Light Forest @ Kernel

incubating the project as a Kernel Block8 Fellow

This month i’m grateful to be invited into the Kernel community as a Fellow where I'll spend some time incubating Light Forest.

Kernel describes itself as a “peer-learning environment dedicated to building a better web… together, we are joyfully subverting the status quo.”

I am part of the 8th cohort, or Block, in Kernel speak, and i’m joining more than 150 humans (designers, entrepreneurs, developers, researchers…you get the idea) for an 8-week peer learning and building sprint.

The core of the community come from the Crypto/Web3/Blockchain space ( Kernel itself was seed funded by Gitcoin, a Web3 native open-source focussed donor), with folks involved in public goods initiatives and regenerative economies. If you are not familiar with the Blockchain space a lot of these terms may seem alien to you, like from another world. Thats because it actually is a bit of parallel world. Over the last few years i’ve spent time exploring the space to understand it better — the underlying protocols, the evolving real-world applications, and, of course, the humans driving it.

I think Crypto has a key part to play in the regeneration of our planet. The technology allows for the creation of non-state currency e.g. Bitcoin, and potential for digital infrastructure that allow for self-organization and privacy among several other values we’ve lost (or never had). The humans of this space can be seen as a new social class using their newly created resources (technological + financial) to experiment with new types of communities that go beyond the myth of the nation.

That being said there is a culture of degeneration that surrounds crypto. Between scams, deceit, and corruption, crypto amplifies the worst tendencies of modern capitalist markets (un-ironically a chunk of the community self-identify as “degens”). The threat of capture by the systems it seeks to overturn is probably not recognized enough. The limits of crypto are increasingly showing themselves. This conclusion from a detailed report by Laura Lotti, Sam Hart, and Toby Shorin is telling:

If crypto’s only goal was to build a non-state property system, it has already succeeded. But it is still far from producing non-state institutions that are embedded within—and promotive of—social life. Crypto needs to come to the people, not the other way around. This requires a complete change in orientation.

The way I see it is both truths hold.

This is just the latest example from the evolution of media and the Web through all its iterations that illustrates technological innovation alone is not enough. An evolution in human thought at a collective level will be needed, and this is not something that can be solved with code. It is our role to help it embody regeneration.

This is why Light Forest exists and why I was attracted to Kernel.

Each of us are working on our own project, or ‘adventure’ in Kernel speak. The community lives on Slack with a whole host of channels + Kernel’s in-house learning platforms + regular rhythm of Zoom calls + IRL meetings around the world.

In parallel to our own projects, each week has a learning module (its open-access) about the decentralized Web and technology, crafted to encourage meaningful reflection through philosophical, technical, social, and even spiritual vantage points.

Kernel’s virtual Gather

I’ve been a part of several online communities/programs of this nature as both a designer/facilitator as well as a participant. A clear structure and engaging content is important. But its the culture (read: people) that defines it. We’ve only just got started but i’m touched by the care and intentionality that comes through the Kernel stewards and the Fellows I've met so far. They embody zeitgeist of regeneration with a humility to introspect and an energy to build, in a joyful way.

For instance, this week I joined a conversation anchored by another KB8 Fellow Andrea Farias, a researcher and designer, who created a project last year called Diome that shares a lot of resonance with Light Forest:

“Diome an exploratory research project investigating the role of digital technologies in supporting the transition towards a regenerative civilization.”

She built an impressive website designed as a ‘digital garden’ to organize the many concepts through which various communities/disciplines around the world are approaching planetary crises, system change, and regenerative solutions. Informed by her own lived experience and journey, she speaks from the heart about WHY we need system level change:

Why is it that every time we cut off the head of the dragon, three more grow in its place? Because we keep treating the symptoms without facing the real disease: a large-scale breakdown in coordination across human society known as the Metacrisis.

and WHY that regeneration starts at home.

Every one of us is a product of a society which prioritizes the extraction of profit above the health of our ecosystems. Therefore, the first step to building an ecological civilization is to regenerate ourselves and our relationship to others by centering care in every interaction.

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I expect I will share notes and other updates that emerge out of my interactions within Kernel, among other things.

Thank you for reading!