(highlight:: Jerry Michalski's Mission: Build a Shared Memory for Humanity to Improve Decision-Making
Summary:
In 2010, I started a mastermind group called Rex, the relationship economy expedition.
I introduced myself as a guide to the relationship economy and people were clueless. I realized it boiled down to trust. My goal now is to help build a shared memory for humans, so we can make better decisions together and fix civilization.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
How do you go about introducing yourself?
Speaker 1
It is funny. In 2010, I started a mastermind group called Rex, the relationship economy expedition. I would introduce myself as a guide to the relationship economy and people would twist their heads like the little dog that's trying to hear the master's voice better because they knew I'd used words, but they had no idea what that was because I was busy inventing terminology. Then I realized that that boiled down to trust. If you'd asked me five years ago what I was doing, I would say, you know what? I'm trying to figure out how to reboot trust in the world in different ways. I'm still on that voyage, but I'm sort of back to the thing that you just described, which is now I'm trying to help us build a shared memory for humans so that we can make better decisions Together because we seem to be in lock up a lot, which is partly political and you can't avoid that conversation. I'm trying to get through the lock up so that we can make great decisions to fix civilization and make things better for everybody. That's kind of my goal.)
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(highlight:: Building Bridges Across Information Tools to Facilitate Collective Understanding
Summary:
We all have a shared understanding of Google and Wikipedia, but expressing opinions is difficult.
Wikipedia follows a neutral point of view, which limits personal beliefs. Different tools like The Brain, Rome researches, and graph is exist for sharing ideas, but how do we communicate across these tools?
The goal is to create a shared memory where we can tell stories about our beliefs and others can build upon them.
With this in mind, the open global mind community was started to foster open-mindedness and trust.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
So it's funny if I tell you that we have some kind of shared memory in Google or in Wikipedia, our minds kind of know what that means. In particular Wikipedia, I can tell you exactly what software they're running. It's the Wikipedia engine. It's a wiki. It uses wiki process, all their conversations are logged and visible because it's an open source project. I can tell you how it's funded. The whole thing is very easy to describe and it looks like an encyclopedia. But it doesn't allow us to express opinions. It has to be one of the root ground rules for Wikipedia is neutral point of view or NPOV. And that's great if you want a resource to tell you about carbon capture. It's not great if you want to say, why, what kind of carbon capture and what do I believe and where do my beliefs come from? What are they based on and what do I think my beliefs turn into as, for example, policy or science or journalism or whatever. And that layer is really hard to describe partly because each of us I think has different tool preferences. We don't all think alike. And I happen to have been on the first press tour of this little company back then called Natural Fischl, which had a product called The Brain. And I just opened a time capsule box that I had stored away. And I found the original letter they sent me to set up the briefing. And I found the original documents and then and so forth. So it's very interesting. I've just passed 25 years of using their software. So that briefing was 25 years ago. And so my quirky version of this shared memory is The Brain. Other people love Rome researches kind of backlink, outline earth tool. There's other tools like graph is and cumu. And there's unfortunately it's like a whole, a whole zoo of different tools. And the piece I'm trying to figure out is how do we talk across and with each of these tools? What is it without falling always to a least common denominator like Markdown, which is sort of where we're at right now. But how do we do better so that we can tell each other stories about why we believe certain things. And then other people can pick up our stories and go, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That story, I agree with entirely or I agree with that story, but I would modify this and this and I would build on it in this particular direction. I might fork the story. That's kind of cool. And then how do we build that into something that is our shared memory? And so I at the beginning of lockdown, coincident with lockdown, I started a community called open global mind with the idea sort of it has two two ideas buried in it. One is open mindedness because we're not going to get to sharing our ideas unless we're open minded and can have some trust.)
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(highlight:: Building a Shared Memory: Open Global Mind and the Concept of a Global Brain
Transcript:
Speaker 1
And then how do we build that into something that is our shared memory? And so I at the beginning of lockdown, coincident with lockdown, I started a community called open global mind with the idea sort of it has two two ideas buried in it. One is open mindedness because we're not going to get to sharing our ideas unless we're open minded and can have some trust. But the other thing is the global mind part so open global mind. What does a global brain look like? And I know that sounds overly ambitious, but what might it look like? And sorry for the long answer, but one, I came up with a couple metaphors just to try to explain this thing. So I own the big fungus.org. And I use the big fungus metaphor because it's sort of serious fun. And I think people love serious fun. And because leaf cutter ants can't actually metabolize leaf matter. So why the hell are they busy trimming bits of leaves and carrying them into their hives? The answer is they hand them off to a subclass of that kind of ant, which mulches them up and feeds a fungus. And those ants are also known as farmer ants. They have a symbiotic relationship with this particular species of fungus, which they keep healthy. And so for 25 years, I have felt like a lone ant at the fungus face when I feed my brain on my desktop. And I've been sharing out my brain for more than half of those 25 years publicly for free.)
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(highlight:: Cultivating Information is Like Growing a Network of Fungi
Summary:
As you go through your day, think of yourself as being exposed to spores.
By using your tool of awareness and practiced integration, you can choose which spores to incorporate into your network. This metaphor breaks a bit because it's intentional, but it's still lovely.
Even unplanned events, like being asked to be on a podcast, can add unexpected elements to your brain.
The spores represent the fruiting bodies of mycelia, while hyphe symbolize the leading edge of the mycelial network.
Overall, spores and hyphe are metaphorically rich in this big fungus analogy.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
So come back to your metaphor with the fungus, the image that I get in my mind is that as you go through your day, you are exposed to what could be thought of as like spores. Yeah. And they get and because you have this tool that you've been using for a long time, you've developed the awareness and practices that allow you to integrate the spores into the mycelial Network of sorts, right?
Speaker 1
That's exactly right. So the pick and choose the spores, which is it breaks the metaphor a little bit because mostly that's an accidental process and mine is extremely intentional, but the metaphor is lovely Otherwise. Right.
Speaker 2
But even something like the fact that there's now an entry in the in your brain for this podcast, you didn't plan on me reaching out to ask you to be on the show, right? So it is a little accident. It allows for some accidental. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1
And by the way that the spores, you're just you're partly playing off the big fungus idea because mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of mycelia. And spores are the way that mushrooms travel to go live somewhere else where hyphe are the leading edge of the mycelial networks underground. So hyphe are the little tendrils that connect to roots and minerals and rocks and whatever else and do their work. So spores and hyphe are kind of like the leading edge of this big fungus. And so they're, they're metaphorically very rich.)
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(highlight:: Building a Second Brain is Unintuitive: The Effect of Temporal/Hyperbolic Discounting/Present Bias
Summary:
Using a tool consistently over a long period of time has two benefits: becoming quick and efficient with it, and having a valuable resource for content ideas.
The key is to consistently use the tool and build up a data store over time. It may seem overwhelming, but even starting with a few entries can be useful and it only gets better with time.
Not many people have experience in nurturing and improving something over the long term, so the concept of slow and patient growth is often overlooked.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Well, it sounds like there are two benefits to this. One is this notion that you've somehow internalized the mechanics of the tool so that you can be really quick and it becomes second nature. And the other you alluded to earlier, which is you said something like, well, I'm never at a loss for what to share on Twitter or whatever, right? Like which is the Nicholas Lumon thing, you know, you build up this incredible data store and all of a sudden you have this thing that you can consult for unstructured paths through the Collective content that you have aggregated over a long period of time. The long period of time is the important bit there because it's not going to happen by the virtue of using the tool per se. It's using the tool consistently over a long span, right?
Speaker 1
Absolutely. And the first thought that I have when you say that is, but don't worry, this thing is useful when you've put a hundred things in it. Like one of my worries when I show people my brain, which I've been working on for 25 years, single one file, is that everybody's like, well, I'm never doing that. So I would never try it. I'm not that obsessive, whatever. And I'm like, find your favorite tool, but if it's a good tool, it'll be useful right away, but it gets better and better over time. And that's the other thing, which is so few people have an experience of curating, nurturing, improving some thing for a long period of time, that the cumulative accrual, that the time Effects of working on something are hard to sell. I mean, maybe they're not hard to sell because when I do a demo, people are like, wait, what? And like the light bulb goes on pretty quickly, but the concept of doing that works slowly and building up something that layers in like that doesn't register because so few of us do anything Slow and patient like that.)
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(highlight:: Views v.s. Underlying Structure in Knowledge Management Tools
Summary:
Obsidian is a markdown editor with plugins that allow for graph visualizations, similar to Roam and Mem.
While the visual aspect may be important for some, others find it confusing and unnecessary. However, the common factor is the linkiness - the ability to traverse and enrich a series of linked blocks of text.
Creating software to manifest this presents interesting challenges, as endless zoomable whiteboards with text blocks and arrows can become overwhelming at larger scales.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
I'm not sure there's always a graph because a lot of these things are just pure textual and they may have a graph view. So if you're using obsidian, obsidian is really just a markdown editor with a community of people writing plugins. And some of the plugins let you do things like graph visualizations, which are cool, but sort of primitive usually. But in obsidian, you can just write a website. I mean, it's just a markdown editor. You can also do some outlining. So it's a little bit roam-like, but then you bounce over to something like roam or mem. And those are strictly outliners with backlinks. And there's kind of a graph because behind the scenes, all those backlinks are actually links to each other to everything you've ever linked in. But there's not that much viewing of it as a graph. There is a graph under the hood. So one of the interesting things is that for some people, the visual is the most important thing. And for other people, the visual is like confusing and doesn't really work. And so they hide it or they don't need it, which is totally fine. But the linkiness is I think the common factors. Like partly, this is a series of blocks of text linked by some means of linking that it may or may not be visualized as a graph, but acts as a graph that you can then traverse and enrich. I think that's kind of the thing they have in common. And then you get into all these interesting questions about how to manifest that as software. Is it an endless zoomable whiteboard of a bunch of blocks of text on it that you can put little arrows between? And there's a bunch of tools like that. And I look at them and I'm like, good luck with that when it's scaled beyond 1,000 blocks of text. Like you'll never find your way around, et cetera, et cetera.)
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(highlight:: Two Challenges of Collaborative Sensemaking: Technical Tools and New Ways of Working
Summary:
The speaker discusses the importance of both technical tools and a new way of working in achieving better project communication and collaboration.
They mention using tools like Miro and FigJam as an evolving whiteboard, rather than static slide decks. However, they also acknowledge the challenges of maintaining organization in these tools without community norms.
They highlight the value of wikis and wiki culture in creating a cohesive and productive collaborative environment.
The speaker emphasizes the need to develop community rhythms and norms to ensure successful project outcomes.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
You know, I'm hearing two things there. One is there is a technical aspect of the stuff, which has to do with the tools and having tools that support this, you know, hooking up, see them to get and all that stuff. And the other has to do with a new way of working, perhaps a new set of practices, new ways of sense making that are shared. I suspect that the two go hand in hand and what comes to mind here is when I was hearing you talk about this, I was thinking, well, I think I'm doing a little bit of this in my day to work with Tools like Miro and FigJam, where you have what is essentially an endless whiteboard. And rather than communicate with each other what is happening in the project through a series of slide decks that are versioned and sitting in some files system somewhere, what you Have is this evolving two dimensional canvas where the project slowly accretes over time.
Speaker 1
Exactly. And those two dimensional canvases are complicated and get messy quickly. So what is the tool and how do we keep it from getting messy? Like when notion showed up, I was like, oh my God, I would have given like an arm to have this back in the days of Lotus all in one or whatever. This is so much better. And yet you get a few people collaborating in a notion space and it turns into like a barn very quickly. Unless somebody is in there saying, hey, we need to act as a community. And this is where wikis and wiki culture really helps is that people who know how to do wikis know that we all need to kind of get on the same page about who's doing what where and how we name Things and where we put things. And once we've got that dance going, now the tool is our collective power tool. But without that little cultural norming piece, it turns into chaos really fast. So we're kind of at that place where we need to develop these community rhythms and norms that propagate because they turn out better work.)
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(highlight:: Integrating Personal Knowledge Information with Collective Information Repositories
Summary:
The global brain should preserve our individual abilities to contribute.
Negotiating every edit would be a hindrance, but occasional collaboration and improvement are ideal. When we find a version we love, we can focus on our favorite parts and others can support and contribute in a meaningful way.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
One of the important aspects of this big fungus or global brain for me is it needs to preserve each of our abilities to keep what we know and what we put in. So, so if I use the brain in a social way with other people, but every time I was putting in some new thought, I had to negotiate what it was going to be called like on Wikipedia, there's one Page for carbon, the element, one page, right? And everybody, there's a talk page behind it where everybody says what's going to go on the page. If I had to engage in that every time I put a new note in, I wouldn't be doing it. But if we could do that and then occasionally step in and say, oh, you know, your version of carbon is the best one we've ever seen, let's all just improve that one and use fork and pull or Some other methodology for improving it. Now I can relax because I know that I love your version of it. And that speaks for me in this part of my thinking space. And then we're off to the races because then each of us is sort of working on the part of it that we love in a way that other people understand and can proxy their vote or their opinion over Into that gets really juicy.)
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(highlight:: Contact Jerry Michalski to get plugged into the Open Global Mind community
Summary:
To keep up with what I'm working on, follow the Open Global Mind (OGM) community.
Visit openglobalmind.com for more information. You can join our Google group list, participate in our weekly calls, and connect on our Mattermost server.
For specific interests, check out bigfungus.org or explore my work on trust.
Solving the trust problem is crucial, as it allows us to effectively share ideas and make progress.
Reach out to me at associate@gmail.com to join these communities and start engaging.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Where can folks follow up with you to keep up to date with what you're working on?
Speaker 1
Thank you. So most of my conversations are happening under the umbrella of open global mind. So openglobalmind.com is a website that will sort of redirect you over to. Yeah, it's very we're building simple sites and mark down these days so that doesn't look beautiful. But there's a community that I run a Google group list. And then we run a series of calls every week. Every week I record and upload three different calls myself and a bunch of other people are having other sub conversations within this community. So and we run a matter most server, which is an open source Slack competitor. So there's a bunch of channels on matter most. I would say go join there. Ping me. I'm associate at gmail.com. We'll add my email to the podcast. But ping me. I'm happy to add you to these communities and join the conversations. And then depending on which angle in here you're interested, like the big fungus.org is a website but doesn't have a lot of these attachments to it. And there's a bunch of stuff I've done on trust as well, which I'm very happy to talk about with people because I think that unless we solve the trust problem, everything else we just talked About is nonsense. What doesn't matter is irrelevant because it'll just be like thinking to ourselves only and we must figure out how to share our minds in a way that people who disagree with us are willing To engage. And so we can sort stuff out and make progress because right now we're very, very stuck. And one of the reasons we're stuck is that we don't have a persistent memory of the things we believe and have said that we can sort of argue with and debate with and negotiate with. So that's probably the easiest way. Write me or join OGM for now. And I can then route people to other projects.)
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(highlight:: Trust is a Prerequisite for Building Collective Intelligence
Summary:
Unless we solve the trust problem, everything else is nonsense.
We have to figure out how to share our minds and engage with those who disagree with us. Without a persistent memory, we're stuck and unable to make progress.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
And there's a bunch of stuff I've done on trust as well, which I'm very happy to talk about with people because I think that unless we solve the trust problem, everything else we just talked About is nonsense. What doesn't matter is irrelevant because it'll just be like thinking to ourselves only and we must figure out how to share our minds in a way that people who disagree with us are willing To engage. And so we can sort stuff out and make progress because right now we're very, very stuck. And one of the reasons we're stuck is that we don't have a persistent memory of the things we believe and have said that we can sort of argue with and debate with and negotiate with.)
- Time 0:37:53
- collective_intelligence, intergenerational_learning, trust, trust_economics,