Toby Shorin is the co-founder of the non-profit research organization Other Internet, which has played an important role in the field of blockchain research, making original contributions in areas such as DAO governance, crypto philanthropy, and protocol research, and is funded by the Uniswap Foundation and the Ethereum Foundation.
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Contents
Zero: Emptiness and Career
One:
Toby Shorin's Research Topics
Digital Governance (Case Study)
Community Study
Current Topics
Two: Toby Shorin's Library
Three: Toby Shorin Himself
Room Tour of Toby Shorin’s Study
Welcome to the first article of the "Researcher's Study" series.
The Researcher's Study Unresearch is the first column of Uncommons' crypto research section, based on a community-built database of researchers in the crypto humanities field from both industry and academia. Each time, a researcher is selected for an in-depth introduction, focusing on the researcher and the issues they care about, to engage with current topics in technology and humanities such as crypto.
The study aims to answer "WHY ARE THEY HERE in crypto" and, in doing so, provide real, human reasons for "WHY ARE WE HERE in crypto."
To co-build the study, please directly enter the Uncommons Community or contact Fangting.
Toby Shorin (This Issue)
Nadia Asparouhova
Angela Walch
All quotes in this article, unless otherwise specified, are from Toby Shorin. The "Bookshelf" section will include links to the works mentioned in this section.
Zero: Emptiness and Career#
A void: an emptiness, a deficiency. A vector: a trajectory, a conclusion. Some voids do not stay filled, and these are called jobs.
Voids are empty, but they can be heavy. We feel the presence of the ones that have been with us the longest. Invisible yet imposing, they call to us, and we fall in time and again.
But a void is also nothing, and nothing is very lightweight. Once we learn to see voids, we can dance around their edges, we can walk on air.
In an article titled “Jobs To Be Done” [1], Toby Shorin discusses his views on "work," "void," and how to cope. Work is a discrete state of demand, constantly creating demand; a void waiting to be filled. Every task in life can be seen as work, and in a more meaningful context, “we must retrieve and eat our shadow” (“we must retrieve and eat our shadow”).
But Toby never thinks that a “product” can fill the voids in our lives. He refers to this void as a “God-shaped void,” a divine emptiness. Life is work; it always demands us to define it; and then, looking back, the most important career defines ourselves. But this definition never ends, always demanding you to do something. In another article titled “The Desire for Full Automation” [2], he states: nature is inert, only humans are active.
At the end of this article about work, he mentions:
“Although the void is empty, it is very heavy. We can see in it the existence and questions that have accompanied us the longest.”
A void is also nothing, and things that are nothing are always very light. If we can truly see such voids, we can dance around their edges and learn to walk on air.
This also forms the title of this article, “Walk on Air.” In a certain understanding, this may be the greatest context of Toby's creation: “air” is where we live, and all the entities we create (our works) can only temporarily fill the demand called “work” before disappearing at some point. However, “career” is not a formed entity; it is a walking process; it is the dance itself that interacts with the void.
Bookshelf:
[1] Jobs To Be Done, https://subpixel.space/entries/jobs-to-be-done/
[2] The Desire for Full Automation, cultural theory, an extended version of a speech, https://subpixel.space/entries/the-desire-for-full-automation/
These are the works of Toby Shorin mentioned in this section.
One: Toby Shorin's Research Topics#
UnResearch has organized this section into two main recommended areas (four articles) and current research topics. The content is based on publicly available works and Toby's own statements, with a focus on blockchain, community, and technology humanities.
Here are the main research areas we selected from Toby:
Digital Governance (Case Study)
This section includes two long reports, the results of research after obtaining funding, recommended as reading materials for those interested in on-chain governance research.
#1 Uniswap Research Report: Discord, Governance, Community
Other Internet, where Toby works, received funding from the Uniswap Grants Program to conduct an ethnographic study of its Discord, aiming to explore how off-chain governance has developed nearly a year after the launch of UNI. The research is guided by the following questions: What are the barriers to user participation? How can the process of turning “informal ideas” into “formal governance proposals” be improved? What does a treasury managed by a large number of users spread across multiple platforms look like? How does collective decision-making function when each interaction interface executes its unique norms and culture? This report is a co-authored work.
Bookshelf: https://otherinter.net/research/uniswap-offchain-report/
#2 PoolTogether Research Report: Vibes, Labor, Constituencies
Other Internet received funding from PoolGrants to study the off-chain governance and social structure of PoolTogether, focusing on its Discord and governance forum. This research is guided by the following questions: How to reward "long-tail" contributors? How did PoolTogether earn a reputation for a healthy, encouraging community? How do old organizational methods help solve the problems faced by DAOs? This research is the second report in the Ethereum Foundation's co-funded “Off-Chain Governance Series” of crypto ecosystem reports. This report is a co-authored work.
Bookshelf: https://otherinter.net/research/pooltogether-offchain-report/
Community Study
#3 Come for the Network, Pay for the Tool
This article is a must-read for anyone interested in online communities and media. It focuses on the flow of high-quality content and brands, the emergence of paid communities, and argues that paid communities are a mixture of content, social media, and commerce. Communities are products of the trend towards the unification of content and social, combined with the commercial layer, forming “paid communities.” Communities will reshape the process of brand and content development. The article includes some case studies of paid communities and also addresses the platforms that serve these communities, but Toby does not believe these communities will use a unified platform in the future. Paid communities are seen as a new business model of “customized social media,” providing paid audiences for social networks that cannot yet profit from advertising, where design, development, and content creation will become the new “social engineers.”
Bookshelf: https://subpixel.space/entries/come-for-the-network-pay-for-the-tool/
#4 Squad Wealth
This is “Squad Economy.” This article was once recommended in the Chinese community and had a certain impact; the concept of “squad economy” is now used by more people in both English and Chinese communities to describe informal small teams composed of nearby friends and neighbors. “Squads” rely on trust, have greater resilience, and are a strong complement to individualistic markets. Compared to larger teams, they have higher productivity and lower internal consumption costs.
Bookshelf: https://otherinter.net/research/squad-wealth/
In addition to our recommended main research areas, the following two writings by Toby are also worth reading:
If you are interested in mysticism, astrology, and self-identity: → Read Mapping the Self in the Desert of the Real
Bookshelf: https://subpixel.space/entries/mapping-the-self-in-the-desert-of-the-real/
The revival of astrology is most prevalent among the latest millennials. They are mature enough to recognize this shaky, strange world, yet young enough to resist ignorant optimism and weary pessimism... These young people have an increasing sense that there is something beyond the meaning systems handed down to them. Adorno's critique of mass-produced astrology points back to it. It is capitalism that demands us to unconditionally adhere to its constraints. In contrast, astrology is a form of resistance... Astrology does not care about the neoliberal world.
- If you are interested in the Trump election, accelerationism, capital expression, and design aesthetics: → Read Haute Baroque Capitalism
Bookshelf: https://subpixel.space/entries/haute-baroque-capitalism/
Most arguments for accelerationism do not rely on reason but rather on compelling visual metaphors. If Baroque capitalism becomes a general style of ideology, regardless of what diluted version the public accepts, this influence will multiply. Has anyone heard of “fully automated luxury communism”?
All articles by Toby Shorin (as of October 19, 2023)
Current Topics
Toby Shorin's latest focus is on topics that are relatively less related to blockchain or even the internet, falling into Western psychology and the humanities. According to him, he is specifically concerned with “the history and practice of clinical psychology and trying to answer how American views on mental health have changed.”
In a recent article titled “Connecting the Dots on American Psychology,” he explores the diagnostic criteria, paradigm shifts, and diversity of therapies in the American psychology community. “While many of these (diverse therapeutic practices) focus on trauma theory, others have different views on energy, the nervous system, and suffering. And notably, to some extent, they all seem to work.” Based on this, he hopes to focus on issues in American clinical psychology in his future career.
From Toby Shorin's works over the years, we can also see the evolution of the issues he cares about. In the broader context of technology and humanities, researchers who tend to delve deeper into a particular topic often gradually lean towards the humanities: the theories provided by disciplines that are truly related to humanity (such as psychology) are so rich that they are more difficult to exhaust than any other issues. Outside the realm of crypto technology, we look forward to new works from Toby Shorin in the field of clinical psychology.
Two: Toby Shorin's Library#
This section will introduce recommended works from Toby Shorin's personal library. It is, in a sense, a “knowledge genealogy,” “from curation to curation.” In this curation about Toby Shorin, we can find a generative basis for new literary adventures based on Toby Shorin's reading list and collections.
Currently Reading
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Read in 2023
Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy
Philosophical Papers Vol. 1: Human Agency and Language
The Cunning Man
Paradise Lost
The Sociology of Philosophies
The Anxiety of Influence
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Book of the New Sun
Modern Social Imaginaries
Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession
Constructing the Self, Constructing America
The Unconscious before Freud
When We Cease To Understand The World
The Superhumanities
In Arena, Toby has collected some materials related to design that he likes, some books mentioned in the reading list, some blog articles, etc.
Bookshelf (Toby's Arena): https://www.are.na/toby-shorin/blocks?sort=UPDATED_AT
Three: Toby Shorin Himself#
Toby Shorin is the co-founder of the non-profit research organization Other Internet, which has played an important role in the field of blockchain research, making original contributions in areas such as DAO governance, crypto philanthropy, and protocol research, and is funded by the Uniswap Foundation and the Ethereum Foundation. Other Internet's research topics cover internet-native organizations, digital governance, blockchain communities, and education, while Toby's research at Other Internet primarily focuses on the political philosophy of blockchain protocols.
Outside of research, Toby Shorin frequently appears in podcasts, events, collective research, and interviews related to crypto research or technology humanities, such as the GreenPill podcast, Protocol Berg, Summer of Protocols, Schelling Point, etc.
Toby Shorin's personal website: https://tobyshorin.com/
Other Internet website: Otherinter.net
Other Internet Substack: https://otherinternet.substack.com/
Newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/subpixel-space
Are.na: https://www.are.na/toby-shorin/blocks?sort=UPDATED_AT
Room Tour of Toby Shorin’s Study
Toby Shorin's study address Enter Notion for one-stop reading, no need to copy and jump hyperlinks separately:
https://www.notion.so/uncommons/65c359a03b364d949cd5638c595d3ac5?
UnResearch, Understanding
A researcher is first and foremost a three-dimensional person. Research works and research institutions, no matter how renowned, are secondary topics in the face of “people.”
In an age of infinite information and infinite indexing databases, slowing down to understand a person's intellectual aesthetics, why they became interested in current research topics, and further, how to form their personal intellectual history is the best way to enter the real world of research. In this sense, intellectual history is the only true history.
Crypto Humanities is an immature field, just like the industry itself. But we live within it, and we need to understand our digital future. The deeper the understanding, the more precise the actions, and the further the journey.
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