HomoTechno

wtf is that?

I live in three timelines simultaneously. In one, humanity colonizes the stars. In another, we’re running through biohazards looking for clean air. And in this one, right now, I’m building what works in all three.

Welcome to HomoTechno. It started as a way to organize my scattered obsessions and now it’s how I see everything.

The first person who coined the term HomoTechno is Grimes AFAICT. We are not Homo Sapiens any more. The moment we started co-evolving with technology, we started being a new species - Homo Techno.

New species do not evolve because everything is shiny and cozy. They evolve through huge evolutionary pressure. I think our ecological, coordination & institutional challenges are likely comparable to the ones that led to life evolving from ocean to land. If your gut is not registering “everything is falling apart”, Daniel might convince you:

This leads us back to the three timelines: utopian (space colonization), dystopian (biohazards) and current consensus reality. I was quite shocked to discover that many of my interests fit all 3 timelines quite nicely. AND that three timelines serve as very generative mental model => focusing on what is needed and useful across the three timelines helps my creativity. Since the 3 timelines are quite extreme, intersection of what’s meaningful in all 3 timelines creates constraints pressure that spits out anti-fragile building blocks.

Let me show an example. Say we’re colonizing space in small groups. We can’t use wood and metals or big/complex machines for making furniture. So how do we make furniture out of more bio materials, i.e. cotton or dog fur? How about 3D printing / pressing? That leads us to more ephemeral furniture, that might be useful also for dystopian timeline where settlement / small communities live off grid and do not have access to complex supply chains. It also inspires “design and get your own furniture in next 24h” type of startup today where furniture is more seasonal. Or used for gatherings and then can be decomposed by pouring bio-solvent on top of it, then reused for new furniture or growing plants / veggies.

This was HomoTechno applied to material innovation, to get a taste of it. For me, it connects to silicon-carbon intelligence co-evolution, coming up with intentional community scales (bigger than family, smaller than towns), psychotech that enables new ways of coordinating, alternative economies and ways of working that grow organically alongside existing systems, and other exotic topics you’ll be able to see and interact on this substack.

Curious about what would you build that works in all three timelines?