So we talked about the default sort of capitalist questions being sort of like, what do you do? Like, the underlying sort of tone being how much do you earn? How much capital do you have? Where do I rank you in this sort of, like, capitalist hierarchy that's, like, built into my brain? I hate that question. Again, all of this is in in many ways building upon this heritage that the Bhutanese have, which is a deep respect for nature, as well as a deep Buddhist culture that holds these values of loving kindness towards sentient beings nonviolent. Message of embodiment speaks to ways in which I think our web three community has maybe not taken the sort of latent space of what it means to fully know something, you know, to it to its

Hi

a collective currently of two, but we're constantly bringing in, new friends and family as part of our work. But Mother Tree Labs, is a non profit initiative started by Susanna Aikala and myself. Susanna brings the narrative engineering side of things, and I bring the legal engineering side of things. And so we say it's the law and the law, and those sound the same in my accent. I think it's Australian.

Well, English, Australia, anywhere. I mean, we all get into the overlaps as well as the differences in, these two, I guess, systems of knowing. Yeah. And one thing that both of us are incredibly interested in is the movement beyond just being in our heads and moving into our bodies, and ultimately the idea of spirit, the idea of, emotions and psychology, this aspect of, like, consciousness shifting that might be maybe lacking or minimized within the current sort of late stage capitalist dynamic. To the extent there is something that we might worship, we could say it is capital itself, within that dynamic. And so the interesting prompts that you gave me was,

I mean that's a really It's a big question. Big question.

reference this particular community that we're in, without going too far beyond to, sort of like, the general population of The US or the rest of the world, I mean, because the US election impacts the rest of the world in a big way, and there's a lot of people around the world who have had their eyes on it. But our community in particular, this Web three community, is in some ways very much premised upon, this idea of empowerment, this idea of participation, this idea that any idea that that is put out there is only as good as how it's put into practice. And because it's an open source ecosystem, how it's put into practice can be taken from one place and reapplied pretty much at, you know, zero cost except for the cost of actually doing that local contextualization. That principle is a is a principle of getting out of the conveyor belt. It's, it's it's the idea that, you know, we have the tools to actually start building our own vehicles and, like, not following this train off the cliff, but actually, you know, stepping inside and building building some other vectors of movement. And I think that the message of embodiment speaks to ways in which I think our Web three community has maybe not taken, the sort of latent space of what it means to fully know something, you know, to it to its ultimate potential. So what does it look like? We we talked about embodied politics, but there's a there's a range of things that, sort of, that play out in this area. We've got politics, policy, and the ways in which laws are made and what laws should be made, and then governance in terms of, like, how those laws are sort of played out. You've got enforcement systems. You've got various different ways that you wanna be able to enable a system of transparency around who's doing what so that you can have some common, stable coordination framework. What does it mean to embody that? Because I think what we've had a lot of focus on in our crypto and Web three point zero world is the informational side of things. You've got the, the ways in which we measure certain things, like, the level of with BreadChain you've got a The market cap of tokenism. Exactly. The market cap of tokens. The number of users you have. The number of, Devs. Yeah. Devs. And and all of these things are informational pieces, but, like, what we get in a space like this with Funding the Commons is that in person embodied sort of activation, and the idea that we might start to embody our governance through these mechanisms of, like, in person attunement, making decisions that are a part of, the realities of a particular locality, the realities of a particular locality, or the realities of a particular place in a space. I think the beautiful thing that I've seen coming out of Funding the Commons being in all these different locations is that we do get a different cross section of local participants who are coming because they see the potential in this wider ideology of the commons, this wider ideology of, you know, socialism, sort of but also but beyond socialism, it's sort of like this treating the other as, in some way, part of yourself. Like that, there's some underlying sort of spiritual dynamic that is common in many, many different traditions of religion, but that is being embodied here within Web three as part of a series of technical and sort of convening based functions. Mhmm. And what I'm hearing you, and part of what our previous conversation was about is that there is this, in a sense, almost missing piece that we can sort of, like, reanimate in terms of not just narrative, but the ways in which we step into Web three point zero as a belief system that is about these fundamental dynamics of building a commons, nurturing a future that is participatory, that allows us to not feel like we are on a conveyor belt. And I think that's part of the system of institutions that we've seen, like, get increasingly more and more powerful and more centralized over the last, you know, century or more. That is creaking now. Yeah. Right? And we're seeing in these elections, and one way to embody the realities of the the elections that happened is just to know that there has been a sort of series of disruptions that are continuing to happen, and, like, the ways that we can find our communities, certainly within the Web3 space, is to gather, to reconvene, to be with each other, and to work on these elements of care that are real in the physical world. And that care can involve in person care, food systems, shelter, mutual aid groups, the sorts of things that actually have happened in various different places around the world when there are disasters. And, you know, while this may not be, like, a natural disaster, there's the you can some people might consider it a political disaster. Again, coming together in those physical embodied mutual aid dynamics, just like we're gathering here, is I feel like part of that journey towards embodied knowing

to build off of something you were talking about with Susanna in terms of moving beyond this idea of the Hero's Journey, I think that idea that you need to be the hero or that that that the hero is is not gonna come and save you, again, maybe that's not a bad thing because it helps people get over that hero's journey. And you start thinking more about, like, what's the container? Like like because this idea of the carrier bag theory of fiction that Ursula Le Guin points out is, like, it's not about the person who goes out and, like, slays the mammoth. I mean, it makes a great story, but it's about the hearth, the home, the the carrier bag of oats that kind of and and those are harder stories to tell, but they're also much more communal stories to tell. They're more embodied stories of, like, the practice of being together, of making a home together, of caring for each other. These are the, you know, some may call them mundane, but actually they they do form the fabric of the kinds of embodied belonging and embodied care chains. And, you know, the care chains speak to this idea that if we care for those around us, we don't need to necessarily care for every single, like, thing that's grabbing our attention on the sort of, like, global stage. There are people immediately around us that have relationships with us already that are caring for others, and if we care for them, you know, that that thing will continue. And and again, that element of re grounding in the care, in the local, I think is, yeah, maybe part of this unfurling that's happening with institutions doing their thing, and this space in particular offering potentially even more hope now for for for many folks. And, I mean, this was, in some sense, part of the allure of Bhutan, which is where we were just before we came to Thailand. Bhutan offers this narrative, but also a spiritual cultural tradition that has been guarded and protected, and that is now held within the context of a fairly small kingdom, but which is offering this sort of, like, Switzerland of Asia with a sort of, like, strong spiritual, mindful grounding possibility, deeply woven with Web three. Right? That's the other thing. Right? The the the king and the prime minister and their whole, sort of leadership has sort of taken a deep, dive into digital currencies and Web three because they are a, you know, the first nature positive country. They've got this little, sort of, little group of net zero and nature positive countries, and they're trying to craft this post capitalist imagination. Right? And that, in the context of what just happened last night, I think is just gonna be even more, like, not just appealing, but sort of like, something that can be taken and it doesn't need to just be in I think Bhutan's got something very special going on, but there's a lot of these places that have been waiting for a moment to be able to say, we've been building, we've been growing things, and we hold a space for this imagination that we it's a container, but we want you to come and grow with us. And I think that dynamic of with you, it it's it is gonna take on even more salience now, I think, and that's the hopeful narrative.

I don't want to write off America completely. I think America with its system has done some incredible, incredible things in the world. But there's, there's certainly a view of America that many Americans may not have had of America that is sort of being re cemented right now with, with the current political, situation. And the narrative that Bhutan offers is is almost 180 degrees in the opposite direction. They've explicitly spoken to rejecting the concept of gross domestic product, and they've, like, focused in on this idea of gross national happiness. They recently held their first innovation forum, which was a thousand plus person event, largest international gathering that they've held in Bhutan, that was just last month, and I was there early in the year as well when they sort of had a trial run with a sustainable financing for Tiger Landscapes conference. Again, all of this is in in many ways building upon this heritage that the Bhutanese have, which is a deep respect for nature, as well as a deep, Buddhist culture that holds these values of loving kindness towards sentient beings, non violence, you know, a lot of these, like, sort of fundamental dynamics that are Yeah, to some extent, maybe very, very out of sync with a capitalist world. And what's being proposed is some form of a bridge. They're they're calling it the Gelofu Mindfulness City. It's based around a town in Southern Bhutan called Gelofu, but the idea is that it might provide an alternative or an adjacent additionality to the conventional development, but which somehow grounds mindfulness as part of a pathway to a different sort of approach to the commons, approach to finance. There's a lot of experts who have been looking at nature based capital, nature based finance, who are looking at the kinds of regulations that they might require from a jurisdiction. And this would be a new jurisdiction, a sort of like a special economic zone, special administrative region, not too similar to Hong Kong, and then sort of modeling after sort of a Dubai and a Singapore, but again with this notion that there's something unique around a tradition that doesn't focus just on production and consumption.

100%. And I think it's going to be very interesting to see how that unfolds. We've been invited to offer recommendations in various different capacities and Tell them to stay away from network states. Network nations is the meme that we've been, with Pimavera. And again, I think that meme itself is maybe a bit close to network states. So but the the the fundamental idea is very different in terms of, like, trying to build for collaborative dynamics. Sure, sure, sure. There's a lot of things happening in AI right now, obviously. What does it look like to have collaborative licensing mechanisms around the data and the training data for these large language models? How might we actually create alternatives to the sort of, like, hoovering that is happening with some of those dynamics? There's, like, collaborative, mechanisms that can be baked into tokens that sort of govern the sharing of that that we're working on with Primavera and and and others as part of this sort of collaborative AI and IP consortium that, again, would be hopefully looking to be able to bring in some respects in that Bhutanese context. So they've got their eye on a lot of different developments that are happening, and they're sort of opening space. They're creating a container for imagining. And so from our perspective, those of us who've been there, it's, again been a very embodied experience because you go there and you feel the nature of the land, the nature around you, the people who are there and their goodwill, their intentions. Also their wit. They're not like, you know, just like slavish sort of like adorers and followers. They they have, you know, that acerbic wit, which is just beautiful to feel as a Brit, somebody who, like, you know, loves a bit of banter. Like, just to receive that, be on the receiving end of banter just, like, makes you realize that, okay, this is a culture that, you know, has, like, their own traditions and their, like, pride, but it's an embodied sort of, like, wisdom that doesn't come along with just, like, sitting in the chair and being driven along a conveyor belt. There is some sort of, like, get up and go. Nelip, an amazing entrepreneur here, who's from Bhutan but lives in Thailand, and he's been telling us a lot about his hopes for this mindfulness city and what it means for Bhutanese who've gone abroad and who might now come home, but be able to sort of, like, bring what they've learned from abroad. And so it's a multi angle approach. We've been doing our best to support it, it's an incredibly inspiring vision and a space for imagination. And that's alongside other places like the Amazon. We've been welcomed by the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance, which is a group of indigenous, federations and nations in Ecuador and Peru. Our hope is that what we can learn and do with Bhutan, we might be able to unfurl and support the learning of in a in a different context. Yeah. And again, it's a very embodied experience to go there and to feel the existing imagination and world Right. That has been built and and maintained for generations. Right? That that that that that is something that gives you this embodied sense of, ah, I can remember. That my my body sort of knows that this is actually the way that life can be and the world can be and we can relate to each other as Earthkin, as like the like family in a way that like transcends these individualistic sort of primogeniture style bloodlines of, you know, Western Europe, and like moves into this more sort of like I am who I am because of you, the Ubuntu, the sort of like the you know, these different dynamics of self that can exist in this, you know, quasi spiritual dimension. But I think that's, to your point, is somewhat what socialism is. It's somewhat what not being entirely individualistic in your ideologies is about. It's about actually leaning in, not just with your body, but with your soul or your spirit or your undescended self in some way to the realities, the lived experience realities of that and what it can do for your just being, or your the way that you live your life. I think it is a it's hard. It's hard when you've been so stuck in this system of status and seeing and how much capital you have and, like, the heroes there to get yourself into this space, but by living with and alongside people who've been doing it. I mean, again, this comes back to this idea of what does it mean to embody and and living alongside and embodying with and becoming with and finding opportunities and and and receiving the invitations and offering others the invitation to do that and and have that kind of embodied imagination together. Right. Right. Right. And it doesn't need to be in Bhutan or in the Amazon. It can also be alongside our local river. Like, a dear, dear friend, has just been gathering people to clean up his local river, the River Roding, and he's, like, made that a spiritual endeavor with the with the locals of his little town in England. It's beautiful. Beautiful to see. And then he went and took that glass of river water, and when he was called for jury duty, he he was like, if it's okay with you, I'm not gonna take my oath on the Bible because that's not my spirituality. My spirituality is my river. Can I take my oath on a glass of the river Roding? And they let they let him do it. First time that ever happened. And then these little they're kind of quasi structured, but they're rituals. They're rituals of doing and embodying that gives people, Woah, that's so cool. I wanna do that. Right? So then what are like so, yeah, I think,

that he's inspiring. Sure, yeah. And you see that they're like,

they're able to like just like receive whatever it is that gets thrown at them and give back love. I felt that on numerous occasions. I felt myself be ashamed on a previous journey to Thailand. It was what I was I happened to be with some beautiful friends who were deep enough friends with me that they called me in, right? But I was an asshole, this previous time, and I was just not nice. I was trying to throw my weight around, and they received it, and they were super kind and everything, and it was only thanks to my friends calling me in the next day, and they're like, dude, that was kinda not cool. I was like, yeah, fuck. Yeah. I'm an asshole. But but it's there's so many beautiful examples in this culture in Thailand because of that that, can sometimes get missed, I think. Mhmm. Because of there is this sort of, this layer of assumptions that we bring as just visitors to a country that can often lead us to have different expectations. And I think one of the beautiful things about being able to come to a country and, be invited and also be inviting of, people who have been living here for for quite some time to actually be imagining together, you feel less like a visitor. You feel like a co creator. Mhmm. And through that lens, you get to really start to unfurl these, like, deeper cultural reference points around, yeah, non violence, like being chill. You go to a temple and you see a monk who's, like, spending the time there just happily explaining to you, like, you know, whatever you wanna chat about. Like, nine till six, they're there, and they're, like, open monk chats. There's these incredible, as you're saying, like, images of, not just, like, sort of Buddhas, like, sort of lying down, but, like, Buddhas who have, like, sprouted multiple heads because they need additional faces for all the different compassion. Mhmm. That they're, you know, the the the the Buddha of compassion has all of these, like, sprouting heads, and it's just this idea that compassion is this beautiful thing to be treasured, and that you can constantly be creating these new versions of yourself to be able to find compassion in a new direction. And so what, you know, what does it look like to have compassion for an individual like the new leader of the free world? Right? Because of whatever context that they had growing up, you know, that leads them to be this angry, violent, word spewing individual because of a need for some kind of dominance. And, like, I mean, it's tough sometimes, but, like, I can see how that cultural and worldview just, like, sets a totally different grounding for some of these imaginings to happen. And so it is a deep pleasure to be here. It's a deep pleasure to be here after being in Bhutan because I think being in Bhutan helped me see that side of things here with greater clarity as well. And I think we all get to see different cultures and different people with new eyes every single time if we choose to. And I think that's also the beauty of, like, getting off of the railroad. Getting off of the The conveyor belt. Yeah. The conveyor belt. It's actually giving yourself the space to see things with with new eyes. Sure. And and feel things with, with a new body even. So like, yeah, I think the the experience of

seeking to position you in this sort of capitalist system. It's like how much do you earn? It's like this sort of like how much capital do you have? So the different questions, might be, framed around sort of understanding someone's context. Right? So it's sort of like, oh, where do you feel local these days? Or, it can be, you know, we talked about this idea of attuning to a paradox and, that was just one that that came up. But it's sort of like, yeah, how how do you attune?

We talked about the default capitalist questions being like, What do you do? The underlying tone being, how much do you earn? How much capital do you have? Where do I rank you in this sort of, like, capitalist hierarchy that's, like, built into my brain? I hate that question. Generally questions that, put people slightly into a space of not having answered it before. You want to bring people into a creative space, a co creative space, ideally. So I have taken to asking questions like how do you attune to a paradox? Or what contradictions have you been dealing with in your life? And it's, it's a pretty heavy one to sort of, like, kick off with, but it also, like I said, it kind of takes people out of that default thread. And I think that, for me, is one of those areas where joy is found. I play music mostly through improvisation, I don't really play songs that have been written out, and it's fun, but it's not the kind of full joy space that I like to embody, and I think it's the same as with conversations. If a conversation is coming from a space of creativity, it's not being rehearsed, but it's actually just coming out of a space of thought and having to consider and imagine, that's the space I think we need to get into with our sort of crypto socialist ethic, this, etiquette of originality when it comes to our diplomacies. I think diplomacy is something that, you know, we're definitely taking out of the nation state space and putting into our, like, empowered we can actually build relationships that have these deeper, more fundamental, long term impact. Etiquettes to the ways that we, you know, offer each other space for co creative imagination, and and explicitly take people out of that default mode network of capitalist thinking and into this space of, oh, we can be a bit creative here. We can be a bit fun here. We can actually open up into a bit of, like, potential vulnerability space or even complexity, right? The idea that you don't need to have the solid, acceptable answer in any context, but things can be complicated.

for difficult things. And most of the time, it's hard to talk about difficult things. But if we can create containers for that, and we're actually expressing an interest and curiosity in Mhmm. Not just the simple answer. I'm not just gonna categorize you. I'm actually here to maybe offer a bit of care. Right? I think these these are the sorts of, like, out of default, oh, this is interesting. This is not normal. Like, somebody is actually really interested in me as a whole person, that's kind of cool.

With the right kind of crew. Thanks. Thank you so much.