A New Human Species

I have a crush on Grimes’s brain. Watch out, Elon and Erica (my girlfriend).

Grimes — the musician and mother of two of Elon’s children — went on the Lex Fridman Podcast last week. It’s two hours of techno-futurist brain blasts.

My brain hasn’t exploded this much since listening to Balaji talk about crypto for the first time on the Tim Ferriss Show.

There’s three ideas Grimes brought up that I want to focus on:

1. Homo Sapiens v. Homo Technus

2. Burden of a Static Avatar

3. Memes as Decentralized Comedy

Each of these could merit their own essays, but for now, I’ll explore all three in condensed form. By the end of this essay, you’ll see how they all relate.

1. Homo Sapiens v. Homo Technus

Grimes believes that because technology has changed our brain structure, we’re no longer homo sapiens. We are homo technus.

Grimes was a neuroscience major so I generally trust her opinion on this shit, but I did some basic research anyways.

You know how our brains are neuroplastic and adapt to learning and life experiences?

Previous research shows that string musicians have more electrical activity in the part of the brain allotted to the fingers they use in playing the instrument. So what?

Later research was published in 2020 that showed that much like musicians’ brains adapt by practice, brains also adapt to touchscreens. Touchscreen users showed an increase in electrical activity from the thumb and also for the index fingertip.

While digital media affects our brains’ structure, the researchers admit “it is less clear how these new technologies will change human cognition (language skills, IQ, capacity of working memory) and emotional processing in a social context.”

It’s been commonly reported that ADHD diagnoses have been on the rise since 1997. What we don’t know and even the CDC isn’t sure of is if more people have ADHD or more people are simply just diagnosed.

My gut instinct is it’s a bit of both.

You think you can give a toddler an iPad everyday for five hours and there will be no effects on his brain? What about being glued to an iPhone from ages 13-24?

This is completely anecdotal, but I remember as a kid, I would read for 3-5 hours at a time. Now, I read in 30 minute bursts even when I have multiple hours free at a time.

I feel like my brain is different from the dopamine slot machine that is social media. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. It is what it is — and using social media is the only way I could have become a professional writer.

What I am saying though is maybe that’s why it’s so hard to have a conversation with my grandparents. They did not grow up glued to a screen since they were a kid.

Not only are their life experiences and worldviews incredibly different from mine, but their brains are fundamentally different as well.

We really just built different out here.

2. Burden of a Static Avatar

Grimes goes by several names and has alt accounts she uses to interact with people.

Why — She said she feels “the burden of a static avatar” online.

I haven’t asked Snoop Dogg about this, but I’m willing to bet he feels similarly. The dude rotates his profile pictures between NFTs almost daily.

Whether we like it or not, our profile pictures, bios, and usernames represent ourselves to others online.

There are even status games within all of these such as:

• Expensive JPEGs as profile pictures

• Listing prestigious schools/companies in bio

• 3-letter usernames1

I’ve seen frequent talk online over whether your online reputation or physical reputation matters more. I laughed at the losers whose online reputation mattered more — until I became one of them.

It’s not just the League of Legend dorks who spend all day fighting goblins.

I can’t pay rent if I get drunk and tweet something cancellable. If say something cancellable in front of my neighbors, I may be ostracized, but I can still pay rent.

Going off Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, this prioritization makes sense. My base need for safety and to pay rent is now more important for my survival than gaining love and belonging from my neighbors.

If this was the stone ages or even 300 years ago, my reputation with my neighbors would probably be the most important thing to me — these would be the people I would work with and spend time with.

But it’s 2022 and Twitter is my office.

I’m here for three more months until NYC so forgive me if I dress like a schlub and don’t pretend to like the guy who *incorrectly* mansplains everything to me.

3. Memes as Decentralized Comedy

Ok, this one deserves a whole essay, but here it goes.

Grimes loves memes. She called them decentralized comedy.

Analogous to Bitcoin, there is one creator of a meme, but a meme only gains cultural value by its network effects and reach around the globe.

Like everyone is talking about Bitcoin and the real Satoshi is probably off laughing and sipping pina coladas, I’m sure it’s similar on a smaller scale for meme creaotrs.

I went viral last week and it was a crazy feeling — to see others quote tweeting my tweet and adding their own thoughts and opinions.

Purposely creating a viral meme must have a similar feeling: watching thousands of people alter and recreate the meme.

That’s what’s so cool about memes. They are composable — like Ethereum.

Like Ethereum is a base layer, so are memes. With the basic image (blocks), you can build countless new applications (Layer 2) on top of it.

Memes — or simply ideas — are the building blocks of thoughts and philosophy.

The American flag is a meme. Buddha is a meme. Shit, Jesus is a meme.

These are all ideas that would mean nothing unless network effects applied. We agree upon the definitions of words, and if we don’t, they’re meaningless.

All words are essentially memes. From memes, we build language.

Evolution

The internet brings us together, but tears us apart.

Like high school cliques, we form tribes on social media. Despite the negative connotations around cliques, I don’t think this is a bad thing.

In fact, I think it’s the future of making friends especially as adults.

Online communities offer a space to find people who are into the same shit you’re into, read the same books, and listen to the same podcasts.

While the lefties might scream about how you’re getting caught in a cycle of people who agree with you, I’ll scream right back and say, hey maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Maybe I want my online experience to be filled with people who are as tech-obsessed, ambitious, and excited about life as me. Maybe I’ve already argued with enough communists and Luddites in college that I don’t want to do that anymore.

I’m done arguing.

I want my timeline to be filled with the optimists who see social media as a place to make friends, not argue and bicker. I want my timeline to be filled with creators and founders, there to make money and play positive-sum games.

I know who I am — I know what I believe.

I’m proud to be a homo technus.

I feel no burden of a static avatar.

I don’t just spread memes, I create them.

Podcast plug: This week, I had Kevin Esherick on the podcast. He’s working on a fashion NFT project called Material where people draw on his pants and he mints these drawings as NFTs. Super cool stuff. He also runs as a form of transportation. Listen on Spotify and Apple.