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0. Introductory Mumblecore
I do contemplate upon the conceptual space, and contextual architecture of daily information and knowledge input a lot. It is about forming a pattern language for your own well-being.
It is also due to the fact that I need to systemize how I “consume” data on a daily basis. No, I am not talking about productivity. I am just alluding to a personal funnel by which it is probable to make sense of all that epistemological jazz so that I can pursue a day with its ultimate integrity, productivity, joy and serenity—yes, even under duress, and the hardest of times.
I feel lucky to be alive during the early phases of cryptographically self-securing open source, open finance, and consumer grade protocols and platforms; and, am mainly a power user across the Ethereum cluster adjacent social layers. The Farcaster protocol is one of these, and I do appreciate how the ethos of building and development manifests thereabouts where many core building teams accentuate that we need practical solutions to many arising use-case problematics by in actual being practical. Hence, the Farcaster protocol is a sandbox on which people are free to accelerate an evolution of user experience under and through many a domain.
Today, I am writing on a threshold upon which I have been brain-storming either to build a personal app or expand it to the commons space somehow. Yet, I am doing it by direct reference to several products, and toolkits without any affiliation of any of the teams. That is, I am not paid for this, and this is a thought experiment.
1. Problematic
The problematic on which I focus herein is the intuitive act of curation for a specific flow of knowledge. The social media is a blurry agora of the formal and informal serving both as the masters and sub-servients at the same time to use a rough language, that, the tongue strike which the drama thereabouts would appreciate.
What is the problem?
The problem to which we are alluding here is the curatory experience for follow lists on any social media platform. I have at least twenty lists for different domains of expertise on X for example ranging from simply MEV for Flashbots contributors or core developers for the Protocol Guild participants and contributors. This way I can keep up with the latest tidings in the ecosystem, and yes, I do in actual browse those lists every morning and evening. I also subscribe to others’ lists such as Solidity Whisperers.
So far, the automation thereabouts on X is not even probable for me, and I need to consume whatever is posted on those lists. People can be speaking about sleep deprivation, or the latest nootropics all the whilst providing valuable information about Solidity, MEV, or Ethereum All Core Developers meeting processes. I am by default bound to the algorithmic flow which adds up to people’s habit that they feel the need to share the professional alongside the utterly personal, which in turn buries the high-signal input amongst almost-noise—now do not get me wrong: What I would herein deem as noise may be the high-signal when I am after that type of information.
Can you picture it?
I want to be able to access and retrieve content from someone’s personal feed under a curation by moderation approach. If Alice talks about the order flow mechanics at 0600 a.m., I like to be reading what she shares on the differences between the traditional finance and decentralized finance when it comes to latency that she shared some information at 0333 p.m. later that day; and, accordingly I do not want to read how she likes listening to phonk at the gym.
This is the informational retrieve angle 1. However, on my free day, or during leisure hours, I do not want to read about what she has to say about MEV, I wonder what she listened to at the gym that day, and what perks of that particular hotel gym offers that she quote-posted from Bob’s feed—the angle 2.
This is basically curating a personal feed into a variety of sub-feeds which should be intuitive, too—not pre-programmed. This is a complex issue that can be solved in not so far from future because of the experiments at the application and client layers across Farcaster.
…and, the reason I am typing these words right after I woke up is that Dan from Icebreaker asked about an evalution of the following cast if I am willing to do it:
2. Insights
What do I mean by postulating that “we’ll see just relevant contextual content of a person we follow (in)directly”?
Firstly, we will not need to access each and every crumble of a thought that an individual shares with the rest of their social graph. You cannot prevent people from sharing their own thoughts within the confines of this algorithmic outside that needs an inside. Secondly, people want to read individual takes by otherwise professional figures whose takes on their area of expertise has so far come to define their status. Yet, I do not want to read all of their stream of consciousness. When I am browsing the Solidity Whisperers list, I do not want to read Alice contemplating upon the quotidian as I have asserted.
There will a come phase, a plateux if you prefer where the magick of API—such as the current implementation of direct casts—will tailor to an individual user’s holistic social layer experience in terms of the Farcaster protocol, and other future protocols that will be conceived upon it either with a rage-quit, or a convivial survival.
In this ideation, or individuation by techniques, my ideal social media feed will be available on a Daylight Computer, and its HUD emulations on Apple Vision Pro, a Frame computer version of this Apple iPhone 12 mini—till we become disembodied specks of immortal individuations who need no UX/UI for any information a la sensorium—where I will simply be able to read only context-related casts without a preference of the individuals’ daily life musings.
Toolkits such as Automod will let me configure the flow of information across not only channels but home cast feeds, too. I will then be able to curate these individuals’ pre-curated knowledge flows into RSS-like configurations where applications such as Buoy will re-order in my preferred filter criteria. Many of these applications and toolkits will be enshrined into visionary clients which will also acquire other aspiring ones. Though protocolizing clients upon ever-emergent protocols is akin to protocolizing the self which might have gloomy outcomes, either, which is, however, the topic of another essay.
3. How?
I am coming back to Dan’s—of Icebreaker—initial reply-question: How does applications and toolkits such as Buoy and Automod help me curate the current SOTA flow of information?
Dan, thank you for the question, and this is how I in fact moderate the curational contextualies of my daily Farcaster consumption. I know the thought process is peculiar to how I think about knowledge economies’ infrastructure but I will be diving into more detailed, and properly diagrammed series of such writing pieces. In the meantime, you or anyone can access my personal group chat via this link.
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