Brett Cornick

Designer, Developer, and Scientist | PhD Student, Climate Venture Science 🌱 🌍 | | erevald @_buildspace

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

My posts here have been few and far between since Elon has insisted on driving Twitter into the ground, but now I’m officially out.

The latest link sharing changes encourage deception and the spread of misinformation.

Follow me on LinkedIn (link in comment) to stay in touch.

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

@an_lesnikova @hebbianloop Elon said it was for “aesthetics” lol

They also want to discourage link sharing to keep users from clicking out of the app

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

My posts here have been few and far between since Elon has insisted on driving Twitter into the ground, but now I’m officially out.

The latest link sharing changes encourage deception and the spread of misinformation.

Follow me on LinkedIn (link in comment) to stay in touch.

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

https://t.co/xdWNtOvGaI

[UltraRare Bio @UltraRareBio]

Out now: our new and updated DeSci Landscape!!
Many new projects have been added since our last update.
We aggregate data from the DeSci Wiki, so if your project is missing or needs to be updated, make sure to comment in the doc linked below.

[owockai @owocki]

OWOCKI WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE SHELL/GITCOIN COLLAB?

i'm so glad u asked anon.

@fifthworldzach challenged me to “write a nuanced thread embracing the plurality of paradoxes that will be sincerely contemplated and then responded to with equal depth and care by the good people of crypto twitter”, so here goes:

I personally don’t care for the shell brand. & i doubt many people will opt-in to the optional shell funding pool. but we’ll see, It’s a free market.

i think $500k is a pittance especially if you look at shells contribution to the climate crisis & the brand damage to @gitcoin is immense.

and greenwashing is just not okay.

perhaps one approach that could work: as the rounds are permissionless, shell could be allowed into the climate rounds, but @gitcoin should not greenwash their reputation by writing a prominent thread about them from their main handle. the environmentalist in me thinks they could be paying tens of millions into the rounds, basically the equivalent of war reparations for their history of violence against the climate. (ht @papa_raw for this take). after all, what matters in the end is getting as much funding as possible to grantees.

another approach could be for us all to acknowledge the nuances & contradictions inherent into ushering in a clean energy future - one of the primary ones being the pragmatic need to find a way to help legacy energy providers transition to a clean energy future. & hopefully pay back the damage they've done. but as Sam Harris likes to say "Nuance is the enemy of common understanding", so i won't hold my breath on that.

what do i think of this shell issue when viewed as a part of a pattern of recent troubling string of messaging fuck ups? not just shell this time around what about the shitstorm around D&I initiative last round?

last cycle, i + my team built the legitimacy of the @gitcoin brand brick by brick, and it's been crushing to see it get tarnished by these controversies. but i also remind myself of the controversies of my day (there were many) + that we got through those.

i'm also reminded of the ambition of what we're trying to do - stimulate a movement of non-coercive mutualistic & legitimate funding for regen/public goods that eventually reaches civilizational scale. we will fall short again & again & again.

here's the good news: gitcoin only makes each mistake once. this is something i saw during rounds 1-12, we’d have to touch the hot stove in order to know not to touch it again. then next round it’ll be better. In this way, gitcoin is deeply evolutionary.

my final take is about the DAO architecture & how it was built around a learning i had during my time @gitcoin: public goods are relative to the values of the communities they serve.

for example:
- some communities will want a DEI round. some will think that is woke BS.
- some communities will want to fund open source software. some just won’t care.
- some will want to fund local public goods. some digital.
- some are okay with an oil company giving them money. some are not.

it is impossible to serve all of the memetic tribes at the same time. this is a fundamental tension in what @gitcoin is trying to do.

this was a profound realization for me, and it is part of why we decided to refactor @gitcoin from a company/product to a DAO/protocol: communities should be sovereign to decide their own values. they should coordinate on credibly neutral protocols.

different memetic tribes will have diff public goods according to their value-sets. criticism from tribes a about tribe b value-sets isn't as legitimate as criticism from within that tribe.

which brings me to a point about decentralization & credible neutrality. i feel like the recent controversy misses that @gitcoin is now a DAO with several parts:

- the dao contributors themselves.
- its PGF workstream which runs the featured rounds (shell deal + daphne thing happened here)
- products are credibly neutral protocols now.

by design, if u dont like the @gitcoin contributors politics, you can still use the protocol...

you can fork it and make binance grants, avalanche grants, grants for people into knitting, grants for shiba inu sonic 69 fans, or any community u want.

all that said - was it ill advised to put @gitcoin’s brand next to shells on the main handle? probably.

the @gitcoin 1.0 brand was a branded house (gitcoin grants, gitcoin hackathons, gitcoin KERNEL). the new one is a house of brands (Passport, Grants Stack, Allocation Protocol) @gitcoin has not really successfully transitioned over the legitimacy to their new sub-brands YET: @alloprotocol @grantsstack @gitcoinpassport @pgn_eth

the recent ecosystem-value-alignment scuffles live within the Public Goods Funding (PGF) workstream (the folks that raised the DEI round + shell round). from the perspective of the recent controversies, maybe they should ratify which brands go through the main @gitcoin handle with GTC governance.

or maybe they should have their own twitter id and brand, and they just run on the protocol like everyone else. there could be multiple PGF teams.

perhaps one day there would be two PGFs.. lefty PGF and righty PGF. and they can fight each other. show off how decentralized and credibly neutral the protocols they share are 🙂

better yet... 15 PGFs. you'll have fortune-100 PGF and libertarian PGF and environmentalist PGF. knitting PGF, golf PGF, open source software PGF. the future has many decentralized entities funding on @gitcoin protocols (and other protocols too).

this genuine decentralization into multiple sideDAOs is the way gitcoin might allow each sovereign community to fund what matters to them, but while being more choosey about what we put the @gitcoin brand on.

it's impossible to make all of the memetic tribes happy at the same time. so may as well have many different subdaos that satisfy their audiences value niches. and only roll up the ones that GTC holders approve to the main @gitcoin handle.

subDAOs are a very elegant architecture for keeping a core simple + pushing complexity to the edges. i'm bullish subDAOs since reading about them in Makers endgame.

TLDR - @gitcoin is going through some growing pains. they’re hard, but i’m glad gitcoin is on the path to decentralization.

closing thought: what matters most is getting $$$ to public goods projects. the optimal design is
1. public goods funding protocols are credibly neutral
- x -
2. instigating usage of those protocols that is deeply local to a specific community’s valueset.
- x -
3. making the protocols so good that using them is a competitive advantage.

genuine decentralization lets us separate those concerns and still create a bottoms-up flywheel for public goods funding that can one day reach civilizational scale.

public goods are good 🖖

* my personal opinions only, not financial/tax/legal advice.

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

It’s tough to see some of the images coming out of Hawai’i — a place that’s so special to so many of us. Michelle and I are thinking of everyone who has lost a loved one, or whose life has been turned upside down.

If you’d like to help, you can do so here.
https://t.co/i9zN74FiNT

[i am @johnAcastaneda]

People of #Maui #MauiFires I can not reach my Uncle. His name is Mark Stefl. He’s the only 7 foot dude on the island. He’s a well known tile contractor, avid bike rider and just an overall good human. Please help me find him.

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

@ujoex @_buildspace @_nightsweekends This is awesome! How will you deal with the issue of paywalls?

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

The news out of Lahaina is devastating.

I spent a week there this past February and the thought of it all being destroyed breaks my heart.

Events like this keep happening and I can’t believe that every bit of human effort is not squarely focused on reversing climate change.

[jes @jesadreamer]

This is Front Street, Lahaina on Maui. What was known as a popular tourist destination is currently turning to ash. My family, my friends and my small island community in turmoil, heartbreak and danger as the rest of us helplessly watch. video credit: Joyce C.

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

i recently found a poke place that doesn’t charge extra for avocado and that’s the kind of culture the world needs more of.

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

@ChallisGardner @_buildspace @_nightsweekends Actually I’m not surprised at all 😂

Love how generative AI is enabling creators to branch out into other artistic domains

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

@machronos @_buildspace @_nightsweekends this is cool and i'd definitely use it!

you'll want to implement some robust safeguards though if the assistant will have the ability to control live trades

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

@louis030195 @_nightsweekends @_buildspace i plan on using tokenized rewards similar to POAPs to enable people to prove that they attended a certain volunteer event or completed an action.

(check out https://t.co/vQuXFujF9q)

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

week 1 of @_nightsweekends and here's the idea i'll be working on during the 6-week sprint.

it's called Eudaimon, an interactive world where the pursuit of individual well-being aligns with the greater good of society.

stay tuned. cc @_buildspace

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

@memebrains @_buildspace @_nightsweekends @0xTheBossDragon @CityDAO @FarzaTV very much needed for so many daos. what part do you think you'll focus on first?

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

@louis030195 @_nightsweekends @_buildspace any advice on how i could make it more understandable? thanks!

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

@davidgarber @_nightsweekends @_buildspace yes, and also making a space for interacting with other do-gooders and showcasing your impact

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

@AugustineXande1 @_buildspace @_nightsweekends this is super cool. "shazam for movies" is such a good way to describe it too and people will immediately know what it does.

i'd say go even bigger (eventually), and include tv shows, youtube videos, tik-toks, etc

[Brett Cornick @brett_cornick]

@ChallisGardner @_nightsweekends @_buildspace thanks for the feedback! i'll be posting updates all through the 6-weeks. feel free to DM me at any time 👍