Class Representative ｜ Twone
Review ｜ Survivor
Typesetting ｜ Twone
Introduction
💡 In this episode, Kevin Owocki invites Meta Dreamer, the founder of Meta Factory, as a guest. They discuss the impact of humanity on Earth, what currency is, what stability means, and how to address contemporary societal issues using Web3, continuously iterating and experimenting to find new directions for a more sustainable solarpunk future.
Meta Dreamer is a dreamer and technology expert who firmly believes that decentralized and community-driven models will become mainstream in the future economy, and Meta Factory was founded on this belief. Meta Dreamer has been leading his team to explore the concept of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and apply it to real life. His goal is to create a more equitable, transparent, and profitable value exchange method for users and participants through DAOs and new business models.
👤 Host: Kevin Owocki | Founder of Gitcoin, host of the Greenpill podcast.
👤 Guest: Meta Dreamer | One of the founders of Meta Factory and the company's CEO.
Buckminster Fuller’s “World Game”#
At the beginning of the conversation, Kevin and Meta discuss market conditions and their expectations for the future. Meta states that many bad things will happen during a bear market, but his confidence in solarpunk is rising. If people's attention to DeFi decreases, it will benefit the development of DAOs. They discuss the importance of coordination and reference Buckminster Fuller’s concept of the “World Game” [1]:
“The goal of the World Game is to create a more equitable and collaborative world where everyone can share resources and opportunities. By establishing a comprehensive database that provides better data than politically elected or appointed peers, including all important statistics in the world, from minerals to manufactured goods and services, to humans and their unmet needs and capabilities. By collecting and sharing all this information, better coordination can be achieved. Currently, only the highest levels of government can access this data, so a way to share data needs to be established to better coordinate human labor and resource distribution. By better understanding the capabilities of needs and assets, they can be allocated more quickly to where they are needed.”
The concept of the “World Game” aims to solve the world's problems through coordination. Here, the World Game is a conceptual model emphasizing the idea, proposed by Fuller in 1960. Technically, there are certainly many implementation issues (including the fact that the internet did not even exist at that time). However, this is not the specific solution that Meta refers to when mentioning Fuller, but rather a Mechanism (here, Mechanism refers to a centralized database characterized by being unaffected by certain governments or other forces, and coordinating based on how to better utilize each individual's creativity and capabilities). It now appears that such a Mechanism has some early forms of Crypto decentralization, permissionless, and trustless, and implicitly suggests that coordination relying on a trustworthy and neutral mechanism like a Database may be better than traditional governments, elections, etc.
The core theme discussed by Kevin and Meta here is Value, revolving around what true Value is, and the World Game is a possible way to achieve this Value. Here, Value is akin to a value system or doing the right thing. It aims to make resource allocation more rational, allowing more people to become complete individuals who can unleash their creativity and capabilities. Specifically, this includes how to better coordinate through shared information and apply it to logistics and distribution in the digital environment, as well as the relationship between data and value and how to utilize cryptocurrency to coordinate shared information.
Spaceship Earth: We Are Just Travelers Here#
Meta believes that everything will come to an end at some point. We, as individual humans, will die, but at some moment, the entire society and the material existence will also come to an end again. We are all travelers.
Buckminster Fuller created the concept of “Spaceship Earth” [2]. We are all crew members of the spaceship Earth, traveling together. We are not traveling for any destination but taking care of each other as travelers. You should not become overly attached to this world because we are only here for a short stay. When traveling, you do not quickly become attached to a place; for example, when you visit Paris, you do not immediately feel at home there. You just enjoy the journey and do your best for those around you. But ultimately, there is a greater destination waiting for us.
Kevin states that this idea is similar to what solarpunk girls say about imagination and activism. By placing our lives within the broad spectrum of human history, we can truly appreciate the fleeting and transient nature of life. At the same time, we need to pay attention to the fate of humanity and the entire Earth in the future, enhancing our empathy towards them. Meta believes that buying luxury cars and mansions does not bring more happiness; rather, making a meaningful and positive impact in the lives of others is a better choice.
The mention of “Spaceship Earth” revolves around Value, including how one should spend their life and what is valuable. Through the metaphor of a spaceship Earth, it illustrates what is more important from a certain perspective. Regarding the solutions discussed, the two talked about DAOs and how to program this idea into the global open-source financial system through next-generation DAO tools. By referencing the recent collapse of U.S. government bonds, they believe DAOs have the potential to combine human labor with the foundation for economic stability.
Can the World Exist Without Stablecoins?#
When discussing cryptocurrencies, people often mention Bitcoin, Ethereum, and DeFi. Bitcoin is digital currency, Ethereum is programmable digital currency, while DeFi focuses on different ways of currency operation. However, the emergence of DAOs makes human labor an essential component of the economic system, as the foundation of any economic system is productive human labor.
Kevin and Meta discussed what stability is and the mechanisms behind stablecoins. Here, discussing value, money is just a channel, not value itself, nor does it represent stability. The root of stability is allowing people to maintain their basic lives. Stablecoins are actually not closely related to this root of stability; most stablecoins are built on money, which is not true stability. Meta points out that if DAOs can enable humans to truly do something meaningful and make real things happen, then it will pull the concept of cryptocurrency back from the virtual world into reality, making cryptocurrency a driving force and service for coordination mechanisms, rather than a standalone monetary system. He believes that stability is a relative concept, but the most fundamental stability is producing and distributing enough food to ensure everyone has food. Therefore, as a society, if we want to maintain stability, we need to ensure that everyone can meet their basic food needs and have money. Money was invented as an abstract concept to convert value into another form, but it is not value itself. Value encompasses everything outside of money.
With the collapse of USB (a type of stablecoin), we can see that although it is called a stablecoin, it is very unstable. So, if we consider that USB is not as secure as we think when we hear the word “stable,” Ponzi schemes are called secure coins because they add the word “secure,” but in reality, they are not.
Meta believes that the deeper political and economic motivations driving the entire new cryptocurrency economic system are based on anchoring it to stablecoins, which has become a fact so far. However, Meta believes we should consider and explore the opportunity to enter a world that does not require stablecoins.
What would that look like? If we could have effective methods to distribute food among ourselves and coordinate our labor to produce what we want, minimizing the transactions we must conduct through the stablecoin layer, the only purpose of the stablecoin layer is to anchor it to some degree of consistency. The discussion also repeatedly mentioned a model where there is a farm providing the basic necessities of life (meat, vegetables, grains, drinking water, etc.), and then you need to exchange your labor, such as writing, for this stability. Additionally, permaculture was mentioned as another relevant consideration for stability.
When looking at these systems from a broader perspective, how do we oppose the old concentration of capital and create a system that is the opposite and has mechanisms for redistributing capital? Both agree that DAOs, through contracts and collaboration, can achieve true stability.
Mycelium Networks: Drawing Inspiration from Biomimicry#
Kevin asks Meta what inspirations he has drawn from biomimicry, which natural systems he likes the most, and how they relate to the World Game they are discussing. Meta explains the concept of mycelium networks [3]. Mycelium, the fungal network, is a model that Meta highly values, stemming from his own understanding that humans are products of nature, and we should learn more from the mechanisms of nature. This also aligns with the study of complex systems, not just human society, but nature and even the universe. These complex systems and mechanisms that have been stabilized over millions or even billions of years of evolution can certainly help humanity enhance its species that has evolved over just a few hundred thousand years.
Mycelium is a network that connects plants and animals, distributing resources and electrical signals, and can extend for thousands of kilometers. The interesting aspect of mycelium is that if a tree gets sick, it sends pressure signals to other trees through the mycelium network. Other trees can send resources to help heal that tree. This is why trees and forests need to grow together.
Meta also explains how he recreates mycelium networks in his own system. He gives tokens to those with high potential but financial difficulties. For him, this is actually beneficial because it builds trust.
Here, the two discussed Interest, with Meta explaining that there is no interest in nature. The mycelium network, besides its communication function, also handles resource distribution, but fungi do not siphon off some “interest” to grow themselves. In contrast, in human society, capitalists and bankers play the roles of liquidity, investment, and resource distribution, and their concept of interest captures most of the resources, which does not align with the patterns of nature. This model was not discussed in depth (here, reviewer Survivor believes that the core goal of the mycelium network may be to choose coordination that is most beneficial to the overall natural world, rather than its own interests, allowing the mycelium network to help the entire forest flourish, achieving a symbiotic relationship rather than an extractive relationship between capital and ordinary laborers).
Meta mentions humanity's instinctual low-level desires, pointing out that we should go against the grain and do those things we do not want to do but are more beneficial to ourselves and others. He also talks about the importance of the mycelium network in nature, which not only transmits information and resources but also decomposes and redistributes resources, maintaining the balance of ecosystems. Without such mechanisms, nature would be filled with chaos and disorder.
Using shitcoins as an example, they are only useful when you spread them around; just like spreading manure, it becomes fertilizer that helps things grow. But if you just accumulate it, it will make you smell bad and dirty.
Ethereum's Infinite Garden#
At the end of the program, Kevin asks Meta about one of the issues with the traditional financial system: money becomes the goal for people. Investment bankers are at the center of capital flow, acting as intermediaries in the traditional financial system, rather than being the ones creating value for the system. Although teachers create value for the ecosystem, investment bankers earn much more than teachers. So, why do trees in these underground mycelium networks not have this problem? Unless they, like investment bankers, extract resources from tree A for their own benefit and then send it to tree B? Is this just a scale issue, or is nature smarter than us?
Meta states that if the concept of interest is eliminated from social or financial systems, it would behave more like nature. Kevin mentions that the executive director of the Ethereum Foundation talked about Ethereum's infinite garden [4], and the best thing we can create is this symbiotic relationship and all these different projects. In these projects, each of us occupies our small position in the ecosystem, becoming modular good citizens in different ways.
Considering that humanity is the foundation of this infinite garden economic system, it is like creating an infinite loop. In this loop, money is allocated to humans so they can pay rent, pay mortgages, and feed their families. They can continue to create value for the infinite garden, creating a closed loop. In this infinite garden, more utility is created because more money is allocated to more people. This feels like a very beautiful thing, creating more growth by solving capital allocation to workers in the infinite garden, just like more alpha in the infinite garden.
Another core role of Mycelium mentioned here is worth pondering: decompose, which means that nature ultimately returns to nature, and fungi are responsible for the decomposition of resources after death. The two also drew an analogy that if we imitate nature, there should be an infinite garden where experiences and users remain in the natural garden after DAOs fail. (This aligns with reviewer Survivor's advocacy for OpenNest, which is also a direction that Crypto Natives should explore, rather than other projects that are purely about issuing tokens, although they may tell stories, the core logic behind them is often too shallow).
Notable Quotes from the Podcast#
Additionally, here are some notable quotes or concepts extracted from the podcast that may help everyone grasp the essence of this episode.
Keywords
Coordination: Kevin's catchphrase, also mentioned multiple times by Meta.
World Game: Fuller’s approach to solving human world problems.
Literal(loop): Iteration, representing their attitude towards the World Game and Infinite Garden.
Counterintuitively: Counterintuitive, a choice of thought when discussing value.
Cyclical: Cyclical, representing sustainable development after decomposition.
Decompose: Decomposition, another important role of mycelium.
Irrigation: Irrigation, hoping to nourish the garden through a cyclical distribution system.
Symbiotic relation: Everyone is in a symbiotic relationship.
Permaculture: Sustainable agriculture providing basic stability.
Unlearning: Before starting (thinking in the crypto world), one must discard and forget traditional world patterns.
Nature (pattern): Frequently mentioned as representing a larger systemic model.
Sterile: Sterilization, a role of decomposition.
Shitcoin, filth, garbage coins and trash.
Notable Quotes
So it's about routing the material world's resources, the real world's resources is what we should be focusing on. The metaverse. Not like better 3D gaming.
When discussing the metaverse, we should focus on the real world rather than some 3D experiences.
His endgame is to make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone. Is that the endgame?
When discussing the endgame of the model, it is to enable people to work 100% through spontaneous cooperation without infringing on anyone.
How do we solve some of our contemporary societal problems with web 3? We talk about unlearning before we start learning.
When we try to solve social problems with Web3 encryption, we first need to learn to forget.
I didn't call it imagination, but it's been a tool for me to kind of say, like, okay, I have my basic needs met. What good is a lambo if the sky is on fire? What's the point of increasing my wealth to the point where I have luxury when we're destroying the planet for future generations, or for each other?
Meeting my basic needs is enough, rather than buying a Lamborghini or increasing personal assets, as these actions destroy the Earth that future generations depend on.
And the best path does actually end up being making some sort of impactful, meaningful difference in other people's lives and making other people happier.
Making people happier is the right path; it is meaningful and impactful, making people's lives different from before.
And really, I think it's about moving beyond this scarcity mentality that we've been sort of raised in and sort of ingrained in humanity from the very beginning.
From the very beginning, we need to move beyond the moral scarcity instilled in us since childhood and deeply rooted in humanity.
Where money is sort of invented as an abstraction to convert one from a value to another. But it's not value itself. Values everything outside of money.
Money was invented to abstractly convert value; money is not value; value exists outside of money.
So even you look at projects who, like, raise capital, you raise all this money from one set of people, which is the investors, to then pay this other set of people, which is your employees, contributors or whatnot. And then all the ownership and value accrues to these investors. And over time, the effect that has is capital concentration at the top, at a systemic level. And same with the concept of interest,
You see those projects that raise capital from one group of investors to pay another group, including employees and contributors. Then all ownership and value appreciate for the investors.
Over time, the result is capital concentration at the top, and the same applies to the concept of interest.
I think one really interesting place to look is Islamic finance. In Islam, they have this concept of zakat, which is every year you essentially have to pay 2.5% of your net worth to, directly to essentially the poorest people in your society.
Mentioned the Islamic annual tax (2.5% of net worth to support the poor), zakat.
Community. VC.
Mentioned that the irrigation system of DAOs is community VC.
Lift each other up.
Lifting others up, a very simple and straightforward phrase.
And really, I think it's about moving beyond this scarcity mentality that we've been sort of raised in and sort of ingrained in humanity from the very beginning. If we can, for example, have these cryptographic guarantees that people will have a flow of value coming to them continuously that will support them as long as they are. As long as whatever's downstream of them is creating value and you have that connectivity, then I think people will be much more likely to allocate their capital towards things that bring them happiness and make others happy. Because that's essentially buying happiness is making it spent on other people to make them happy.
Using cryptographic methods to support those who create value and establish connections, they will be more likely to allocate their capital to things that bring them happiness and make others happy. Because that is essentially buying happiness, spending it on others to make them happy.
Feels like that would be a DAOs equivalent of decomposition.
It feels like DAOs might be a structure similar to decomposition.
I think it kind of brings me back to where we started in this episode was this world game, and the end game being maximizing the utility for the 100% of the humans.
Similarly, maximizing the utility for 100% of humanity (I understand this as value and creativity).
It's more so about unlearning all the legacy stuff, or sort of these assumptions that you made, because these new concepts are much.
You need to forget those past assumptions because the new concepts are numerous.
They're sort of innate in ourselves and in nature. And we can sort of intuit how things should be. And it's just the external influence.
They seem to be innate in ourselves and in nature. We can intuitively sense how things should be. This is just one aspect of external influence.
The answer is in nature itself. Because nature, you know, it is an incredibly complex system that's highly coordinated and extremely effective. And we are a product of nature ourselves. So we shouldn't sort of think down on nature or think that we're smarter than it. Look to it, actually, for inspiration and the way it operates.
The answer lies in nature itself. Nature is an incredibly complex system that is highly coordinated and extremely effective. We are products of nature, so we should not look down on it or think we are smarter than it. Instead, we should seek inspiration from it and how it operates.
We have to try things out, do iterative games. Instead of having cycles of failure of 70 years or these large sort of boom-bust cycles, try to have failures and game loops every single day, even. Because the faster we can start and end a game and learn a lesson and iterate and play many games together, the faster we will move together. Instead of being afraid of losing and therefore trying to keep this game going forever.
We must try things and engage in iterative games. Instead of enduring 70-year cycles of failure or large boom-bust cycles, we should aim for failures and game loops every day. The quicker we start and end a game, learn lessons, iterate, and play many games together, the faster we will progress together, rather than fearing loss and trying to keep the game going indefinitely.
Reference Links
[1] https://www.bfi.org/about-fuller/big-ideas/world-game/
[2] https://exhibits.stanford.edu/bucky/feature/what-is-spaceship-earth
[3] https://www.betterplaceforests.com/blog/articles/understanding-the-mycelium-and-mycorrhizal-networks
[4] https://ethereum.foundation/infinitegarden
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