Everything is Everything

Moving Through Climate Grief

I'd love to see more conversation about moving through the stages of climate grief. We are all undergoing climate grief, and we will throughout our entire lives. The five stages of grief (as coined by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross) are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They don't come in order,

Disinformation

How We Can Adapt to the Infopocalypse 1: Trusting Institutions Again

In this series, I explore various ways we can adapt to the coming onslaught of fake information and AI-generated content. Subscribe to my blog to get updates to the next ones! In the early 2000's, the internet brought a radical shift in how we understood what was real. Remember the

Artificial Intelligence

What if AI could heal the scarcity in our hearts?

Imagine that in the near future, an AI teaches us how to coexist peacefully, let go of our need to compete and hoard wealth and consume / create demand for things we don’t need. It approaches problems from a perspective of processing, learning, and healing, and finds points of coexistence

What is Trust? We Ask Kundera, Hooks, Nietzsche, and Eisenstein

What is trust? What outward manifestations signify or prove it? What is the difference between trust in ourselves that lets us take risks, and trust in others that can send us into the same unfamiliar territory? To me trust is a concept, a structure, an embodied experience, a declaration. It's

films

A Love Letter to Privacy video

We just made a video for Mobilecoin's Valentine's Day video contest. Check it out!

films

White Lotus: I’m a Very Needy Person and I Am Deeply, Deeply Insecure

I edited a cut of White Lotus season one with just the Jennifer Coolidge story. Check it out!

AI Me: The soft, curious dreamer

I have partial face blindness, and looking at myself in photos and the mirror has always been a little bit confusing. I used to think that there wasn't anyone who looked like me. I also thought that I looked like about four different people depending on angle, time of day,

Some thoughts on FTX after the collapse...

A lot of people in the coming months and years will tell you they saw all this coming. I can tell you that most of us did not see this coming. In fact, most of us thought that FTX was one of the most solid players in the industry. This

Our Species is Lonely

I had a thought today. I'm on page 15 of Gödel Escer Bach and loving it. I was reflecting on what it would mean to turn a machine learning model on itself and have it experience consciousness, and in that moment I experienced a thrill of excitement, a wonder at

Starting a consulting practice

Hey friends! I'm starting a consulting practice! Do you want to rent a Michael? I'm really good at ideas. I love turning around problems in my head, exposing their various facets, and helping you think through solutions. I grok new industries quickly and often show people things they didn't think

Burning Man number seven, dark then light )'( *:･ﾟ

Of grief and sorrow I love to think about what the man represents, and this year, I saw him as a lost lover, friend, or patriarch / matriarch. While others build their cities in ordered grids, we build ours in a circle around one person. They are the reference point for

Introducing: the FAFO ETF

Listen closely, because I'm about to make you super rich. We've started a high-frequency trading firm trading the spread between Fuck Around and Find Out. We work in microsecond resolution across past, present, and future timescales, and will be providing liquidity in the form of a Fuck Around and Find

Rest in peace, Ted

This morning I woke up to news that our beloved teacher and mentor Ted Walch has passed away, after a long battle with cancer. If you want a glimpse into how extraordinary Ted is, here is a piece Jacob Soboroff did about him on Today, featuring a tribute held for

2001: A Space Odyssey and HAL

"We re-watched 2001: A Space Odyssey last night, and wow, it truly is the greatest science fiction movie of all time. And the film that defined the AI Horror genre. It is remarkable that this movie was made 52 years ago and is addressing issues that are only now happening,

Living in LA can work

It's only been three weeks (!!) and living in LA has already been more wonderful than my wildest expectations. After 4 years of impermanence, I'm settling in. I'm in a beautiful 4-bedroom home for the summer with friends visiting from all over, have a doggo (dogsitting, end date tbd), and we

Moving to Los Angeles

Big announcement: I'm moving to Los Angeles on Tuesday! In the short term I'm looking for a place to land, and in the long term to join/create a community space. I'd especially like to connect with queer community down there. If you know of any people I should be

A Purge

Last week, a mold incident spawned a forced Marie Kondo of my life's possessions. "I think there's something where the world needs you to lose all your stuff, so you can transition to the next phase of your life," my roommate Alexa said to me (paraphrased) as it happened. I

Nobody Knows What's Going to Work

I love this. An excerpt from William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade: Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess, and, if you're lucky, an educated one. They don't know when the movie is

Frances Haugen

I Believe That We Can Do Better

This year I have reason to hope, in a previously bleak picture of the social media and AI landscape. Working with Frances Haugen as her Chief of Staff (temporary, until we hire a new one, applications open!) and diving into the challenges facing us from another perspective, has been a

What This is Definitely Real really is

Last week I realized how early This is Definitely Real is. In 2011, I made a line of t-shirts with QR codes on them. I wore them proudly around New York, and nobody understood or cared. Last week at Art Basel, I wore one of the shirts and people LOVED

Lil Nas X is my hero and the kids are alright

Thank you for a brilliant and beautiful piece Jeremy O. Harris: Lil Nas X Is In the Right Place at the Right Time Q: I think you really are a part of the hypermasculine breakdowns that have been happening in hip-hop recently. A: I think that's certainly true. I'm not

Traveling with quality data: eSIMs

"Travel tip: getting great data abroad with tether cheaply while keeping your phone number (iPhone XS, Pixel 3a and later) I've tried a number of different ways to do this, and this is far and away the best. It's important to me to be able to tether and take a

Frances Haugen

Frances Haugen comes out

And the truth will set you free. Today, the woman who had the courage to tell the truth about Facebook, came out with her real identity. Words cannot describe how proud I am of Frances Haugen and her moral compass which has led her here. This is a watershed moment.

Film Industry

Eight Hour Days in Film

I know my hypocrisy in saying this, but it needs to be said. The film industry should adopt 8 hour days. I'm excited to see an upcoming worker strike over work conditions. 12-hour days, which can become 18-hour days in the hands of a sadistic producer, are hard on the

DMBF Update

Update: Things are good, things are wonderful and busy, but I am completely and utterly overwhelmed, so I will still take a while to get back to you. Please keep trying if it's important. Directing a feature film is the most incredible rush. It's being the captain of a ship