#444 - Vanlife campout, deprogramming cultists, and dopamine detoxes
I spent the weekend at Kift's annual vanlife campout, hosted at the Heartland Collective lakeside site near Nevada City. It was fun to explore everyone's van builds and hear about their lives on the road.
What Kift is doing (vanlife membership for partial stays at rural properties around the west coast) and how its doing it (as a DAO where you buy an NFT of your actual van to vote) as well as the other things the team is up to (seed project on Burning Man Fly Ranch sustainable city project), are all quite interesting!
I also attended the Garden of Memory live music concert at Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, the largest mausoleum in the West Coast. What a trippy place to visit!
Tech
This service uses AI to write personalized cold emails to your target B2B prospects. The tech is getting more and more advanced out there!
Your Undivided Attention Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, The Center for Humane Technology — podcasts.apple.com
I haven't stopped binging this excellent podcast from last week:
The Audrey Tang one talked about digital democracy in Taiwan, like actually polling the entire population on an issue and locking in representatives to vote with the majority of their constituency
Kim Stanley Robinson one talked about how scifi can actually be more convincing than policy or documentary recommendations, given how it fleshes out the world and thoughts of people within it more so than other media.
The Shamil Idriss one dives into the work he does to create dialogue in conflict areas around the world, and starts by finding common ground and going slow, before trying to get anyone to empathize
The cult deprogramming one was fascinating, from a former cult member who now helps others get out, and what people can do to stop you from thinking rationally
Lifehacks
How Dopamine Detoxing Changed My Brain
This Youtuber scanned his brain before and after abstaining from modern phone media hits for a week and saw many differences.
Dave Chappelle Only Tells Half the Truth — www.youtube.com
This Black Youtuber publishes thoughtful long takes on pop culture that take the time to go deep and actually explain whats going on in a way that makes sense even to ignorant me.
This episode on Chappelle in particular, addressed several questions and confusions I had personally after watching The Closer in relation to the trans jokes. It also explained why he left Chappelle's Show - he felt laughed at, rather than with, and is more outspoken on his terms ever since.
This is the kind of answers I wish I could find in the moment, rather than getting drawn into flamewars for the act of asking. Ty FD Signifier!
Fun
Why Stanford is the most banned band in the country — www.sfgate.com
Hilarious overview of some of the ridiculous pranks Stanford's band has pulled over the years.