SPENCER

Every act of inauthenticity bleeds your energy. It's "waste heat" in your human combustion engine — an elective tax on unbridled expression.

Rage against it.

A self-help book with just one page that says,

“You already know what to do”

Art is the sawdust of an examined life.

If your curiosity isn’t eventually esoteric-maxxing, then it’s not your curiosity

It's authenticity all the way down Everything you want is downstream of alignment with "what is"

spencerkier.substack.com/p/its-authen...

https://spencerkier.substack.com/p/its-authenticity-all-the-way-down

It’s authenticity all the way down.

Absolute love is borderless-ness.

It’s tearing down the walls that separate you. It’s unification — of aims & wants. It’s allowing yourself to be wholly steeped in the other, without bias or reservation.

It’s “the sound of no shore.”

We must love not only occasionally, but forever.
— Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov

Nominative determinism strikes again

Dostoevsky is a ChatGPT wrapper for The Bible.

Never make a deal with a toddler their future self will refuse.

Few worse feelings than inadequacy in a job you don’t even want to do.

Oh nice! Doing God’s work

Whenever we get an AGI president we’ll kinda come full circle on that bit in 1 Samuel where the Israelites demanded God give them a king.

There has never been a better time in the history of the universe to be curious.

👋

“If he who is organized by the divine for spiritual communion, refuse and bury his talent in the earth, even though he should want natural bread, shame and confusion of face will pursue him throughout life to eternity."
— William Blake

How has no rapper taken "Jung Carl"?

Your boundaries are your quest.
— Rumi

Ep #27 |Tom Morgan

we talk about curiosity, the hero's journey, a science of meaning & reality's movement towards complexity, what is value, & more

🟢 spoti.fi/3QeUPgC
🍎 apple.co/3q8Ivnl
🌎 bit.ly/3Y8zyH6

ep #23 is up

Justin Welsh & i talk about intentional lifestyle design, long term thinking, playing your own game, content creation, imitation, status, the value of travel, & more.

🟢 spoti.fi/4499z4M
🍎 apple.co/3COGm2Q
🌎 bit.ly/434Rnb5

ep #22 is up! one of my favorites

Molly Mielke & i talk about "career sunk cost fallacy", agency, investing in ppl, being famous among friends, freedom, commitment, & introspection vs. action.

🍎 apple.co/42Qr5Jy
🟢 spoti.fi/3NkMnsT
🌎 bit.ly/3Xm6oEf

ep #21 of the pod is up!

Adam Ryan and i talk about Workweek, the b2b knowledge/creator space, & thinking long term.

🍎 apple.co/3qHtsB4
🟢 spoti.fi/3Xac2t1
🌎 bit.ly/3Xay132

ep #20 of audience of one is live!

Zach Pogrob & i talk about finding & sustaining your obsession, his inspirations, cultivating a long term mindset, building a brand as big as disney, & more.

🍎 apple.co/43HsNhH
🟢 spoti.fi/3Nh8QZ5
🌎 bit.ly/42nIbOJ

ep #19 is up

@andrewrose.bsky.social & i talk about community building & bringing friends together, isolation, implementing the right social technologies, balancing contentment & ambition, & more.

🍎 apple.co/3WJyDwb
🟢 spoti.fi/3CnzWrr
🌎 bit.ly/45FXG7f

ep #18 is up

@richdecibels.bsky.social helps people grow high-trust communities & decentralised orgs. we talk about microsolidarity, belonging, optimism, cooperation, agency, commitment, & finding what you're good at.

🍎apple.co/3WBKqfK
🟢spoti.fi/3MXnkgH
🌎bit.ly/4287G6c

this is the philosophy & premise of A.S. Neill’s Summerhill School (& book)

highly recommend

@jay.bsky.team any plans to support this kind of user-generated labeling/categorization?

#017 - Gurwinder Bhogal on Identifying Bugs in "Human OS" & Finding Truth by Audience of One My guest today is Gurwinder Bhogal. Gurwinder writes The Prism, a blog covering the ways technology and psychology conspire to fool us, and how we can withstand the assault on our senses. We talk about writing, bugs in our psychological software, how we can better understand and manage our emotions and reactions, and the pursuit of finding truth. — (00:38) Gurwinder’s background (03:59) Language as the programming language of humanity (11:21) Do humans want to recognize the bugs in our OS & can we convince people to want to do it? (14:16) How much can we actually change our operating system? (30:07) Are our emotions ever valid? (32:01) What is intuition and is it useful? (41:56) Are there systems & institutions that can help the rewiring of humanity at scale? (54:33) How do you know where to draw the line in finding truth vs. trusting sources? (56:25) Gurwinder's final question for listeners — The Prism: https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Gurwinder’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/

ep #17 is live

Gurwinder Bhogal & i talk about writing, bugs in our psychological software, how we can better understand & manage our emotions and reactions, & the pursuit of finding truth.

🍎 apple.co/3psWe7K
🟢 spoti.fi/3LWlKty

#016 - Alpha Barry on Temple, Autonomous Cities, & The Death of The Nation State by Audience of One Alpha Barry is the founder of Temple, which builds cities to make the world more prosperous and beautiful, as well as Monolith, which founds and funds companies building Africa’s industrial economy. We talk about his vision for Temple and Monolith, why we need new cities — and the opportunities and challenges of building them — and why Africa is the right place to build these ventures. — (00:50) Alpha’s background (04:59) What is Temple? (08:45) Why Africa (and Nigeria in particular)? (15:00) What's the right mix of private and public involvement to make this succeed? (18:50) Picking what to own; first principles vs. leaning into expertise (24:30) Temple's ideology & ethos (29:24) Recent city-state case studies (36:09) Pre-mortem: what could failure look like? (40:38) What do you have to get right at the beginning? (47:59) Balancing domestic & foreign talent (54:16) His first crack at Temple (58:10) Types of ventures he sees being built as a result of Temple (01:04:07) 20th century governance & infrastructure vs. 21st century technologies (01:10:57) Alpha's final question for listeners — Temple: https://www.templecities.com/ Monolith: https://www.monolithlabs.org/ Alpha’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/alphaxbarry Alpha’s personal site: https://alphabarry.xyz/ Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/

ep #16 of audience of one is up

alpha barry is the founder of temple & monolith. we talk about his vision, the challenges & opportunities of building cities, why he’s building in africa, nation vs. network states, & more.
🍎 apple.co/3LVG1AI
🟢 spoti.fi/3nsu10j