Welcome to my mind

TL;DR: When lost in destructive thoughts, redirect them toward what you’d like to build instead. Writing this post as a note to myself. “Re-build” I’ve been suffering from anxiety for as long as I can remember, and as I grew up, things got dramatically worse. My anxiety turned into a depression that right now feels like the biggest thunderstorm I’ve ever come across—albeit with the occasional blue skies. Navigating this storm to leave it behind isn’t just a challenge, it feels like a life-or-death passage. I can only hope I’m not moving with the thunderstorm, and that there is in fact a way out of it. Therapy is my navigation app, and I’m starting to think it’s lost signal. ...

I authored last year a manifesto for the “Fuck the VCs” project: a platform committed to challenging the status quo of the venture capital industry by creating the first open source investment community. The principles outlined in the manifesto resonate deeply with the broader themes that I explore here on my blog, particularly the ideals and ethics of open source. I truly enjoyed writing the Manifesto and figured its principles extend way further than the FTVCs initiative. It’s a call to action for creating a more equitable and sustainable future through collaborative, human-centered innovation. It feels very personal to me and I would read it anytime I am feeling low or need to remember why I do the things I do. I am excited to share it with you all here. ...

We work because we are humans. Looking back at humanity’s history, the evolution of our modes of subsistence shows how central the modes of production and the organisation of human labor are in providing for our material needs. Humans work in order to give meaning to their lives. We work in order to consciously, intentionally shape our surroundings. We work as a socially organised way to expand. We work in order to create value. ...

Knowledge must be freely accessible to all, providing the foundation for informed autonomy and enabling the collective intelligence necessary to address systemic issues and develop collective ambition. Communities must have the freedom to self-organise, and societal structures should facilitate serendipitous innovation and resilience, ensuring that every individual has the same opportunity to contribute to and benefit from the collective effort to solve our biggest problems and achieve their own mission. Structures should be here to empower, not to disable. ...

In my last post —Why Open Source isn’t Profitable—, I explain the Curse of Competition as a sort of Tragedy of the Commons: because open-source intellectual property is free to access, all economic agents will exploit it without giving back (a.k.a. as the free riders issue). If the resource is finite, then its value will tragically be destroyed by this unrestrained consumption. With the same analysis, we can explain how and why our current dominant economic system will eventually consume all of the available natural resources and destroy all living species. That is, unless proper regulations were to be globally adopted (Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Elinor Ostrom, 1992). ...