Essay 1: Higher is Not a Headless Brand
Essay 2: The Token is The Problem and The Opportunity
Essay 3: Higher Forever
As I write, the two co-authors of Higher's Greenpaper, have just released new pieces of writing individually - LGHT deconstructing the Matrix we are currently enslaved to: Technology, Money, Design, and Media, and Jihad speaking to networks as product and agency as a desired network impact.
Together they are pointing to the current state of things more broadly but perhaps there is no better scene to take their ideas seriously than Higher.
Situated at the intersection of Technology and Money, what if we designed media that expanded the network's capacity to distribute agency to humans, in relation to Technology and Money?
The cultural practice of the Higher scene(network) is already positioned in this way:
To explore new ways of feeling and seeing higher regardless of market action.
As previously discussed, feeling and seeing higher is a mode of perception and exploration of the ways in which this can be decoupled from a technological and monetary reality, aka market action, results in the distribution of agency, and ultimately genius.
The mechanism may be something like: we are no longer affected by market action, we have one less external factor influencing our thoughts and behaviour, we can do more with our attention, and we can birth more genius.
Agency is a function of the mind. In order to enhance agency, the site of enhancement is no other than the mind.
One could argue that technologies enhance agency, but if agency is as Jihad defines it: the ability to define a clear vision and act on it with intention. Then, the only site worth paying attention to is the one in which a clear vision and intention are cultivated and from which action originates.
In both cases, that site is the mind.
Networks are clusters of minds. Technology, Money, Design, and Media all filter through minds. We live every moment of our lives, with our minds.
If we want to truly take seriously the responsibility of freeing ourselves from the Matrix, as LGHT describes it, and to live with agency, as well as distributing the possibility of that agency to others via our network as our product, as Jihad suggests is possible, it may start with recognising that the site of necessary impact is the mind.
As you may remember, it is my belief that the core value offering of higher is the distribution of genius.
This value offering is primarily manifested by inviting individuals into the process of agency (to clarify their own vision and to act on it with intention), through interaction with the scene.
Following this, through further collaboration and agency fuelled action, innovations are discovered and genius can be distributed and recognised.
Importantly, nobody tells you what that process has to look like. There is a huge amount of freedom in what your vision can be and how you move towards what is possible. The process may look widely different for different persons who join the scene.
However, if we are to agree that the primary site of practice for engaging higher's cultural practice is the mind, it may be useful to understand what exactly the possible changes to ones mind might be and how they are allowed to occur.
Referring again to our jihad provided definition of agency: the ability to define a clear vision and act on it with intention, it appears that clarity of vision and the ability to act on it with intention are the most important faculties of mind to enhance.
Clarity of vision is an imaginal act, a direction of ones attention, and can only be as clear as ones incorporation of all the factors that make up it's possible reality.
Action with intention is an embodied reality, a direction of ones attention, and can only be as impactful as ones incorporation of all the factors that make up the present reality.
In essence, in being agentic, we are traversing the gap between the imagined and the physical, through the energy of attention.
The most valuable enhancements therefore are those that give you control over the direction of your attention. Without the ability to direct your attention to traversing the gap and to re-direct it when you've been distracted or new information arises that requires a new form of action, you cannot adequately form a clear vision or act with intention.
Therefore, we might concentrate our efforts of exploring new ways of empowering individuals to understand and direct the flow of their attention through exploration of the medium of mind.
Importantly, again, whilst I may have a vision for how to do this, the core value proposition of Higher is not in it's declaration of a singular way of doing things, but in it's invitation to be part of a scene of people experimenting along a particular line of exploration. It is through this that we give ourselves the best possible chance at distributing genius
If we coordinate and collaborate on the mission of enhancing agency, new forms of enhancing agency are then sure to arise, through the distribution of genius.
So here's an invitation into a possible future:
Whilst the Higher scene may lead to the distribution and recognition of many forms of genius, I would like to invite you into a specific mission, based on what I have written above.
My thesis is that by providing agency enhancing services to both scene participants and those outside of it, that overall participation in the higher scene will increase, and all will benefit as a result.
Here are some ideas that I'm currently engaged in:
Soon, I hope to launch higher mindfulness club entirely for free, rewarding participants with HIGHER for showing up as well as consistent participation, following funding from The Higher Party.
This will be a 6-month experiment in distributing techniques and practices that I personally have found effective in enhancing my own agency and are proven to enhance attentional capacities and improve the wellbeing of those who experience anxiety and depression.
At the same time, higher mindfulness club will provide the stage for the scene to be in conversations around clarifying vision, next actions, and remembering intentions.
Importantly, nothing that is presented needs to be taken as fact. I encourage you to come along and DYOR on these practices and techniques, as well as to get into conversation with other higher network participants on the basis of shared exploration.
My intention is, that through participation, these techniques will distribute higher agency to more individuals who are already part of the scene as well as to newcomers. You can help to distribute genius by bringing your curiosity, engaging the sessions in earnest, not taking my word as gospel, and inviting new people into the process.
Find out more here.
Even sooner, I plan to help launch the first Permapool.
Using a permapool, an organisation will be able to provide a widely recognised public good to the scene and receive funding in exchange. I suggest that this organisation be dedicated to exploring the frontiers of coordination using HIGHER and what media that enhances agency could be.
Specifically, I am suggesting that focus be on five core principles: enhancing agency, embracing uncertainty, and enabling collaboration, generating revenue, and using HIGHER.
This is because in order to successfully distribute the genius of enhanced agency to as many people as possible we have to expand participation and collaboration across the network as well as secure it's long-term future.
Here's how each of our core principles help:
Enhancing Agency
It is extraordinarily valuable to have an understanding of how and why attention flows and how to redirect it to align with ones own intention. Enhanced agency is valuable to anyone who wants to create. Distributing the skills and understanding that allows people to enhance their own agency to create is therefore incredibly valuable for a scene that wants to remain continually relevant. The more people who are empowered by the scene to create, the more people that are likely to return value to the scene through creation and experimentation.
This can be seen as a guiding principle. The organisation may exist to enhance agency, first and foremost.
Embracing Uncertainty
Things are always changing. To stay still is to risk becoming irrelevant or forgotten. We can stave off these potential dangers by embracing uncertainty and encouraging all forms of experimentation, facing realities, and remaining curious. As long as cultural exploration remains an open question, there is more experimentation that can be done. The more valuable experiments occurring in the scene the more opportunity there is for the amount of participation to increase.
This means that the organisation doesn't have to see anything as competition and can readily incorporate new innovations where participation, experimentation, and agency are increasing.
Enabling Collaboration
Scene health relies on collaboration. As participants are connected to one another network effects take hold that amplify scene activity. Participants encountering diversity amidst the scene through collaboration can enhance overall scene agency as visions are clarified and intentions and next actions defined. More agentic participants increases the set of possible experiments that can emerge from the scene and attract new participants into the scene. Collaborations can also invite non-participants to become participants directly.
This can encompass collaborations both within and beyond the scene, to foster diversity and enhance agency simultaneously. The scene will fail without collaboration, as we will fail to distribute genius.
Generating Revenue
Whilst passion can drive the activity of a scene to it's highest potential, it is also important that people are paid for their work so that they can survive in our money-driven world. In general, relying on passion alone restricts the ability of the most passionate to do what they love. Resources are necessary for survival first and foremost, after which they can enable for more expansive things to be done.
This means that the organisation should be treated as a for-profit public goods machine - seeking funds as ETH or USDC, for conversion into 50/50 HIGHER/ETH LP not only through the generosity of aligned parties, but also in exchange for work in coordination, media, and beyond. Enhanced coordination within the scene is enabled by encouraging people to contribute to the pool to signal long-term alignment with HIGHER and engender trust.
Using HIGHER
Value HIGHER. There is no point in accumulating HIGHER if the intention is solely to sell it, it is better used. The HIGHER token can be seen as a form of media and therefore it's main function to can be to enhance agency. Not through it's sale into ETH but through it's potential as a reward for contributing to enhanced agency, or as an incentive for enhancing the agency of oneself or others. Holding HIGHER should be enough to 10x a persons agency. To this end, HIGHER may be used to incentivise behaviours that promote agency and as a reward for committing to agency enhancing choices.
Through commit.wtf, HIGHER holders can be incentivised to go higher and earn in the process. Importantly, no HIGHER need be sold for ETH or USDC.
higher mindfulness club and a permapool org, are just two ways I have thought of that our collective energy and resources to be directed towards in order for higher to position itself as an important source of enhancing agency in our time.
My hope is that the Permapool concept alone could enhance agency amidst the scene. The strategy is free for anyone to use and iterate upon.
Multiple permapools, with multiple forms of governance, and multiple strategies for using the funds could be deployed, with all of them servicing the higher community through at least their liquidity provision.
The most important factor to consider will always be the plan for how permapool fees are utilised.
You may not even agree that we should focus any efforts on enhancing agency.
Whatever comes next, higher is yours.
Agency is important for the world.
The Higher scene is well positioned to concentrate efforts on enhancing agency at this time.
There are ways in which we could coalesce our efforts to enhance agency, if we want to.
The future is wide open.
As a result of Higher's initial introduction as a way of seeing that can inform a response to the world as opposed to a singular product or object; higher is more of a memetic primitive for integration with one's own life and aspirations, than a definable object, and is as a result both dynamic and adaptable.
Another way of saying this is that Higher is meta-transcending - which means that it is durable.
Hopefully, more people will want to contribute to higher, building their own aspirations and discovering their own genius for themselves as well as others in whatever way makes sense to them.
In this model, behaviour flows from the shared understanding and lived experiences of the brand’s participants, rather than from a singular directive. Values are dynamic, growing, and transforming as the brand community evolves. Where consensus emerges, attention concentrates, and genius is validated. The brand overall has fluidity to adapt to metas, in relation to where it's participants are learning as well as acting on their strengths and skills, also known as going higher.
If you think the vision of going higher I have presented today is worth supporting, any and all support is appreciated.
Essay 1: Higher is Not a Headless Brand
Essay 2: The Token is The Problem and The Opportunity
In theory, a sufficiently deep practice can be continuously refined and is continuously relevant.
In theory, a sufficiently deep practice can be continuously refined and is continuously relevant.
If a practice is of true value to the world, even if it is not of obvious financial value, it will likely persist not only because it is durable, but also as people attempt to preserve it for future generations.
In essence, the practice becomes trustworthy, as a result of the value it is able to generate for it's practitioners and the world, and scene participants act to protect it from fading into irrelevance.
As a reminder, higher's cultural practice is to explore new ways of seeing and feeling higher irrespective of market action.
Essentially, decoupling perception from reality and therefore enabling more agentic behaviour.
Wisdom traditions, art, and neuroscience have all pointed to the idea that perception is not reality, with their most dedicated practitioners benefiting from the integration of this insight into their daily lives.
What is novel about higher is the location at which this insight has emerged.
Technology, Money, and Mind all intersect at the site of the higher scene as it is today. There are perhaps no more pervasive and influential forces shaping human destiny at this time.
The uniqueness of higher's location amidst these forces influences the possible innovations that could arise out of the scene. And hence so may be their value - unique.
If we want to continue to explore higher, together and preserve the uniqueness of this scene, the scene will need to continue to collaborate with one another and finding ways of ensuring that activity continues.
One effective approach to achieving this, whilst aligning all participants, is to establish a sustainable funding model where speculative market activity on HIGHER remains viable while simultaneously generating resources to support collaboration and cultural initiatives.
If people are going to speculate on the scene and gain financially, it makes sense that the scene should try and partake in some of those gains.
The possibility of liquidity being removed, in which case the token would no longer tradable, would be a return to how things were before the token.
If we don't want to go back, if you believe that there is value in what could emerge from the scene as it is today, we might wish to move forward in a way that protects the possibility of trading the token and provides funding to sustain cultural practices.
In other words, if we think the higher scene is valuable, we might do what we can to preserve it, so that we can go higher forever.
A Permapool is a 50/50 liquidity pool where pooled funds are permanently locked and cannot be withdrawn, however, additional funds can be added, and distribution of the fees generated from the pool can be configured in multiple ways.
In practice, the appeal of a Permapool is that it incorporates a form of neutral territory for a scene as the funds inside the LP continually service speculation on the value of the scene's culture whilst also generating fees that can be utilised to fund cultural activity within the scene.
Permapools not only provide a shared source of value but they also generate revenue in the process.
This is good for every kind of scene participant.
Pure Contributors solely engaging the scene's cultural practice, benefit either through direct funding or through the effects of increased scene activity and exploration, dependent on how the LP generated funds are deployed.
Pure Speculators solely speculating on the scene through token holdings, benefit from increased LP to trade into, and can also speculate on the potential for deployed LP generated funds to increase or decrease demand for token holdings without fear of not being able to trade the token if LP is pulled.
and
Hybrid Speculator-Contributors, engaging both the scene's cultural practice and allocating funds to speculation, benefit from the impact of deployed scene activity funding, can bet on their own work, and also do not have to fear the possibility of being unable to trade the token in future.
In summary, through Permapools, speculative market action creates a source of sustainable funding for collaboration on scene activity which aligns all forms of participant.
Distribution of the fees is an important piece of the puzzle around Permapools and is only limited by the necessity for generated fees to be used in ways that also align all participants.
We can examine what kinds of considerations we need to make by considering each kind of scene participant:
Pure Contributors want fees to be used for funding cultural activity.
Pure Speculators want fees to be used to drive changes to token price.
Hybrid Speculator-Contributors want both.
This limits fee spending to activities that drive token price action and advance scene activity.
Currently, there exist pools of funds that are centralised in the wallets of the Higher Party and Aethernet that could be used in ways that align all participants.
However, as it stands there is no clear public process or guidelines for how these funds should be distributed or requested. Both of these pooled funds were also left unmentioned in the latest (awesome) update to aimhigher.net.
However, seeing higher as a scene as opposed to a Headless Brand, I see no fatal problem with this, and simply see that these funds exist in the control of two different types of genius within a multi-genius scene.
The pooled funds in those wallets are not locked, which allows for more freedom in where they can move and how they can be used, but also means that they require protection from adversarial parties.
And these forms of genius do distribute funds, the reality is simply that there is a high friction to getting your hands on them which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Far from suggesting that these two parties operate any differently, I believe that their forms of genius may be ultimately healthy for the ecosystem.
Permapools simply offer the possibility at alternative forms of genius, which these parties could choose to support, or not.
If the scene wants to continue to evolve durably, and birth genius, this diversity is a good thing.
Diversity allows for conflict and conflict can help to refine processes. It also provides resilience, stability, and adaptability for the ecosystem as a whole.
As long as engagement in conversation, collaborations, and exploration continues, the scene can continue to distribute genius even if parties aren't always aligned.
Everything is always changing. We are in a good spot.
To examine how Permapools might be of maximal benefit, we need to take a look at:
How Permapools are different from current scene infrastructure
Why trade volume increases
How to support the widest range of scene participants
The two major differences between what Permapools can do for higher versus what Aethernet or The Higher Party have already done is in the permanent locking of LP funds and the possibility for alternate forms of governance over funds.
Valuably, both Aethernet and the Higher Party are currently providing LP to the market, and generating fees, but there is no guarantee that they won't pull liquidity, and their governance structures trade-off either security for speed or speed for security.
In both cases, huge enthusiasm from earnest members of the scene led to large donations to wallets that are now mostly inactive. In both cases, huge trust was required of the governance structure, and the responsibility of utilising those funds was also equally high with the potential for huge losses - a probable cause of their inactivity.
Permapools represent the opportunity for lower-risk donations from those who want to support the scene as well as more efficient ways of coordinating. As long as a Permapool is set up to automatically take donations and place all or some of them into the LP permanently, donators can be sure that they are supporting the token's stability and longevity. This creates the space for more risky forms of governance over the generated fees, as most of the donated funds are protected.
Governance is limited to what % of donations are added to the LP and how fees are distributed and used.
The opportunity is then for multiple kinds of iteration of the Permapool concept to arise, with different forms of governance that can take more risk and move quicker, with different forms of fee utilisation.
In every case, there is also the opportunity to use donations to the permapool in exchange for long-term alignment from the governing entity.
In summary, Permapools enable a new kind of participant (or form of genius) within the scene that can support the the scene both financially and culturally in ways that existing pooled funding entities cannot.
Trade volume is a measure of the total value traded. As trade volume increases, the amount of fees captured by a Permapool increases. Trade volume can be thought of as a function of demand for the token over time.
This means that, in theory, one can increase the volume traded by either increasing or decreasing demand for either of the tokens in the token pair.
This provides incredible durability for Permapools, in that almost any scenario of change that effects the tokens in the liquidity pool can generate more funds for cultural activities.
Ultimately, every kind of participant can benefit from more market activity and more cultural activity, both of which are downstream of more participants. Speculators benefit from more participants like themselves to trade against and more activity to speculate on the outcome of. Contributors of all kinds benefit from a greater total amount of participant attention, exchange, and collaboration within the scene. In aggregate, more participants supports all participants.
The higher scene has the potential to provide unique value to the world.
Permapools are a low-trust way for pooled funds to generate more funds.
Funds are best spent in ways that increase the number of scene participants.
Essay 1: Higher is Not a Headless Brand
It is important to note that the higher scene began before the HIGHER token was launched.
In it's beginning, higher was simply a Warpcast channel, where people could meme higher without price talk.
But then, along comes Martin - deploying a token and airdropping it to everyone in the channel.
Importantly, distribution to the scene was whole. Meaning that everybody in the scene now had a form of financial exposure to the burgeoning scene.
Some sold, and, to this day, some believe that referencing the token at all is a bad idea.
Not only do I disagree but I believe that HIGHER (the token) is the perfect site for conversation, collaboration, and experimentation in relation to the cultural practice of exploring new ways of seeing and feeling higher irrespective of market action.
What is required is that we earnestly decouple our view of the token from it's price, and begin to see the token's mere existence as an opportunity.
To understand further what I mean, we can ask the question:
Simply put, immediately, a whole range of new dynamics are introduced.
Foundationally, things are much the same: scene health continues to rely on conversation, collaboration, and experimentation. However, now that a token has been introduced, there is a financial primitive that can take up scene mindshare in conversation, collaboration, and experimentation through it's association.
The obvious value of the token is that those who historically would not have experienced any financial upside for their participation in a scene can now access financial exposure to a market approximation of the scenes value.
However, this is only possible because a new kind of scene participant activity is also introduced:
financial speculation (on the whole scene.)
Just like the Cubist scene would have included participants who's sole motivation was to speculate on the future value of artworks, the existence of a token invites participants into the higher scene who do not wish to be part of the scene's culture, but instead who's sole motivation is to speculate on it's value.
This is of tremendous potential value to any scene if properly harnessed, but also increases the possibility of contributors using market action to determine how much they themselves value the scene.
Thankfully, in the case of higher, participants are explicitly asked to decouple their perception of reality from price action. So instead of being a problem, market action becomes a site of opportunity.
In order to engage this opportunity, one has to acknowledge that there exist participants who are solely part of the scene to trade the token, and some of these individuals may be actively adversarial.
Without a clear acknowledgement of this it is difficult to establish how to engineer positive sum solutions. If we are unable to trust the intentions of our scene collaborators, conversation and collaboration are hampered.
In other words, the existence of financial incentives without processes for creating alignment between different parties leads to a lack of coordination. This in turn can disrupt collaboration, leading to reduced creative output, and ultimately a decay of the scene's culture.
At this point, the scene can either completely abandon the token, or embrace the token as an opportunity for creating alignment and coordination.
The problem is the opportunity.
The problem with a token, in essence, is that it can warp the culture of a scene. As opposed to continuing to communicate, collaborate, and experiment in service to whatever the scenes particular way of seeing is, contributors become distracted by the market for the token.
If a scene's actual culture is not strong enough on it's own, it will be consumed by this financialization.
The scene will falter to produce the kinds of genius it's original culture was capable of hosting and the true value of the scene is lost.
The token is not valuable on it's own, it relies on the scene's cultural output.
The opportunity is therefore to use the token to bolster the scene's cultural output.
In simple terms, value should be captured from speculative market action, and invested in the culture.
One way to do this is to pair the token with another, provide liquidity on a DEX, and generate fees that can be used to pay people to do things. In most cases, there is no utility to tokens beyond this. However, if the fees generated do go on to fund cultural activity and lead to the creation of value for the world, there is an argument to be made that new cultural utility could arise, in which case all trading on the token pair could be said to be for the culture.
Whatever utilities arise, the true value of the scene is what it's people create for each other and the world, not it's token.
In the long-term, a token is only as valuable as it's ability to generate value, for the culture.
With the main cultural practice of higher being to explore new ways of seeing and feeling higher irrespective of market action, this is how value captured from market action should be "put to work".
As cultural activity continues, we cannot be sure of what will arise. All we know is that so far, higher has attracted and helped to shape some incredible talent, distributing genius and empowering them to realize their aspirations.
In my estimation, more of that would be a good thing.
Hopefully by now, you can see that the token is both a problem and an opportunity, and that to ignore it completely would be to ignore an opportunity to create more scene health and the distribution of more genius.
Higher's cultural practice of seeing higher regardless of price precedes the token launch.
The introduction of a scene token introduced the ability to speculate on the entire scene.
The token can be both a Problem and an Opportunity for the culture.
