The most successful articles of the year, the main themes we touched on, and how they are interconnected. What Uncharted Territories is about and what you can expect in 2024.
I would like to see discussion around disabilities. Especially those that come due to unforseen circumstances.
My son was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma in 2016. He was 33. His whole life was thrown into the unknown. After numerous surgeries and over 30 days in the hospital, he was permanently disabled due to severing of sacral nerves and having to remove bone from lower spine and hip on his right side. He is in chronic pain. He cannot walk without crutches as he doesn't have the structure needed to hold his weight for any length of time, he cannot drive as his ankle was fused into a 90° as his drop foot got really bad.
His significant other kicked him out as he was no longer useful to her and kept his children from him.
He lives with me now as SSDI doesn't pay enough for him to live on his own, not can he do things on his own that most of us take for granted.
He feels isolated and invisible. There's nothing out there to help him socialize or meet others. He says, "Who wants to be with someone who can't work, can't drive, and lives with their mom? It doesn't matter that I am a really nice guy and a good Dad".
I am happy to take him wherever he needs or wants to go, but he needs connection with others his age who understand.
I'm so sorry to hear, Kimberly. What a tragedy. I do hope things will improve, and I echo Holly's reaction.
I do have some disabilities thoughts. The problem with them is that every disability is special on its own way, and quite niche. Figuring out commonalities that are relevant to a big majority of people is hard. But I'll keep thinking about it
Yes, that's very true about disabilities being different. I guess it's the idea that many like my son, feel so isolated and want connection with others who understand the challenges that breaks my heart for him.
Thank you, Holly. We have spent a fortune on an attorney. The SO convinced a judge he was a danger to her and the kids in 2022 a year after she kicked him out. I know,right!? But courts take a woman's word these days with no police reports, no doctor reports, no teacher or counselor reports...just her word.
We just got a judgement for non professional supervision right after this past Thanksgiving. Seeing his kids at our home has been the light in his life.
Just wanted to say thank you for writing and sharing your ideas. You provide a nuanced, informative and truth-seeking perspective on many important topics. Keep going!
An idea for how to collaborate with other writers and your audience: why not a podcast of sorts? Bring on guests to discuss the topics around your articles from across your audience Substack and other networks. Might be a better or at least a good supplement format to the articles, especially with many contributors!
Thank you for the idea! I might make a podcast, but it's a ton of work! Coordinate schedules, prep gear, record, edit, post across social media... And then the benefit is hard to get, because promotion is hard
I would really love to collectively write something with you! Maybe we could get some of our favorite writers and start a thread. We could put the outline in the comments section, and then each of us could go to work fleshing out the parts. Opening up to everyone else too as we go. Could be really fun!!!!
Some potential topics: what does the ideal city state look like? How will we reshape the world geographically from here? Will humans evolve further? (Will we genetically modify them?) How far should we take technologies like CRISPR? What are the best uses for AI?
I imagine we can use history, as well as moral inquiry to discuss the issues and ideas from a lot of different backgrounds. I’d love to know your ideas as well!
This is interesting. We should do something like that. Let's take one example. Your 1st:
What would the ideal city-state look like?
1. Why would it be created? What's its purpose?
2. Where would it be?
3. What autonomy does it need?
4. How would it come to life?
5. What would its urbanism look like?
6. How would its legislation be determined?
It looks like these questions require experts across each field, debate, and one final decision-maker (eg for the Why), so this would require heavy coordination costs and a reasonably high investment.
Hmmm, or at least people who know who the experts might be. I wish we could tag people in threads because then I could tag my friend Ryan, for example, who could fill in the urbanism section pretty thoroughly.
I would definitely love to work on the autonomy section, and could fill that with various stats from my research. Surely there are others among our audiences who would be able to fill in other parts?
Testing right now with Nuclear energy so I'll tell you soon how it's going. But so far the issue is the coordination costs are high. Few ppl are willing to take full sections, esp when those need to be coordinated with others. Finding these ppl, and getting their commitment, is already a big piece of work. Not undoable, but hard, and this is a problem that I think is very fundamental and bad about human collaboration, so I'm interested in cracking it.
True! Not only for the writing part and for the internal cohesion, but also idea-wise. I once disagreed with my co-author in our article on inclusive design in hospitality management. Language wise and content wise. We published without resolving our issue.
So one could think of multiple iterations wiki-style if the goal is to publish a perfect article. But you could also think of good-enough versions and engaging the readers to help improve the underlying idea / solutions suggested.
Curious on your experiences in the nuclear energy article.
I am taking a detour in survey response by linking it to my value discovery project and re-exploring my dreams with the help of AI.
One of my dreams, like you and others here, I’ve started to explore ideas of co-creative writing that’s of value to the reader. I am thinking along the lines of constructivism, fan fiction and human centered design.
Based on my co-authoring experiences, I guess the purpose of the article needs to be quite clear like helping people learn or solving a specific problem.
"Hope you enjoyed Uncharted Territories in 2023, and you’ll enjoy 2024 even more!" *YES*, thank you so much for taking the leap and sharing your thoughts on the world. And I would also like to thank you for sharing your commitments to the audience! All the best for 2024 🍀
What tech platform might you be using for this? We recently started collaborating with https://aca.so/ which is beautifully designed and executed if of interest. Happy Holidays!
More like benefit to society. Like how it improved facets of society with an outlay on tradeoffs. kind of like the good the bad the ugly. Metrics could be jobs, productivity, improving pinched areas due to labor shortage etc.
I would like to see discussion around disabilities. Especially those that come due to unforseen circumstances.
My son was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma in 2016. He was 33. His whole life was thrown into the unknown. After numerous surgeries and over 30 days in the hospital, he was permanently disabled due to severing of sacral nerves and having to remove bone from lower spine and hip on his right side. He is in chronic pain. He cannot walk without crutches as he doesn't have the structure needed to hold his weight for any length of time, he cannot drive as his ankle was fused into a 90° as his drop foot got really bad.
His significant other kicked him out as he was no longer useful to her and kept his children from him.
He lives with me now as SSDI doesn't pay enough for him to live on his own, not can he do things on his own that most of us take for granted.
He feels isolated and invisible. There's nothing out there to help him socialize or meet others. He says, "Who wants to be with someone who can't work, can't drive, and lives with their mom? It doesn't matter that I am a really nice guy and a good Dad".
I am happy to take him wherever he needs or wants to go, but he needs connection with others his age who understand.
I'm so sorry to hear, Kimberly. What a tragedy. I do hope things will improve, and I echo Holly's reaction.
I do have some disabilities thoughts. The problem with them is that every disability is special on its own way, and quite niche. Figuring out commonalities that are relevant to a big majority of people is hard. But I'll keep thinking about it
Yes, that's very true about disabilities being different. I guess it's the idea that many like my son, feel so isolated and want connection with others who understand the challenges that breaks my heart for him.
Thank you, Holly. We have spent a fortune on an attorney. The SO convinced a judge he was a danger to her and the kids in 2022 a year after she kicked him out. I know,right!? But courts take a woman's word these days with no police reports, no doctor reports, no teacher or counselor reports...just her word.
We just got a judgement for non professional supervision right after this past Thanksgiving. Seeing his kids at our home has been the light in his life.
Agreed. We finally got a judge who we felt really understood.
Just wanted to say thank you for writing and sharing your ideas. You provide a nuanced, informative and truth-seeking perspective on many important topics. Keep going!
An idea for how to collaborate with other writers and your audience: why not a podcast of sorts? Bring on guests to discuss the topics around your articles from across your audience Substack and other networks. Might be a better or at least a good supplement format to the articles, especially with many contributors!
Thank you for the idea! I might make a podcast, but it's a ton of work! Coordinate schedules, prep gear, record, edit, post across social media... And then the benefit is hard to get, because promotion is hard
But I haven't discarded it
Maybe something for 2025 if you can hire an assistant at some point 🙂
I do have somebody I could do this with...
Have you tried UT from the UT app? I'm told the podcast option is good
Not familiar with it unfortunately!
:)
I would really love to collectively write something with you! Maybe we could get some of our favorite writers and start a thread. We could put the outline in the comments section, and then each of us could go to work fleshing out the parts. Opening up to everyone else too as we go. Could be really fun!!!!
Some potential topics: what does the ideal city state look like? How will we reshape the world geographically from here? Will humans evolve further? (Will we genetically modify them?) How far should we take technologies like CRISPR? What are the best uses for AI?
I imagine we can use history, as well as moral inquiry to discuss the issues and ideas from a lot of different backgrounds. I’d love to know your ideas as well!
This is interesting. We should do something like that. Let's take one example. Your 1st:
What would the ideal city-state look like?
1. Why would it be created? What's its purpose?
2. Where would it be?
3. What autonomy does it need?
4. How would it come to life?
5. What would its urbanism look like?
6. How would its legislation be determined?
It looks like these questions require experts across each field, debate, and one final decision-maker (eg for the Why), so this would require heavy coordination costs and a reasonably high investment.
Thoughts?
Hmmm, or at least people who know who the experts might be. I wish we could tag people in threads because then I could tag my friend Ryan, for example, who could fill in the urbanism section pretty thoroughly.
I would definitely love to work on the autonomy section, and could fill that with various stats from my research. Surely there are others among our audiences who would be able to fill in other parts?
Testing right now with Nuclear energy so I'll tell you soon how it's going. But so far the issue is the coordination costs are high. Few ppl are willing to take full sections, esp when those need to be coordinated with others. Finding these ppl, and getting their commitment, is already a big piece of work. Not undoable, but hard, and this is a problem that I think is very fundamental and bad about human collaboration, so I'm interested in cracking it.
True! Not only for the writing part and for the internal cohesion, but also idea-wise. I once disagreed with my co-author in our article on inclusive design in hospitality management. Language wise and content wise. We published without resolving our issue.
So one could think of multiple iterations wiki-style if the goal is to publish a perfect article. But you could also think of good-enough versions and engaging the readers to help improve the underlying idea / solutions suggested.
Curious on your experiences in the nuclear energy article.
BTW is there a deadline for your survey?
I am taking a detour in survey response by linking it to my value discovery project and re-exploring my dreams with the help of AI.
One of my dreams, like you and others here, I’ve started to explore ideas of co-creative writing that’s of value to the reader. I am thinking along the lines of constructivism, fan fiction and human centered design.
Based on my co-authoring experiences, I guess the purpose of the article needs to be quite clear like helping people learn or solving a specific problem.
Would be good to be done about now!
"Hope you enjoyed Uncharted Territories in 2023, and you’ll enjoy 2024 even more!" *YES*, thank you so much for taking the leap and sharing your thoughts on the world. And I would also like to thank you for sharing your commitments to the audience! All the best for 2024 🍀
7 Supposedly Oscar Wilde...
A discussion on the authorship is linked in the "somebody"!
What tech platform might you be using for this? We recently started collaborating with https://aca.so/ which is beautifully designed and executed if of interest. Happy Holidays!
It's linked! The original dev open sourced it. But we just looked at the embeddings and they don't appear meaningful, so we have some work to do here
Would be interested in seeing the state of AI in 2023. As in metrics, what it delivered in changes to society vs what was touted in 2022.
This is starting to sound like the spread sheet fear of the 1980’s.
You mean with regards to jobs?
More like benefit to society. Like how it improved facets of society with an outlay on tradeoffs. kind of like the good the bad the ugly. Metrics could be jobs, productivity, improving pinched areas due to labor shortage etc.
Ah got it
FWIW I don't think we're going to see it in metrics in a long time, so it will have to be anecdotal.
Did you read these articles?
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/infinite-intelligence
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/future-humans-are-sporadic-indulgences
I did but did not leave me a lasting mental impression.
There are facts out there that may help develop the future or shift whatever into metrics.
The context is focus on the demonstrated benefits vs the theoretical fear.
Understood
analogy: Like the bigmac index, I remember when it started.... people poked fun at it at the time but has become a quick pulse...imperfect but useful.