Tim Wu - Father of Net Neutrality

Tim is first class in this interview. It's not entirely about net neutrality. I used that in the title to give you a second chance to score first. Just trying to be helpful.

I guess if the Tom Peters brigade are about top down hierarchical executive command and control, then Tim is about using narrative and accessibility as well as candid analysis to explain the complexity (and excitement) of NASDAQ's fittest and finest. It becomes evident there are super competing visions of the the future at stake. Some not really driven by classical profit margin structuring. It's a zoo out there.

Welcome to the 21st century. 

Tim has an accessible and agreeable manner that is fresh and effective. At one point there's even an up front American taboo aired on the gap between what the U.S says publicly and what it does privately. This is a treasonable tangent. Nobody slips off topic like that. It isn't considered sporting. That's why the  Marquis of Queensbury rules were created.

But fair fights are unfair when the outcomes are uncertain, leaving irony no longer witty, and exiled in cheeseburger copy land. A decline of slutty but historical necessity.

So rare is it in late American Empire's discourse to hear questions of credence as to the existence or otherwise of hypocrisy that the interview feels situationist. Is a brawl imminent? Is Professor Tim a sleeper into recreational rioting? Once the unspeakable is said it's unpredictable. A business interview with an edge. Sweet Jesus.

The question left lingering is maybe business is now shooting straighter than  the professional soldiers? Surely the 'genius of capitalism' deserves one more final tour of duty with fighting talk like that? Maybe there's still enough fight left in the old gal to take on a confederacy of dunces.

Nope. Time isn't on our side, or whichever neo-hipster generational mutation gets to pick up the bill. All other avenues failed. Deferment no longer an option, and choice is reputed to have once been in vogue.

I'm taking a timely piss here over the Busted Boomers, who to be fair were getting stoned  long before metastasising into world class stone throwers. Who could have predicted that  the finest minds of a generation were to be mugged by reality twice in the one lifetime? It's cosmic piss taking. Gonzo karma, for printing wealth to order while the status quo junkies peddle the past and cash in on the future. 

Plus ca change.

Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping has been promoted to the kind of senior military post which more or less ordains him as the next President of China after Hu Jintao stands down. China watchers have said he was next for some time now but it looks like a done deal. Each succession the leaders get more and more interesting. He's a plain speaker and staunch opponent of corruption. He's got his work cut out. Here he is below on his last trip to Japan.

Mushroom Mayhem

There's no point trying to conceal my man crush for Terence McKenna. I like a polymath who isn't frightened to say odd things like 'the mushroom said to me' as it often did during his ethnobotanic experiments of hallucinogen plants and mushrooms.

That's how he talks about the Logos while sharing a couple of ideas he pursued over a long period of time in and out of that post hypnogogic yet pre-sentient state of mind. Hypnogogia being the first stage of hallucinating, and well documented within its sleep/awakening related contribution to creativity.

Recently I came across another Gigabyte or so of his recorded talks on the internet through peer to peer file sharing. He died in the year 2000 of a brain tumour, which when he was informed it was mushroom shaped provoked an 'of course it is' response out of him. He had a sense of humour. I think his second most provocative theory is the one regarding the alien nature of some mushrooms (I think it's the ones with Dimethyltyptamine) . Since reading that I've come across evidence that supports the suggestion that mushroom spores can indeed travel unharmed (by space X rays mainly) and thus might not be indigenous to our planet.

Yesterday I was having a conversation on twitter with a medical and health importer to Thailand. I suddenly realised I'd probably missed a rendezvous with a friend of mine who is setting up hospitals in Cambodia, so one email/phone call later I was sitting in their serviced apartment overlooking an horizon of empty office/accommodation space in  Bangkok. His room mate/travelling companion and I chatted a while, and we got talking about TED talks where he reminded me of the Paul Stamets talk on mushrooms that I had yet to see.

Well, here it is below, and if it kindles your interest in mushrooms then that's a good start because the next step is (if you don't mind) a bit of tie-dyed hippy post production (as many are) in your podcasting content, then get stuck into the bard McKenna. 

I've listened to over a hundred hours of his talks (and more including his trialogues with Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph Abrahams) and so probably unlike you I really enjoy his candid 'the mushroom said to me' moments but just as rewarding are the indiscriminate and wide range of topics he covered, with in my mind the most eloquent and unscripted vocabulary I've ever come across (Though I imagine that other Irishman Oscar Wilde was a compelling  voice too). I'd say McKenna was the most interesting generalist in the world at one point and that doesn't mean he isn't a specialist either. Watch this TED there's nothing in it which diminishes the credibility of the wilder stuff that Terrence talked about and so the mushroom journey (for me) continues.