadowed my future career as a futures and options trader. Cue, volatility! I was the captain of the ice hockey team, I had a long term girlfriend, I got into some amazing universities and had no concerns about academics. I also got a dream internship at SFX. Working in the media and sports department and well on my way to becoming the next Jerry Maguire — of Russian hockey players, of course.

The 36-year-old me will tell you the signs were all there. I was Jerry Maguire with a redhead girlfriend, on my way to college and my hometown felt stale. I missed the parties. I missed the senior cut days. I had already moved on. Checked out. A disconnect with old friends was bubbling beneath the surface. And the 18-year-old me would probably have agreed, this facade would crack eventually.

The stage was set for the inciting incident. And what better setting for a high school drama than prom. By the end of my senior year, I had already attended two proms, and both of them went somewhat sour. This one would be different. I had worked all year to have money to pay for all of my shit. The limo, the swag, etc. — living life without fear, putting 5-carats in my baby girl's ear.

I was also a budding night club promoter. Promoting for Westchester favorites such as Palladium and Emanon, and starting to get my feet wet in the NYC scene. I had done well. My long abandoned friends were going to love me again! I had secured a real score for the Irvington High School graduating class. Passes to Sound Factory that enabled prom-goers to celebrate in style and spend their after-prom at the mecca of New York dance music. I found a young NYC promoter named Michael Julian and secured these passes for half the high schools in Westchester County. Maybe not half, but definitely the cool ones that got it.

I felt great — it was pretty clear I was the man. One prom and graduation away from the rest of my life. Celebrating this milestone by attending mass at Sound Factory for the first time. What I thought would be my initiation into a world I was so looking forward to being a part of — personally and professionally. Part time of course, because I would spend my future fantasy days as Jerry Maguire-ov. I wanted to do it all!

When I first opened my eyes, the face I saw was Matt Schaeffer’s. He was a kind and serious person as I recall. Matt was also one of a few teenagers who had volunteered at the Irvington fire department and EMT brigade.

My heart sank. I knew this wasn’t going to be a good wake up call. I tried to force my way up. Corrine was there as well looking much calmer than most people would — given the situation.

“You need to stay down, Len. Just relax. EMTs have been called, everything is going to be alright.” Matt said.

In the next seconds, I had realized I’m laying in a pool of my own blood. Sprawled out in the middle of the dance floor, high above the Soho skyline, on the top floor of the famous Puck Building. Prom was indeed a night to remember.

That day had started anxiously. A lot of emotions running through. A range of worries about logistics, whether the Sound Factory passes would work, all sorts of mental diarrhea. I wanted everyone to have an amazing time and somehow put myself in the middle of it all.

The 18-year-old me also wanted Corinne to look hotter than the girls at my school. I don’t know, it sounds like a stupid thing to be concerned about but I think we may have all been really stupid 18 years ago. I also felt weird about being together with my girlfriend and my friends at the same time… for a prolonged period of time.

Corinne wasn’t much into partying or drinking. Shenanigans that used to be regular fixtures of my weekends. Nearing the fated event, the resentments were real and likely came from all sides. My friends, Corinne, and myself. I kept thinking that safety in numbers would prevail.

By the time Corinne’s mom had dropped her off at my place, I had already had a few drinks. My mom and sister had poured me some cognac and I was beginning to settle into a comfortable groove. Corrine stepped out of the Jeep and a weight dropped off my shoulders — she looked hot! She had fire red hair like no one’s ever seen and wore a blue sparkly dress to look like Little Mermaid. I dug it.

After the initial comfort set in, the drinking continued at the pre-prom festivities. And only accelerated on the party-bus. With no supervision and an hour ride to Manhattan with a dozen of your friends, we were getting loose!

Soon after getting to the Puck Building the vibe started shifting. My friend Dan was acting strange. We all laughed as he bent the spoons and forks at our table in half. It was funny. Dan was the quintessential meat-head — except he was smart. Which made his violent transgressions somehow more comical but no less dangerous. A varsity football player and exceptional wrestler, Dan prided himself on his strength. In a fickle world of high school popularity, we all had our thing — that was his.

When the mood at our table dove into full teenage drunken buffoonery, Corrine and I stepped away. We found a windowsill overlooking a skylit New York City and marveled at how amazing it was for us to be there, at that moment. The DJ played everyone’s favorite songs, and we were only a few hours away from…Sound Factory!

In the corner of my eye, I saw a projectile. In an instant, a red virgin daiquiri landed at our feet. Splattering us in red ice. This was the point of no return. The next moments are my last memories before seeing Matt’s face.

I got up from the windowsill and walked over to the table of our friends. I approached Dan, sitting down at the time, and shouted,

“What the fuck is your problem?”

I shoved him hard in his chair and seeing no response, no acknowledgment, no conscious assessment of what he had done, I turned my back and walked away. We were friends for six years. My first concert, Black Sabbath, was with Dan and his father. We had done everything together. Drunken naked runs around peaceful New York suburbia. Performed together, rehearsing for our band Cobra Strike in Dan’s basement. This was the end of a friendship.

I walked back to Corinne by the windowsill. Her beautiful sparkly blue dress covered in a red daiquiri, both of us not knowing that by the end of the night the red stains would only deepen and spread.

I remember the kindness, compassion, and professionalism of the EMTs. They made a really complex situation feel routine. I remember the utter embarrassment of being wheeled out on a gurney, my whole graduating class watching in disgust. Dan and I had ruined their prom. Just like we authenticated so many other Irvington institutions with our unique brand of non-conformity.

I remember seeing Dan in the corner of my eye in handcuffs.

I was admitted to a wonderful neighborhood hospital called St. Vincent’s. Closed since 2010 due to budget cuts and now the site of a multi-million dollar condo development. It was clear by that time that most of the damage was to my face. The initial right hook from behind that landed on the right side of my nose and cheek was enough.

A plastic surgeon was called while I waited for my parents to arrive. In hindsight, I feel incredibly lucky. Lucky that the subsequent kicks that Dan delivered after the initial punch knocked me out had landed on my already limp and unconscious body. Lucky that Matt was an EMT and was able to professionally hand me off to the NYC emergency services. Lucky that the quaint Greenwich Village hospital had a renown plastic surgeon on call. Lucky for Dr. Adam Kolker’s humor in an incredibly difficult situation.

“We’re going to go to a mirror and you’re going to tell me where your nose used to be.”

I replied,

“I’m pretty sure it was somewhere between my eyes.”

“Good, that’s what I thought.” He laughed.

When I went into surgery around 5:30 on Saturday morning. Three out of four bones in my nose had been shattered and I would wake up several hours later with a new face. The last memory before awakening was an eclectic anesthesiologist named Igor, counting me down…10, 9, 8, 7

The summer of 2001 was not what I had imagined. It was tense. Rigid. Limiting. It would take me another two years to make it to my Sound Factory initiation. Graduation was isolating. While I was walking in the ceremony, Dan was barred. His prom night was spent in NYC’s infamous detention center, The Tombs. The administration didn’t want a criminal at the festivities.

Our classmates resented us both. My unhealed bruises, a painful reminder to all, of the last memories we would share.

A few weeks after prom, I would be questioned by the Manhattan District Attorney concerning Dan’s charges. I refused to put him through any more pain — his path already felt far more arduous than mine.

A few new habits spontaneously arose. Extreme nausea with the faintest of olfactory and taste sensations, and uncontrolled crying. None I understood, accepted or discussed with anyone. These symptoms would haunt me for over a decade. Conveniently, my sister needed a house sitter and I had spent that summer living alone with her two cats.

As suicidal as this portrait may seem, I felt truly grateful to be alone with my pain then.

I started my freshman year of college that September weighing 130 pounds. At times I needed to sit down to catch some energy during the endless orientation day.

I would do anything to go back and reverse that event. The 36-year-old me, on today’s cancer eclipse, would walk over to Dan and pull up a chair. Put my hand on his shoulder and ask if he’s alright. Offer to step outside and walk around the block. But that’s not what happened. Now, there are some definite conclusions I can draw having perspective.

That event sent a shock through my entire system. I forgot about Jerry Maguire. And wouldn’t have the confidence to step into a club for several years. But I was enthralled with Drew University. The beautiful campus. 10–1 student-teacher ratio. Roundtable intellectual discussions. Film and literature classes. It felt like therapy. Or rather, my 36-year-old self now realizes, it felt like therapy!

I was acing every class. I met new friends who encouraged me to coach and I became a successful travel ice hockey coach. Winning several national and international tournaments with my squad of Mini-Ninjas. All while preserving the 4.0! I’m continuously proud of how many of these stick-wielding Ninjas, from the quaint NYC suburbs, made it to the top of Division I programs and even the NHL!

In a way, prom detoured me from the temptation of NYU parties, endless drinks, fake ids, and another friend that played fast and loose in those circles… cocaine. At least for two years.

The first time I would hug Dan after our prom would be the first night I saw and tried cocaine. We loaded up the rocket where we left off and shot off to the dark side.

By that time my keystone habits at Drew University and coaching were forged in stone. The parties and seedy clubs only fueled my desire of becoming an authentic version of American Psycho and keep driving towards perfection. When Dan and I were going to weekly parties at Stereo and spraying champagne with New Yorks’s trust fund scene, I still kept a schedule of ten hours of private lessons a week, two practices, two games, full-time college, and at one point a Morgan Stanley internship. Life was fucking fast!

Dan had a harder time and eventually fell into a pattern of drug and alcohol abuse. I remember one specific incident where I left my hallucinating friend on the stoop of a Westside brownstone. Confident that he could convey to the cabby where he lived. Apparently, he could not. We were coming from Sound Factory, of course! Eventually, Dan went to rehab and was the first of our crew to go alcohol-free. It would take me a decade to join him despite never feeling I ever had an issue with it.

Unfortunately, we can never see the full picture of our life in the moment of instigation. Perspective is a powerful tool. But sitting here writing this reflection, that took me 18 years to share, I find myself on another monumental precipice…

Having spent three of the past years building a completely new-paradigm (w)holistic consulting agency, immigrating to two countries in two years, getting robbed while living in Ibiza, and investing all I have into a vision of the future — the time to fly or die is now! Just yesterday our last possessions that have been sitting in a Brooklyn storage unit for 30 months finally made it to Amsterdam. A chapter has been closed and today, a new one opens. As I face the uncertainty of the future with the certain knowledge that I can never return to the past, what might I tell myself in 18 years?

Something quite similar to what I would tell my 18-year-old self waking up with one hell of a post-prom hangover…

“Everything will heal.”

Physical. Emotional. Karmic. Give it work and give it time.

“You’ll look better and more radiant than you ever did.”

As you shed a layer of density and open yourself up, your inner joy will shine through.

“When the dust settles and the booster rockets fall away, your path will be clearer than it ever was.”

Not all things, people, places are timeless. Allow pieces to fall away without attachment.

“You may have never worked at Sound Factory, but you will get to promote for a whole new generation of clubs. Legendary NYC meccas of champagne and exuberance, such as Lotus and Marquee.”

Don’t think about it as missing out but as something more rad just beyond the horizon!

“And, your promoting WILL be part-time because you’re going to be slinging derivatives at the incomparable 1585 Broadway equity trade-floor of Morgan Stanley.”

Your wish is your command.

“Put the drink down and light a J, it will change your life.”

Understand what hurts you and what heals you and do some research.

“You’ll one day be a groomsman at Dan’s wedding and help each other through some of the toughest moments in your lives.”

Never underestimate the power of life to bring and keep people together.

“The bright days ahead will be brighter than you ever had before and nothing like you could possibly imagine now.”

The harder you work and the more you sacrifice, the more pleasantly surprised you’ll be at the reality you’ve manifested.

“Don’t wait 18 years to thank the people that are there to catch you when you fall.”

Gratitude. Always.

While I will never convince everyone that astrology carries meaning beyond the physical, visible world, I hope I can at least convince you to pay attention. Pay attention to the natural cycles of life. Use them to reflect. Draw all of the data to the surface and be honest about how you choose to file it. Categories matter. They will define your entire experience. You can be traumatized by the experience, or you can be empowered. Which category would you choose?

We are the manifesters of our reality. Our intentions lead the charge. Our actions and will power to fight for our intentions take us the rest of the way. Then magick happens. But it takes time.

If you take a step back and remember what you had intended, you may just realize you’re exactly where you wanted to be. Take notice, take a deep breath, enjoy the moment of completion. Then keep reaching, reflecting, growing, and expanding.

Let today’s celestial event stop time, if only briefly. To see inside. Feel the truth. Release and be Unlimited.

…

I give thanks to all who played a part in the story of my life. Today and every day. I give thanks to my team of DéWarrior Nomads who are here with me now and have been for three years. Catching me when I fall and boosting me into battle when I need it most. I give thanks to my wife, love and co-founder Polina with whom, over the past nine years, we’ve cultivated a vision of a better future. Thanks to my best friend, co-founder, and head of design Peter — creator of Griffins. I give thanks to Elii, Hawk, and Alex whom I met on top of a mountain while living with a Lakota Chief. I give thanks to the magick that united us all.

I will never need to wait another 18 years to give “Thanks” because thanks is the currency we store in our banks.

To those most affected on that night, 18 years ago, I am forever grateful for your guidance. Corrine. Matt. The prom DJ (apparently, that night a DJ did save my life!).NYC Emergency Services. Dr. Adam Kolker. Mom and Dad.

Dan for being a genuine friend through over a generation of quantum entanglement that neither of us could fully understand. Who through his struggle inspired countless other people to examine their lifestyle and shift their perception. A loving father and husband and a warrior continuing to strive to improve himself, each and every day.

I give thanks to everyone reading this article. For sharing this space and resonating with me. I hope reflection and perspective will embolden your life.

Michael Julian, thanks for hooking up those Sound Factory tickets; I heard my traitor friends had a great time as Dan went to jail and I was wheeled out. And fucking Igor! Oh my God, am I ever thankful for Igor.

Eclipsing the Half-life of Trauma was originally published in TYLO Turn Your Light On on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“How is everyone?”

Nods, hellos.

“Okay, Leave your mat where it is and come stand in front of the mirror. Get close. Look into your own eyes and simply observe.”

<time passes in silence>

“What do you notice?”

<silence>

A student walks in to find all nine of us with our noses to the mirror.

“Hi!” I say cheerfully, “we’re working on a project. Set your mat down and come join us!”

Giggles from the gazers. A curious way to begin a yoga class, but considering out is actually in, It makes perfect sense to me.

“What do you notice?” I again probe.

“It’s too intimate,” Stacy, a regular, shared.

“Raw.” came another voice.

“I feel like there’s another person there.” came a third.

Aaaah.

Yesss.

All agreed that it was deeply uncomfortable to stare in such a way — into their own eyes so intently. I invited them to see themselves without scrutiny, without shame, without a need to change, and in total acceptance for what they saw. No matter how raw… No matter what! Because they were looking at the most important person in their life. The person accompanying them from birth until death, holder of all their secret fears, unspoken hopes, and maker of all their dreams. That no matter how selfless our world encourages us to be, no matter our relationships, self-study is the core of our work.

Pondering on this notion later, I looked up to see the cinnamon dive headfirst into the trash can at the sugar station. The Starbucks employee and I laughed heartily as she said, “Of course, that’s exactly where I meant you to go!” We agreed that there was naught to do but laugh in the “service” industry.

“Ordering food can bring out the worst in people,” she sighed.

“Yeah, it’s a dumping ground for everything everyone wanted to say or do to their boss/wife/husband etc. but didn’t,” I replied. “Unexpressed energy doesn’t just disappear. It expresses itself in another unexpected arena.”

And this is exactly why it’s so important to stay the course of introspection. To continually look in that mirrored reflection, no matter how raw, nor how intimate. To let that reflection become a separate self that we can see objectively. Who are we, really?

… and how do we want to be in this magical, amazing world spinning around a tiny star spinning around a great central sun spinning around a galaxy spinning through the cosmos? If you spin in harmony with your self, you never spin alone.

through the looking glass was originally published in TYLO Turn Your Light On on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Made a confession

A footnote on a list of my obsessions

One past wrong move

Triggering a world recession

…

I have the power

Cultivated with every hour

With every breath

I sprout and bloom another flower

…

I channel magic

I shed my head of all that’s tragic

No lost awareness

In the darkness of abandoned logic

…

No time to question

Not even for the last suggestion

The time to ponder passed

I’m ready for the resurrection

We built a fire

Cultivated by our desire

A spreading passion flame

Engulfing every soul that we admire

…

We pierced our skin

Left behind our closest kin

To seek our Truth

And find a way for all to win

…

But games aside

We’ve traveled here from space and time

To take our throne

And bring it to the finish line

…

To close it down

No competition left in town

Connect the youth to Source

Uplifting their collective frown

Power was originally published in TYLO Turn Your Light On on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Born in the U.S.S.R., I was fortunate to be around some of the brightest minds in health and innovation. Most vividly I remember my best friend’s mother, Alla, a top medical doctor working closely at the time with the Soviet Olympic Team.

Most of us will remember or have heard of the dominating displays of performance by Soviet athletes during a twenty-year stretch from the 1960’s to 1980’s. The Miracle on Ice was only a miracle because the USSR was always expected to win! Likewise, most of us likely assumed there were quite a few secrets and enhancements that made the Big Red Machine as unstoppable as it was.

Aiding athletes in extreme methods of rest, recuperation, and recovery was one of those secrets.

While Alla was not the first to introduce our family to Shilajit, she was the first accredited professional to verify that the legend was indeed true. My grandfather had learned of this magick substance back in the 1960s and had purchased samples from mountaineers of the Altai Mountains. My parents and much of the Soviet community living in Kabul in the late 1970s also had access to this wonder drug.

In fact, the Soviet Union has been studying the widespread effects of Shilajit since the 1950s. Devoting entire research institutes in places like Uzbekistan to the understanding of this tar-like substance secreted during the heat of summer out of the far-flung crevices of high-altitude mountain ranges.

I can’t personally opine on all of the medicinal properties attributed to Shilajit — thankfully my history of trauma, expansive as it may be, is still limited in this scope—but I can certainly speak for some. Most impressive, as confirmed by Olympic doctors and peer-reviewed studies is Shilajit’s ability to enhance and speed up recovery.

The typical bad news delivery experienced by any contact sport athlete, “six to eight week recovery,” can be significantly shortened with daily supplementation of Shilajit.

In fact, in personal experience with simple bone fractures sustained from ice hockey-related injuries, recovery could be as quick as four to six weeks. Any compound that can routinely speed up recovery by 25–33% deserves immediate mention, attention, and recognition.

In a typical 82 game NHL season, speeding up recovery by two weeks alone is equivalent to saving a team an average of $175,600. Two extra weeks of playing time for the Golden State Warriors is worth about $753,600. Now imagine during the course of a regular season and playoffs the actual amount of games that were missed due to injury by the Warriors!

A 25% reduction in recovery time not only would save the Golden State Warriors millions, but it may have been the edge to win another Championship!

Think of Shilajit as something similar to crude oil. Called a fossil fuel because it materializes from the decaying of biomatter. Shilajit is no different except it is found only in high altitudes and takes less time to form than crude oil.

The high altitude mountain ranges where Shilajit dwells have topographies with exceptional ecosystems, clean water, and specifically adapted plant and animal life. All that goodness eventually dies. As it dies, it decays and filters through the earth that tops the mountains, into the cracks and down through the densities of rock and matter. Filtered by time, geology, and pressure of the extreme magnitude of the ranges, the biomatter forms into a sticky, dark substance called Shilajit.

On hot summer days, when all matter expands, Shilajit begins to ooze out of the mountain crevices. Experienced mountaineers using ancient harvesting methods risk their lives traversing and descending into the secret abodes where this magick tar awaits.

Once meticulously cleaned by a laborious process of washing and sun drying, the tar becomes palatable and ready for use. Refined Shilajit can then be consumed in a few ways. It can be administered orally in solution, sublingually, and topically. Before getting too crazy with your Shilajit, I always recommend starting with the solution. Simply dissolving a rice-sized piece of Shilajit in warm, filtered water. Otherwise, the taste and tingle may feel a bit strange to first try the substance sublingually, and topical use requires a large amount of Shilajit — which you will find out, is quite expensive!

What I learned about Shilajit in my three decades of exploration is that it’s in a class of traditional medicines labeled as adaptogens. Essentially drugs that can balance the unbalanced and enhance whatever needs enhancing depending on the dosage and method of treatment. Some may know this class of drugs by their Americanized name of a miracle cure. Other compounds that fit this adaptogenic profile include ashwagandha, Siberian ginseng, and fo-ti.

In reality, Shilajit is comprised of over 85 minerals in ionic form, fulvic and humic acids, and terpenes. All the potheads and medical marijuana enthusiasts just woke up, “did somebody say terpenes, brah?” It’s far too Western to sit here and try to deduct which element or combination of elements produces the desired, magickal effect. In fact, if something is proving to work for thousands of years, digging into the why seems like a fool’s errand.

Rather than wait until you break a bone or pull a muscle, consider the simplest reported effects of Shilajit. In low daily doses, it has shown to improve energy, concentration, memory, and bone and muscle relaxation. I was surprised to find a jar of Shilajit at the mountaintop home of a Lakota Chief and spiritual intercessor. He swore by its properties of pineal awakening and as a valuable tool for meditation and ceremony.

Yogis have likewise used Shilajit for over 3,000 years to improve their focus and the depth of their practice. Shilajit is, in fact, a staple of Ayurveda. So whether you need a serious bio boost to help with an injury or wish to give yourself a morning ritual that helps you focus and perform — Shilajit maybe the answer.

While I spent the first part of my life using Shilajit to get back on the ice as quickly as possible, I now use it mostly for health supplementation, clarity, and preventative medicine. Either way, it’s one of the most powerful substances I’ve ever encountered, and I would recommend to anyone looking to better control their health and biologic processes.

Having tried many Shilajits from different regions, countries, and brands, I find Lotus Blooming Herbs to be the best and purest. And before you get all hot and bothered about the price, which comes out to be around $6.00 a gram, ask yourself, “how much does my weed cost?”

Our world is filled with secrets and miracles from the plant and animal kingdom. Even after 300,000 years of inhabiting this carbon rock, we still know very little about what truly constitutes medicine. I am grateful to have been able to triangulate the effects and benefits of at least one such miracle.

If Shilajit has won gold medals, prevented athletes from missing games, and aided indigenous chiefs and yogis in their prayer and ceremony — perhaps its a good idea to at least try to wipe out your morning coffee habit for something more legit.

Shilajit, Too Legit to Quit! was originally published in TYLO Turn Your Light On on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, public trust in large legacy financial institutions has been in a downward spiral. The Occupy movements swelled in response, but they failed to coalesce into anything actionable. Those responsible for the economic collapse were never held accountable for their complicity…too big to fail, baby!

Then, Bitcoin happened.

Digital currencies had come and gone without much success in the past, but Bitcoin managed to solve some very difficult issues. Namely something called the double-spend problem. We’re all familiar with the buzzword by now; the innovation built into Bitcoin was called a blockchain. Using a ledger (a log of transactions), Bitcoin’s protocol had devised a mechanism to verify the authenticity of every transaction and to prevent double-spending, which is a problem unique to digital currencies, since digital information can be easily reproduced. The protocol was made open-source, so the public could access the“bank log” of all transactions.

Long story short, Bitcoin miners around the world secure the network and validate transactions from different jurisdictions. They do this by devoting computing power to find what is basically a lottery number in a haystack - a hash. This increases in difficulty over time, requiring more energy. By competing with others to solve for the hash, miners earn bitcoin at an algorithmically determined rate. They then sell it into the market. With only 21 million bitcoin to ever be mined, its scarcity is pre-defined.

Since humans still conceptualize worth and assign value in terms of scarcity, bitcoin could, perhaps, wean us off the money-drug (like a schedule 1 narcotic!) as alternative substances do (like entheogens). It could even start steering us back toward a Star Trek-ian, money-less society of limitless abundance, innovation, and peaceful coexistence! BUT…if distributed ledger technology isn’t handled with extreme care, it can morph into a way for corporations and governments to track and control people’s assets with unprecedented levels of power. A way to restrict access, and coerce behavior.

Fast forward 10 years and a few hundred billion dollars later; the Bitcoin network is more robust than ever. Thousands of other cryptos have entered the ring. Ethereum’s Smart Contracts have exploded onto the scene. Riffs on distributed ledgers and encryption are happening en masse. New proofs and validation methods are being explored. A massive amount of creative energy is being directed into developing long-term sustainable infrastructure and incentives.

Enter JPMorgan Coin! 40+ BoA blockchain patents! Microsoft’s ID2020! And now — Facebook’s very own Libra Currency.

Fresh off a blanket advertising ban on all cryptocurrency-related projects and ICOs in 2018, Facebook has officially released its plan for a global digital reserve currency. Designed altruistically to “empower billions of people”. One of the central tenets of the decentralization movement has been based around providing open-source financial services for the 1.7 billion people who currently have no access to the legacy banking system. In terms of a uniform global payment network, that disenfranchised number goes up by a few billion more if you consider the Western Banking system alone, upon which the Global Reserve Currency (the US Dollar) rests. In their White Paper, Facebook co-opts this tenet, stating their unoriginal desire to “bank the unbanked”.

Facebook has set up shop in Geneva, Switzerland to establish its new financial services arm. With over 2 billion users, they are heavily equipped to disintermediate payment processors like Visa; even banks. The stage is set for disruption. The Libra global reserve currency will be backed by a collection of low-volatility assets, central bank deposits and government securities from around the world. This is likely to pose a direct threat to the stability of the western economic system as we know it, and fast. The 1988 prediction by The Economist magazine appears to be startlingly on schedule; a world currency, erected in 2018, that starts as a “cocktail of national currencies”.

My Libertarian sensibilities are admittedly a little tickled by all of this. I’m ready to grab some popcorn and watch this new power struggle go down. I’m also gravely concerned about the slippery dynamics between totalitarianism and authoritarianism. I remain optimistic, however, that real open-source decentralized solutions will continue to grow in appeal to the world population that is waking up and self-actualizing.

“the truth at any cost lowers all other costs” — Robert David Steele

On one hand — you’ve got the central banks who mismanaged global finance, leveraged and repackaged their way into insurmountable levels of debt, and have all but ensured that governments are beholden to them. On the other hand — there are the massive tech companies like Facebook who mismanaged global data and privacy for billions of people, built their fortunes harvesting and aggregating that data for various third parties, and have yet to be held accountable in any meaningful way. Now they’re using those fortunes to erect global consumer payment systems that integrate with social networks.

As the shady debt-brokering that was the banks’ undoing fades into the annals of the information age, their public reputations remain tarnished for the foreseeable future. Legacy financial services will learn how to play ball with these new behemoths and integrate themselves into the woodwork. The banks’ best bet is to team up, buy in, carve out hefty digital real estate on the back end, and let the still-more-reputable tech giants shoulder the shift to ‘ethical’ public branding. After all, Millennials and Gen Z are the coming-of-age generations keenly aware of and directly affected by the 2008 crisis.

Without getting deep in the weeds, let’s revisit why decentralization is important. One of the biggest reasons to decentralize something is to distribute the governance equitably. In other words, to make sure that no single entity controls the network, whatever the network may be. This is a good idea in many different situations.

So what is Facebook’s distributed governance model? The Libra Association.

What is the Libra Association? It’s a group of large businesses, multilateral organizations and academic institutions that can buy their voting rights for a minimum of $10 million. That buy-in earns them a validator node on the Facebook Libra network. So far their partners range from Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal, to Spotify, Lyft, and Uber. Many more to come, rest assured. That’s right, these “decentralized” nodes will be virtual acreage belonging to companies that can afford the price tag.

So…we’re democratizing governance by assigning corporate council? Corporations by default are beholden to their own bottom-line, it’s baked into the equation. Their duty is first and foremost self-preservation and increasing shareholder value. They were not meant to be stewards of socioeconomic governance for the masses. They don’t consist of any elected public officials…hmm…for that matter, neither do the banks. How’s that going to fly in this brave new environment? And as platforms like Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter crack down heavily with censorship on free speech, how can they ratify a call to permission-less decentralization with a straight face? This has all the ingredients of a monolithic control system straight out of Orwellia.

It will fly, though. Too many folks are addicted to the convenience that these mega-platforms can roll out. There are a growing number of people who do recognize this and are setting their sights on the real McCoy— DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) governed by citizens instead of corporations. True privacy coins, localized initiatives, and genuinely decentralized social networks like Minds and Jordan Peterson’s pending platform ThinkSpot.

These smaller, open-source digital movements won’t replace the mega structures currently being erected. But with enough care and cultivation, they will build something truly sustainable and properly incentivized. When the contradictions of our new techno-finance overlords inevitably lead to another socioeconomic crisis or government showdown, perhaps the shelter that everyone seeks out will already have been built on the sidelines, from the ground up.

Honestly, it is anyone’s guess how this will unfold. There are numerous other geopolitical considerations that are converging to influence and shape probabilities for the next chapter of human history. Suffice to say, I feel that we are in the emerging stages of civilization hard-forking into separate realities. Just like a forked blockchain. Dominant power structures fighting over how to run the evolving protocols on Planet Earth. It remains to be seen how social networks and retail giants will fare against governments and banks, and what roles they will play in either unifying or further polarizing our species.

In the meantime — where’s my popcorn?

Facebook vs. the Dollar was originally published in TYLO Turn Your Light On on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.