A cryptoeconomist, a content creator, a Muay Thai enthusiast and an aspiring comedian walk into a bar...
The bartender pours one drink. Because it's just @andrarchy.
I could've also mentioned that a former lawyer, a former real estate agent, a former investor and the founder of the now defunct GiverHub, also walked into the same bar.
But the story would end the same, because today's spotlight is focused on a man who is anything but a one-trick pony.
You might want to grab a coffee for this one...
"Some (of my answers) got a bit long. I tend to do that. I hope that's OK." - @andrarchy
It's OK, pal. This one is definitely worth the read.
20 questions with @andrarchy
1 - How would you describe yourself in one sentence?
@andrarchy - I think the "self" is an illusion and that we are all effectively identical information processing nodes, differentiated primarily by unique experiences of local environments, and which make up a super-intelligence I refer to as "the crowd."
2 - You've been on Steemit for quite a while. How did you first hear about it, and what led you to join?
@andrarchy - It's crazy to think that 3 months is "quite a while" but not only is that a fair description, but it feels like it too! It feels like it's been years. I honestly don't remember how I first heard about it, but it must have been through @piedpiper whom I'd met a few months earlier. Before that I had tried to start my own company, which was an online hub that enabled people to donate to any nonprofit in the US instantly and have all of their donations automatically itemized for them, plus it had some social features that enabled donors to interact with one another and nonprofits to interact with donors. In the process I did incorporate a rudimentary litecoin clone into the site to facilitate certain functionalities and I had always been interested in Bitcoin, so I think that's really when I started to internalize the understanding of just how transformative cryptocurrencies could be. But I eventually became disillusioned with the nonprofit sector and lost my passion for the project and had to abandon it. I was managing residential real estate at the same time and I think I just got burnt out and decided to quit both of those jobs because I wanted something more and I had a certain amount of faith that if I took a year or two (which I fortunately had the resources to do) to really LOOK for something better, I would find it. But to be 100% honest, I had absolutely no idea what I was looking for. I knew it would likely involve open-sourcing and crowdsourcing, but that's pretty much it. After about a year of treading water I came across @piedpiper's and @lukecrowley's Fort Galt project and got really excited about it. That was very much the kind of thing I was looking for. They were leveraging these new technologies to really attack an important real world problem which is: how we design and build our own communities. I still love what they're doing and think it's a really important step for humanity to put control of the formation and construction of our communities into the hands of the people who will be living in them. I just wish it wasn't so far from my home. But I hope to visit them soon.
3 - You've described yourself as a "full-time content creator for Steemit." Was it tough to make the decision to fully commit to Steemit?
@andrarchy - I'm actually thinking of eliminating that and leaving it as simply "exclusive." Full-time is perfectly accurate because hardly an hour goes by that I'm not thinking about Steemit, but I don't spend all my time thinking about the content I'm going to create. Steemit and Steem fascinate me from an academic perspective and that often leads me to create content, but I don't view myself as "constantly working for Steemit." It's a super fine line that really no one else would probably give much thought to, but after reading an article by a friend of mine (I think it was @kevinwong) I think it might not be wise to promote the idea of quitting everything to work for Steemit. I think you can look at it two ways. You could say I was already unemployed when I discovered Steemit so once I started posting a lot I was by definition a full-time content creator for Steemit because I wasn't creating content specifically FOR any other platforms. From my perspective though, I quit my jobs to look for Steemit, I just didn't know it at the time. But I had found a project called Project Hedgehog which was a very similar concept (a social network powered by a cryptocurrency where upvotes and downvotes were associated with a small transfer of said crypto) and it immediately resonated with me. It was in stealth mode but I considered reaching out to the creator to see if he needed any help. But honestly I was still reeling from my failure as a software entrepreneur and just didn't feel ready to involve myself in another project, especially a project run by someone who wasn't me and wasn't anyone I knew. But once I saw Steemit I think things started moving really fast in my brain because of all of these previous events, and of course it's designed to have minimal friction so you can go from passing interest to obsession with very little resistance or investment. I honestly don't remember much of it. I think I immediately recognized that this might have been exactly what I had been looking for, which then triggered a deep-dive where my innate skepticism had to be satisfied in every way, and then once that happened it was off to the races! Somewhere in there I realized that the Steem+Steemit combo was beyond even my expectations. I consider myself a forecaster (I guess that could have been a less ridiculous answer to the first question). I've always been drawn to predicting the future and excelling it at, which means very little surprises me even in technology. Dan's decision and ability to design and execute the Steem Backed Monetary System blew me away even before I fully understood it and Dan and Ned's decision to draw in a population to use that system (Steemit) took it to another level. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a historical development. In many ways it is like a modern day version of the discovery of America, except they built everything from scratch and designed it for maximum efficiency. I've totally forgotten the question :)
4 - What made you select "Steemit: Work For No One" as the slogan in your videos?
@andrarchy - I am actually not very proud of the fact that it has always been pretty apparent to me that I wasn't going to be able to work for anyone else. I have a biological revulsion to authority, possibly to an extreme. Psychiatrists could easily diagnose me as having oppositional defiant disorder, but I believe it to be an advantage rather than an illness just as I believe my cousin has a gifted mind instead of "Aspberger's." That being said I don't think it's bad to work for other people, and I worry that this is an expression of my own sense of entitlement, especially after experiencing the stresses and hardships of working for myself. After the failure of my company I think I had a bit of an existential crisis because I realized working for yourself is no cake walk either! I think one of the things that really resonated with me about Steemit was that I wasn't working for myself OR someone else. So I worked "for no one." Even saying I worked "for the crowd" didn't feel right because whenever I made something I thought the crowd would like it tanked, and whenever I made something for me, the crowd rewarded it. It really felt like I was working for no one. I was just expressing myself in as pure a way as possible. That's why I love this platform: the experience is quite spiritual, which is why I think so many people have such strong reactions to it, even when those reactions are negative.
5 - You create some great video content. What are your top tips for those who are looking to produce more video content for their Steemit blogs?
@andrarchy - Everything you need to know to create good video content is on YouTube. Then practice, practice, practice. I've been making videos since college (12 years), though arguably it's been a lifelong process. My brother is a director and has been making films my whole life (as a child I played some kind of vampire in one of them, I gotta get my hands on that footage!) and I later learned that my grandfather owned one of the first 16 millimeter film cameras and an old-school editing suite. He apparently compulsively filmed everything, which is definitely something I suffer from. So I think it's fair to say filming is in my blood. That being said, I'm only now becoming somewhat good at it :) Here's the video I made in college.
Here's a comedy short I wrote, directed and starred in 5 years ago called "Prelude to an Orgy": (Note: Language in video may be NSFW)
That was really the first video I ever consciously chose to create from scratch and though there are a million things wrong with it (inconsistent camera angles, inconsistent audio and video quality) I'm really proud of it for a first effort and it gave me the confidence to realize that if I kept at it I could make something really great. But yeah, if you spend a few months focusing on practicing, watch a lot of YouTube videos about filmmaking and film analysis (very helpful) and read a couple of blogs like nofilmschool and cinema5d, you'll be able to shoot anything. The real hard part is learning how to craft a compelling story. I think that might be the hard part about creating content of any kind, like the content we create for Steemit.
6 - The topics on your blog vary quite a bit. What is your favorite thing to write or make videos about?
@andrarchy - Cryptoeconomics. I don't even know how many people consider themselves cryptoeconomists. Probably single digits, which is awesome. I like to be a member of small clubs because I don't like groups. (Note: Language in video may be NSFW)
So when I talk about the intersection of economics and cryptocurrencies, I feel like I'm at the forefront of something that is going to be a major area of study in the future. For example, as far as I know I am the first person to point out that Steem and other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin would be more accurately described as digital commodities than digital currencies. Now, I only realized that because Dan used Steem to back a currency. What do we use to back currencies? Commodities. So the credit still goes to @dan. Regardless of whether that's true, it feels amazing to know that at the very least it's not obviously false. Never before Steemit have I felt like my mental abilities were being taxed to their absolute limit. Whenever I'm doing that, whenever I'm pushing the envelope of my knowledge, I love that. I absolutely do not always know that I'm right about what I talk about, and I love that. That's part of the beauty of this being a new frontier (like America was, at least from the perspective of Western Civilization), there's so much we don't know about how all of this is going to work. There is so much opportunity it's absolutely ridiculous. At the very LEAST it's an unprecedented economic case study and the fact that so few people even realize this makes it even better... Though paradoxically at times this can be extremely frustrating. For example, I tried explaining Steem/Steemit to an MBA who works at JP Morgan and he was convinced it couldn't work because it wasn't "real" or backed by a government. But he was also arguing that Bitcoin couldn't work (this was 2 months ago!) and I'm pretty sure he thought the US dollar was still backed by gold (which is SHOCKINGLY common with people who should really know better). It's not like I was even trying to convert him or anything, I just thought he would find it cool, but these people are so locked into their ideologies they're perceptually blind to it. It's unfortunate for them.
7 - What is one area you think Steemit could improve in?
@andrarchy - I think the Steemit team is doing a phenomenal job on a beta release. They have to balance so many plates and I'm sure developing software that also has to constantly be integrating with a blockchain adds to the difficulty. I mean, they have to develop new tools as they go in addition to the platform itself! I believe in doing your job, and my job is to create content. I get to share my perspective with my followers in an unprecedented myriad of ways. In addition, I never would have been able to find people who would be interested in my perspective if not for Steemit. YouTube, Twitter, Instagram etc. are designed to promote content that has broad appeal. They favor quantity over quality because of the nature of their business models. I was never interested in that. I've always felt like an oddball and an outcast and frankly I didn't really think there was anyone else like me. I don't take any credit for the fact that I have managed to amass the followers I have. I will be forever grateful for Steemit for acting as the magnet that drew me and the people who are interested in what I have to say. If people expect me to be anything but insanely grateful to @Dan and @Ned, they're in for a surprise. What Steemit has given me is infinitely greater than any monetary reward I have been given and that would be true if Steemit disappeared tomorrow. There's countless things wrong with Steemit because it's not perfect, but I have faith in Dan and Ned as well as the unrivaled community of computer scientists and cryptographers who are constantly evaluating the platform, proposing fixes, and working together to make it better. I don't want a perfect platform, I want a platform that is designed to evolve and adapt over time and so constantly improve. Like all open-source and crowd-source platforms, the earliest iterations are always the worst (which isn't a knock, again I'm amazed at just how good Steemit is for a beta release). In fact, that shows just how ridiculously awesome Steemit is going to be in the future. I unapologetically love Steemit and I think anyone who doesn't is going to have a hard time achieving any success on the platform. That doesn't mean you can't be hyper-critical of it. But you can tell when criticism comes from a place of love and when it comes from a place of anger and hatred at the world (not Steemit). One will have success on the platform, help to make it better and get to stay on this roller coaster ride and share in the prosperity it generates;the other will have failure both on the platform and off of it. Yes I am a proud member of the Cult of Steemit. I've finally found my religion ;)
8 - What is "The Game" all about?
@andrarchy - The Game is really my attempt to stoke the imaginations of Steemit users. I still don't think the majority of users appreciate just how revolutionary Steemit is and I view it as part of my mission to push people to dream bigger when it comes to their uses of the platform. Steemit enables anyone to tap into the wisdom of the crowd. I can't overemphasize how revolutionary I think that is. I 100% believe that the crowd is what people were attempting to describe when they used the word "God." They weren't able to understand how humanity was able to achieve so much despite us all being so seemingly disconnected and frankly ignorant. How could we build the pyramids? People STILL have trouble conceiving of it and so resort to supernatural explanations like aliens to relieve the cognitive dissonance. Don't get me wrong, I would love it if that were true, but odds are the real answer is that we built the pyramids the same way we built skyscrapers. In the past people didn't have the scientific understanding necessary so they resolved the dilemma by saying we must have been guided by the hand of God. How did the Romans conquer the Western world? They must have been guided by the hand of God. This is a perfectly reasonable way to attempt to comprehend reality in a world where the necessary scientific knowledge to understand crowd behavior had yet to be discovered. But now we know that the Crowd can do things that individuals or even groups of individuals are not capable of doing or even understanding. In this sense then, Steemit is a portal into the mind of God. It can be used to create literally anything. The Game is my attempt to convey that information as efficiently as possible. There are three rules to The Game: 1. The Crowd must create the rules. 2. The Crowd must create the prize. 3. The crowd must choose the winner. Any thing or things that satisfy these rules is part of the Game, even if not conscious and I believe that anyone who develops anything based on these three principles will be immensely successful because whether they know it or not they will have God on their team.
9 - Your martial arts tutorial was well-received by the Steemit community. Now that Steemers have a solid Muay Thai right roundhouse kick, are you planning on introducing any other martial arts tutorials?
@andrarchy - Haha, we'll see. I would like to do the punches (jab, cross, left hook) but tutorials are pretty time-consuming and it seems like people prefer that I talk about more abstract concepts like economics and business (my stuff that involves Tesla Motors and Elon Musk does shockingly well) which is great because I love talking about that. While I enjoy martial arts, Steemit has really stimulated my higher level cognitive functions and has made martial arts tutorials seem a bit pedestrian. But if I can figure out a way to bang some out quickly and efficiently I'm certainly not opposed to it. I do think it is the best form of exercise (it satisfies primal urges, it activates all the major muscle groups, it's good cardio, it's meditative, etc.). But one of the mind-blowing revelations I've had from Steemit is that I can use it to create ANYTHING I want. In that context, time has become a very limited resource and almost any video will consume at least a full day of labor. So I have to be conservative.
10 - When is your book "The Evolution of Information" coming out?
@andrarchy - That is a remarkably prescient question. I've been giving a lot of thought to that and think that without Steemit I probably would never publish my book. I would just postulate, conceptualize, and tweak until this body expired. So lately I've re-evaluated my strategy and think I'm going to develop and publish the book piecemeal on Steemit and hope for the crowd's participation in improving it as we go. Hopefully after some time we will have developed enough of the material together to have something worthy of publishing in its entirety. At that time, few things would make me happier than being able to publish it through Steemit ( I suspect that will be possible in the future) and credit every individual who contributed in some way. It would be a fantastic proof-point of the central premise of the book. I hope to get started on that process relatively quickly after I return home from my current vacation. Fingers-crossed.
11 - With 68.3, you currently have the 28th best reputation score on Steemit. Is that something you're proud of? How do you think you've built such a solid reputation?
@andrarchy - Absolutely I'm proud of it, though I haven't done anything consciously to achieve it. I don't even know how the reputation score works. Often people assume that my technical knowledge of Steemit is far greater than it really is (though I appreciate their confidence!). Again I have faith and trust in Ned, Dan, and the Steemit community to make sure that the mechanisms in place are effective, so if they develop a reputation score, I have faith that if you do what you need to do in this world to achieve a good reputation, it will be reflected in the score. If you go back and look at some of my early videos, you'll see on my whiteboard the key principles I tried to keep in mind while creating content: Honesty, Integrity, Transparency. Someone later pointed out to me that all of that can be encapsulated in "Authenticity." I believe these are the core principles for leading a happy, fulfilled and successful life. I assume/hope that's why my reputation score is high and has been trending higher, but I can't say for sure. If I had to advise people on how to get their reputation score higher I would say to work on yourself constantly, then it doesn't matter what scores you get in anything. You're winning regardless. If a score doesn't reflect that, fuck that score :) Interestingly, a type of reputation score was something I hoped to develop on my previous entrepreneurial endeavor (called GiverHub). Everyone whom I discussed it with hated the idea, so @Ned and @Dan's ability to introduce it in a palatable way is, as always, incredibly impressive.
12 - What is your favorite song? (Both currently and all-time)
@andrarchy - Sia's: Cheap Thrills. I. Love. Sia. It's ridiculous. I don't really listen to music and never really have, but I love her decision to disconnect her "self" from her work and to intentionally avoid the trap of fame and her talent both vocally and creatively is awe-inspiring. Her song "alive" brings tears to my eyes even when I think about it. Like right now. It's absurd. I wouldn't blame anyone for judging me negatively for this. Again it's ridiculous. But there it is.
Favorite song of all time, hmmm... I haven't listened to Elvis Costello in a long time, but probably one of his. His album My Aim is True is probably one of the greatest albums of all time. Every song is absolutely killer and the same is true of This Year's Model and Get Happy!!. But probably Watching the Detectives from My Aim is True. Now I have to download and listen to all of those albums.
13 - Who is your favorite athlete?
@andrarchy - Conor McGregor. No contest. Brilliant showman, unparalleled work ethic, spectacular performer, and hall of fame athlete. When it comes to Conor McGregor I am an absolute child.
14 - Who is your favorite author?
@andrarchy - Oof. I wouldn't say I really have one. I think the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins was the most transformative book I've read so let's go with him even though that doesn't feel right.
15 - The majority of people reading this interview have probably heard of you. But for those who haven't, what is the top reason someone should follow your Steemit blog?
@andrarchy - If you enjoy my perspective. My goal is always to add value to my followers' lives through my content. I can't say I always succeed, but I try.
16 - You get to have dinner with three people, living or dead. Who are you eating with?
@andrarchy - Nikola Tesla, Elon Musk, Conor McGregor. Splooge.
17 - Whose Steemit blog(s) do you enjoy following the most?
@andrarchy - I'm gonna cheat and name a few because I can't pick just one: @sterlinluxan, @kevinwong, @wingz, @hisnameisolllie, @churdtzu, @dan/@dantheman. Ok, @dantheman is obviously my favorite. I know that seems like blowing Steem up the founder's ass, fine I'll blow smoke up his ass any day (ok I took that metaphor too far). I'll blow smoke up Elon Musk's ass too if he want me to :). Again, too far. I think @dantheman has a singular mind and love gaining insight into it. He created a monetary system from scratch! As an Econ nerd he will forever have a place in my heart. But I want to be honest and admit I am not a major consumer of Steemit content. Again I see my job as creating content, not consuming it. I know it seems paradoxical, but I truly believe that it is important that I stay focused on producing and not consuming. Time is a limited resource and there is so much great content on Steemit I could spend all day consuming it. I think maybe retirement is for consuming. When I'm old, exhausted and the new generation is grossly outperforming me, maybe that's when I'm supposed to be consuming, but right now I want to be the Conor McGregor of Steemit and that means focus, dedication, and single-minded obsession with my mission.
18 - Who inspires you?
@andrarchy - Elon Musk and @dantheman. Musk was the first person to really show me what true ambition looked like. @dantheman took it to the next level. I thought creating the Amazon of nonprofits was a grand ambition. Then @dantheman (along with @ned) invented an economy from scratch. Talk about a bitch-slap! He showed me that even my ambition was bounded.
19 - Tell us about your most embarrassing moment.
@andrarchy - Oh jeez, I was bullied in high school, I did open mic stand-up comedy, and I have a Jewish mother. There are too many embarrassing moments to filter through. But bombing during stand-up comedy cured me of my ability to get embarrassed (for the most part ;) ). At one open mic I got caught videotaping stand-up comedian Todd Barry who stopped by the open mic just for fun. I was only recording him for personal use, but he stopped mid-set to tell me to stop recording him. After that I stopped doing to stand-up. Probably that. But I want to start back up again just for fun.
20 - What is one thing very few people know about you?
@andrarchy - That I have no idea what I'm doing 99% of the time. Even on Steemit I usually haven't made a final decision regarding what I'm going to post on a given day until I wake up that morning and go through my morning ritual of Soylent and coffee. I like developing a lot of stuff at the same time and waiting till something feels "mature." As I've said before, even after I hit the "record" button, I rarely know what's about to happen next. But that's part of the thrill. Giving up the illusion of control, I believe, is a critical step on the path to enlightenment. But what do I know? Not much.
Hats off to @andrarchy for taking the time to provide insightful answers. A lot of great information was packed into this interview!
As always, a huge thank-you to all of you for taking the time to read.
Who would you like to see me throw 20 questions at? Drop me a comment below and I'll work on setting up the interview.
If you like what you read, be sure to follow my blog!
Previous "20 questions" interviews:
20 questions with @heiditravels
20 questions with @katecloud
20 questions with @manthostsakirid
20 questions with @blockchaingirl
20 questions with @piedpiper
20 questions with @stellabelle
20 questions with @budgetbucketlist
20 questions with @rogerkver
20 questions with @allasyummyfood
20 questions with @the-alien
20 questions with Janina Storace
20 questions with @mrs.steemit