So why write?

I have things I want to talk about that don’t fit in LinkedIn’s ‘get a job, buy my service’ self-promoting content - things like, did you ever wonder why shareholder value is considered the primary goal of companies? And is that the right thing to do?

Yeah I didn’t get much engagement on that post. I tried it on Twitter, too - zilch.

I’m trying to find people who aren’t just anonymously posting about serious topics on Reddit forums, people who are willing to actually have face to face talks about stuff like this:

Because I see AI automating and scaling up the kind of world we have today, and that’s alarming. A lot of these systems aren’t serving us well, and we probably shouldn’t be making them bigger and harder to control.

I’ve been lucky to find a few other random strangers on the internet who ended up becoming great conversationalists I now consider friends, but I’m far from having a real community around these topics I’m passionate about.

One of those friends mentioned that having a blog was a great way to really meet people and build that community. So I figured, it can’t hurt - I have thoughts anyway. I just have to write them down.

Most of my thoughts these days are around - how do we build the kind of world we’d prefer to live in? AI could make it possible - shouldn’t we explore it?

Put aside any disbelief and just let that be a possibility - I know that if we just continue forecasting what’s already happening that the future doesn’t look good.

But we don’t just have to forecast - we can create, too.

And damn it, we should. We should create the kind of world we’d want to live in.

Otherwise - what’s the point?

My North Star for this vision I have of the world has to do with a mix of a crazy synchronicity story (that I’ll share later) and with the Ghibli Effect - or what I call, the Real Ghibli Effect.

In short, I think Ghibli is captivating because their movies encourage us to be present, to have real relationships with real people, and to be bold, optimistic and courageous tackling the biggest issues - even if they seem impossible.

I’m pretty sure given how popular Ghibli films are, that I’m not alone in longing for a world like that. But I could be wrong - tell me if I am.

Reach out. Send a message, leave a comment (does Substack let you do that?) - I’d love to chat. We should have conversations.

We deserve a future we’re excited to live in.