#10 The freest place on planet Earth
Twitter Apprenticeships, Idea Inception and Online Learning.
Welcome to Hunter-Gatherer, a weekly newsletter where I give you one thing to try, to think about and a question to respond to nurture your relationship with the Internet. In an online-first world, we're all hunters & gatherers of information.
Hey, Hunter-Gatherer!
Recently I tweeted: "The Internet is my permanent address, and I am currently staying at "abhishek1point0.com" It was in response to AngeList CEO, Naval Ravikant's latest tweet:
"If you want to live in the future, live in the freest place around. Because eventually, all of the innovators and creators will show up there." (Tweet)
He further added that "the only remaining frontier is online." Online you're free to connect with anyone, say anything either anonymously or otherwise, and participate in any culture across the planet. Further, when you make a personal website, you basically claim "a piece of land" to upload your thoughts. Your physical body lives in your home, but your mind can live anywhere.
This can sound a bit weird but it'll become clearer (and then weirder) in the Think about this section.
🛠Try this
Twitter Apprenticeship: Work for anyone without their permission.
Recently, designer Jack Butcher coined the term "Twitter Apprenticeships." It is an idea that builds on the core essence of the Internet:
When you say something online, the idea is not to be the only person to say it. Probably nobody ever did. But by saying, you tell the world what you're interested in, and your own world bit-by-bit re-configures around that.
When you share an idea, through responses and new connections, people will shape your journey online. I've seen people get jobs this way, for at the end we all want to connect & work with like-minded people.
Now, imagine you take my ten newsletters, pick your favourite ideas and share it in a Twitter thread. Essentially, you will be helping me. And add a ton of value to others in the process. I will most probably share your thread, and we'll both benefit from the reach. And, we would've just worked for each other without any explicit agreement.
Jack Butcher has built a business around posting beautiful minimal illustrations of tweets from other people on his account Visualize Value.
Some of the best blogs grew online by simply summarizing the books of thought leaders around the world. In fact, you can build an entire career around being a curator. If this implies to you that you're not actually creating anything 'new', your understanding is skewed. And will be corrected by the work of curator Maria Popova. She stewards an entire group of curious people through her website brainpickings.org.
We stand on the shoulders of giants, and its simplest form is to take 5 tweets from the creators you shadow online and share it in a Twitter thread. Be a Twitter Apprentice to someone, and you'll be rewarded for sharing.
Some great examples:
Ari Lewis
Rohit Jindal
💡 Think about this
With modern technology, we can architect the flows of information we surround ourselves with. We can change the walls and the floors and every detail of our mental environment. Why would we want to do that? Because creativity is inception.
- Tiago Forte (Productivity Expert)
Tiago is directly referring to the movie Inception here. For those of you who don't know, Inception is a movie about how a group of people have a shared dreaming experience, and one person architects the world of the dream for everyone.
Tiago goes on to say that, "Although we can’t quite hack our dreams yet, we can re-engineer almost every other aspect of our waking existence."
If you find all of this confusing, I must assure you that everybody in the world does. We're simply dipping our toes into this new understanding and it is the most fascinating thing to me. I invite you to open yourself to this perspective of the world with the following blog. The blog is not a piece of fiction but a deep yet simple explanation of how we actually work and live in this age of information.
Idea Inception
(6 Min Read, many hours think)
Disclaimer: Tiago wrote this article for the purposes of promoting the upcoming cohort of his live online course called Building a Second Brain. There's no paid promotion here. I just love the blog and as an alumnus, I do recommend the course. If you wish to discuss it, I'm always up for a conversation. Hit reply!
❓ Reply to this
What kind of online learning experiences have you indulged in, and to what success?
You may reply to this E-Mail, or via WhatsApp. I'll compile the responses and share the key insights in the next email.
Regards,
Abhishek
Twitter | Blog | Instagram | WhatsApp
All thoughts, questions, or criticisms are encourged. Feel free to reply. Let's talk!