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Just after I took on my new role, I wrote to Kevin Kelly and asked if I could meet him (I assumed he wouldn't know who I was, even though we've met informally, but he did). I wanted to talk to him about talking about how to be optimistic about technology. At my heart, I still remain positive about the contributions and opportunities of technology, but I've increasingly struggled to know how to convey, qualify or transmit that. He immediately accepted, I visited him in his tower, and we had a great, sprawling conversation. Like this author, he renewed my confidence in that framing, and the importance of it existing in the world. That single conversation has kept me going more than anything else over the last three or so years.

I realise in reading this, that I never wrote after the fact to say thanks for that: so, thanks, KK, for everything.



Since you're here, can I ask if you're still writing/publishing anywhere? Long-time fan.

(Alternative comment: I think oblomovka's down).


i am! oblomovka runs off a machine on my desk, which tends to crash whenever I walk out of my house, like today. However, this is an excellent notification that I'm now writing enough to maybe make it a bit more resilient.

(For real dannyobrien completists, I also write small more regular email newsletter at https://buttondown.com/dannyob of my work within the Filecoin Extended Cinematic Universe (which includes IPFS, libp2p, iroh, Bluesky, Spritely Institute, Guardian Project, Internet Archive, Prelinger Archive, DWeb Community, Foresight Institute, EFF, Muckrock, etc see https://ffdweb.org/projects , https://fil.org/ecosystem-explorer , https://directory.plnetwork.io/projects?focusAreas=Digital+H... ). It's pretty lowkey though.


Many thanks for the links, I'll dig into them.

> oblomovka runs off a machine on my desk, which tends to crash whenever I walk out of my house

Your essay on moving to the edge when everyone else is moving to the centre had a big effect on me at the time. I think it was prescient.


though those crashes show the limitations!




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