1729 Writers and the Creation of Culture
What are your ideas for the future?
Myself and Grant Nissly started a writers group from an online community we’re members of called 1729. I wrote this piece as we are in the process of launching it to organize some of my thoughts and hopes for the program. The piece is directed to the members of 1729 Writers (1729w) as we begin our first cohort. If you don’t know what 1729 is, check this out for context.
In the Fall of 2021, I joined a writers group called The Tech Progressive hosted by a fellow 1729 member, Grant Nissly. It lasted one week, and our goal was to produce 7 pieces in 7 days. We met daily on the build_ discord to prepare, share our published work and tweet threads, celebrate our victories and to give each other feedback.
It was messy and intense and in the end I only managed to publish 4 pieces, but I liked all of them. Two pieces were based on ideas that had been marinating for years, waiting for an excuse to organize. The other two just came to me spontaneously the morning of, as I was daydreaming about what to write. Interestingly, these pieces, conceived in an instant, were no less valuable than the others.
The community helped spur on the work with feedback, retweets, likes and comments, and this consistent nudging led to high energy throughout, and some of my most successful work to date. That work in turn led to professional connections that persist and are still growing months later.
The experience showed me the potential power of a writers community. Many of us want to write, but stop short because some part of it is too uncomfortable. The community helped me face the discomfort and overcome it day after day. It forced me to surmount all of the hurdles that threw themselves before me as I raced to publish with the community. It was exactly what I needed.
So I reached out to Grant and asked if he would be willing to parter up, modify his TTP model and run it at 1729. I was excited when he said that he had already been considering it.
Today marks the first day of the first writing cycle of the course. So I wanted to put out some thoughts, or maybe even intentions, for how 1729w could positively affect its members, the 1729 community, and the wider world.
How 1729w could benefit its members:
First and foremost 1729w should help its members get out of their own way. We may tell ourselves that we don’t write due to lack of time or ideas, but that’s never the real reason. We procrastinate, devise excuses and ultimately let ourselves down. A community of writers that publishes together provides a forcing function to hit publish on the day you said you would, and the celebratory community feedback to make it feel worth it. To those that take the opportunity, this is the most powerful effect of 1729w.
And1729w shouldn’t just help us write, period, but make us better writers. Specifically it will help us with “business writing,” which is simply the ability to make your point clearly and concisely. Through writing, many celebrated business thinkers have generated theories so well known that they basically merged with the author. Who can forget Peter Thiel’s advice that Competition is for Losers, Marc Andreeson insight that Software is eating the World, or Paul Graham’s wise counsel to Do things that Don’t scale. These concepts changed how millions saw the world, and they also added significant weight to their author’s intellectual prowess.
You don’t have to be a massive investor for your writing to have impact. Moxie’s paper on Web3 caused soul searching throughout the industry, and triggered a response from Vitalik. And Allen Farrington, though a total unknown when he wrote Bitcoin is Venice now has a book deal after writing several highly praised on his Medium.
We may imagine that all of these people had interesting ideas first and wrote them down second. But the process of writing is very likely how the specific contours of the ideas were formed. Writing generates ideas.
Writing is also extremely valuable for networking. As Grant often says, putting your ideas in writing is like ‘planting your flag’ and attracts others with similar ideas to you. This can build your network in ways that you couldn’t otherwise, and level you up faster than anything else in the great online game.
How 1729w should benefit the 1729 Community:
Culture
This first point might seem esoteric, but it’s actually very important, so bear with me. 1729w generates work collectively, and in so doing, generates culture. Culture is one of the most valuable assets to a community. As neodaoist mentioned me over dinner the other night at ETHDenver, culture is like a magnet and a glue; drawing others to your group, and holding it together. 1729w strives to become an avenue for 1729 members to produce work and culture.
Level up members
Just like any organization of value, 1729 should offer paths for the improvement of its members. This is clearly already the idea with things like Proof of Workout being a requirement to receive a POAP. 1729w will be a formalized structure in which motivated members of the community can ‘level up.’
Interact with the ideas, build bridges
Through writing, community members can grapple with 1729’s main ideas and work through what it would be to apply them to their own lives. This collective processing will give the ideas a concreteness that will help us build on them. This is one of the most important functions the community can serve in the beginning, in my opinion. Take the ideas seriously, grapple with them, and share your experience. Readers will learn from you.
As an example, after one of Balaji’s lectures on Transhumanism, I wrote a piece called “Christianity, Transhumanism and making sure the future is awesome.” The process of writing it helped me build understanding around how transhumanism relates to my culture (which happens to be Christian). That piece is now a bridge for other Christians to explore Transhumanism, at a time when many perceive the two as being in conflict.
Ultimately, 1729w should benefit humanity
As our governing systems fail, we will rely on new ideas and concepts that help us make sense of the world more than ever. Developing and spreading them is a moral imperative.
In times of great uncertainty the production of ideas and discussion of solutions guided by truth is a very real service to humanity. At whatever scale we’re capable, we should produce and spread ideas that will help others adapt to the new realities that they face, that the current information environment isn’t preparing them for. As a truly global group in a connected world our ideas can spread very quickly.
Two distinguishing characteristics of the 1729 community are a heightened sensitivity to the danger and potential of the times we’re living in, and a desire to build systems that transcend the current order. While many outsiders believe that tomorrow will mostly resemble yesterday, or if not, that they are just victims of unalterable geopolitics, 1729ers understand that we will occupy the future we build for ourselves.
What are we going to do with this opportunity?
The simple question is what are we going to do with this opportunity. I heard a saying once that went something like: After the war they will ask you what did you do during the war. Luckily most of us are not presently at war. But we are doing something of benefit to humanity and the present system at a time when it is much needed. We’ve all been chosen to be part of 1729 beta, and in the future people may, upon hearing that we were among the lucky few that attended the first private lectures in VR, fondly ask what we did during the founding of 1729. 1729w is an opportunity to explore that question for yourself, be a producer, and help launch something truly new under the sun.
- Much credit to Grant Nissly for helping develop many of the ideas in this paper, and for bringing the majority of the organizational firepower to the creation of 1729w. It’s unlikely it would have started without him.
Matt Harder runs the civic engagement firm Civic Trust, where he guides cities in re-building their civic infrastructure by helping residents, civic organizations, and local government co-create public projects. He is also a passionate Bitcoiner. Follow him on Twitter.
