c4ss1us.lab
see also: c4ss1us.lab mmm.page (visual overview)
about
this page introduces my main perspectives, projects and references in the field of technology.
a brief personal context
back when i was 15 years old (2014), i had a quasi-spiritual experience while deciding what the hell i should do with my life. i tell the full story [somewhere else], but in short, i decided that even though i was a typical nerd, loved gaming, and had an affinity for the logic and mathematics involved in programming, i wouldn't learn it, at least for the foreseeable future.
i realized that i wasn't interested in programming per se, but in what could be built with it. sure, games are cool, but it dawned on me that life is the biggest game there is.
i would have absolutely loved to have sword art online (or more recent versions of "alternate reality gaming" such as solo leveling or overgeared) in real life, but i also really wanted to figure out how to play life as well as i can. in the most beautiful, cool, exciting, surprising, fulfilling ways possible.
so i started questioning: how could real life be such an adventure?
and soon later - if life is the biggest game/project we have, why on earth are the tools we have for playing/managing it so much worse than we have for managing fictional characters?
just take a look at a few interfaces/dashboards from a couple of AA games (not even the highest budget, mid-tier games), for example:
elite dangerous (2015)
stellaris (2016)
why on earth don't we have this kind of in-depth interfaces, plus missions, challenges, skill trees, attributes, maps, guilds and many other useful systems/tools to collaboratively navigate/play life itself?
and oh dear, that question has been sending me down into ever-deeper rabbit holes since then. lots to talk about here in terms of power/economic incentives, the meaning crisis/collapse of value, spirituality/cosmology, education, wisdom, and even colonialism.
but for now, coming back to the story, here i am, my 15-year-old self.
i was looking at the rate of technological progress, with no idea about what the world would look like in 5-10 years, and much less about who i'd become after that time.
instead of trying to figure out exactly where i wanted to be and plan for an unknowable (though possibly foreseeable) future, what dawned on me was simply that i should try to become good at learning itself - so i could be adaptable and learn anything whenever it was necessary.
there's tons to learn on the subject of meta-learning, that go beyond just learning how to learn. it involves questioning what to learn, figuring out what is actually worth doing. it gets very philosophical very quickly.
it was a very pragmatic decision, a kind of survival mechanism, yet i must admit it caressed my ego in the sense of nourishing a vision of a polymath/renaissance person within.
besides that, during my brief period learning the basics of programming, i saw that even though there's some creativity to it (in figuring out new algorithms, designs and working with how the physical world itself functions), there's also a lot of rule-establishing and rule-following in programming. a 15-year-old opinion is not much to base any conclusions on, but it seemed really obvious that we'd soon figure out a way to automate much of this process, and i was sure there were some promising experiments with AI, visual programming languages, etc... (turns out we did, fairly quickly, completely change the way most people program - hello LLMs 🙃).
basically, i realized i didn't want to be a builder for the sake of building things. i wanted to be an architect first - and figure out what was truly worth building.
i felt that taking this path and never diving deep into computer science itself blocked my creativity in many ways - often not having the technical skills to build my visions - but it made me question everything i came into contact much more deeply. and it forced me to sit with my desires, dreams and visions for years at a time, making me answer much more clearly what i see as the role of technology and digital systems today, and what technology is actually worth building⁹⁸.
major challenges to be addressed / fields to work on:
after i was familiarized with the basics of different design philosophies⁹⁸ such as humane/human-centered design and then started moving into more-than-human-centered, circular, regenerative and values-based design, the orienting questions i've held in this field have been:
- how can technology support regenerative forms of civilization design, life design and self-transformation?
- and what's holding back from the existing tools and initiatives in these spaces to go more mainstream/actualize their potentials?
my current findings/early-stage theory of change⁹⁸ has been that we need to make drastic improvements/developments on 3 fronts:
1) a coherent sensemaking layer on and off the web
information systems -> reality maps⁹⁶, knowledge ecologies⁹⁶, material/accounting systems⁹⁸, research⁹⁷, curation⁹⁶ & sensemaking⁹⁸ systems.
2) better coordination systems⁹⁸
distributed/decentralized systems design -> global scale: economic, governance, organizational, self-organizing systems
and local-personal scale: resources, knowledge, data & self-management systems.
3) self-management⁹⁷ & collaboration tools⁹⁷
tools for extended cognition -> OODA loop⁹⁷ augmentation / DIKW management (sensemaking, information management, knowledge development, wisdom development)
life management -> l1f3 management ontology & toolkit -> memex, co-pilot, recommender systems, algorithms, maps, dashboards & more
personal & collective tech stacks -> personal computing -> permacomputing / trust networks / local-first tech
key guiding directions/ideas:
- how might we design & build new economic systems that address the foundational economic incentives for accumulation, extraction, abstraction that are driving the metacrisis?
web3, refi, financial incentives for open-source software, game theory, (...)
- how might we adapt existing systems (reducing harm & expanding utility), while also developing post-collapse, regenerative infrastructure?
permacomputing, low-tech approaches, prototypes, etc.
- what is the role of computers and computation in a regenerative society?
a humane dynamic medium: one that integrates dynamic visualizations, world models, knowledge representations, spatial computing, extended cognition and more to effectively... (see below)
- how might we empower ourselves and our communities to navigate the metacrisis and create omni-win systems?
augmenting our OODA loop: 1) tools for self-transformation -> 2) tools for sensemaking / tools for extended cognition -> 3) tools for self-management -> 4) tools for collaboration -> 5) coordination systems / self-actualization systems.
- how might we get started with designing, building and applying these systems/tools, despite the economic and infrastructure challenges today?
extremely intentional personal systems design: developing across 4 dimensions of a wholistic collaborative life management system. leveraging algorithms, trust networks, low-tech and other forms of existing collaborative infrastructure.
core references:
below are mostly working digital tools with similar scopes/objectives to what i consider important/necessary tech for the challenges/fields above - sensemaking, coordination, self-management and collaboration.
these references can serve both as design references/case studies, as well as practical tools for personal/collective use. they are presented along with their associated relevance scores - and soon i'll add my familiarity degree, readiness score and information density in/of each one.
for organizations conducting research and development, key ideas, papers, and other relevant resources, i'll dedicate a whole publication to exploring them in the future, but down in this page you can already see some parts of it. the list below aims to give you a quick glimpse and way to navigate the most relevant references for the designs/prototypes i've been attempting to create.
i have engaged with the tools/projects below to varying degrees. these scores are estimates based on what i currently know about and how much i've engaged with them. the scores can change completely depending if i learn more, my perspectives change, or as they advance in their own development.
meta-games⁹⁸:
metagame.wtf⁹⁶, world game⁹⁶, SEEDS⁹⁶, fourgames⁹⁴, startover.xyz⁹³, música do círculo⁹³/COLLAPSE⁹³
hardware⁹⁴:
dynamicland⁹⁴, ink & switch⁹⁰, new computer⁸⁸, folk computer⁸⁸
OS design⁹⁵:
duskOS⁹⁵/collapseOS⁹⁵, wonderOS⁹², mercuryOS⁸⁷, codexOS⁸⁷
distributed systems⁹⁶:
holochain⁹⁵, IPFS⁹², solid⁹¹, pears⁹¹, DXOS⁹¹
personal data management⁹⁶:
subconscious⁹³, human programming interface⁹², chronicle app⁹¹
information⁹⁶ / knowledge management⁹⁷:
fabric⁹⁴, tagstudio⁹¹, anytype⁹⁰, catalist network⁹⁰, logseq⁹⁰, obsidian⁹⁰, tana⁸⁹, (...)
knowledge curation⁹⁵ / algorithms⁹⁵:
community archive⁹⁴, cosmik⁹³, trails.social⁹², sublime⁸⁸, interneto⁸⁸, weco⁸⁶
collaborative/web-based tools for thought⁹⁶:
commonplace (app)⁸⁸, kosmik⁸⁶, fermat.ws⁸⁶, tldraw⁸⁶, stack browser⁸⁶, arc browser⁸⁶, scrintal⁸³, napkin⁸³
semantic web⁹⁶:
LLMs⁹², exa AI⁹¹, golden⁸⁷, find AI⁸⁴, (...)
web-based tools for research⁹⁷/mapping⁹⁴:
the society library⁹⁴, atlas (nomic)⁸⁶, open knowledge maps⁸², connected papers⁸², litmaps⁸², sensemaker (?)
my own projects/designs/prototypes:
l1f3 game⁹⁷, l1f3 support systems⁹⁷, l1f3 protocol⁹⁶, l1f3 management ontology⁹⁷, l1f3 player toolkit⁹⁷, collaborative life map⁹⁶, omnichannel curation feed⁹⁶, minimum viable intentional personal systems design;setup⁹⁶ and minimum viable intentional tech stack;setup⁹⁴.
relevant existing topics/resources:
see: github lists
+ weighted topics map:
personal OS design -> adapt existing systems
algorithms -> personal algorithms design -> personal systems design
digital environments (2d, 3d, XR, views, interfaces, software, games)
physical environments / devices / artifacts
next:
embed overview
embed overview
embed overview
embed overview