Rehash: Xennials
Daily Ramble
It finally happened; Substack stopped having my back. I finished the final edits on a lovely ramble about the Weimar Republic when it all just disappeared. Poof. Well, if Substack isn’t going to save my words, I'm going to have to take a shortcut for today’s ramble. Here’s a Ramble on Xennials that I published in March. It was popular at the time though there were many fewer folks reading it. Enjoy!
It’s an age, a digital age. And I came from an analog one, albeit just in childhood. Growing up through the collision of those two ages is the defining characteristic of the micro-generation known as the Xennials, the group born between ‘77 and ‘85. I’m betting you haven’t heard of us either.
Home computers, flip phones, and the internet were all pieces of technology dropping into place as our childhoods progressed, allowing us to know what life was like before they existed, but also able to wrap ourselves around these new tools with the affinity of a toddler learning a second language. We’re not digitally native, but more importantly, we’re the bridge generation for those that are.
Why do I think that’s important? Because our childhoods existed when the time-honored experience of team sports, face-to-face socializing, and driving-distance social relations were the norm. We grew up before technology allowed children to get out over their evolutionary skis. That’s a dangerous place to be. Thankfully, because we Xennials exist with a foot on each side of the analog-to-digital divide, we can relate to the problems the digital environment has created. As our generation ages into the mature adult and elder categories over the next 40 years, I see our generation’s role will be to address the problems created by the digital world.
Now, I don’t for a minute think that we should be rolling back any of this tech or outlawing Moore’s law from deflating technology’s cost to every human. But we need to bring the human body's presence into the equation, not just the mind. We’re emotional creatures who evolved rational capabilities, not the other way around. The pendulum has swung too far. The digital world has made it very easy to untether our minds from our bodies. Indeed our first, and current take on the Web has been defined by addicting our attention away from our bodies. Perhaps the increasing societal acceptance of psychedelics is a recognition of needing to re-tether to our bodies. Either way, when the digitally native generations wake up to the realization that they can’t escape their evolutionary past, we’ll be here to remind them how to get back to themselves.
Rad Things on the Interwebs
Never change, Jon, never change.
Bitcoin Price Prediction
Yesterday: $37k - $40k
Today: $37k - $42k
Tomorrow: $37k - $42k
The high-volume traders accepted the price action of the bullish push over the weekend and kept the push going, reaching as high as $40.8k before the enthusiasm waned. We’re at a clear spot for enthusiasm to wane. It would make sense for the price to dip back into the $37k region before pushing back up again. I do believe the price dip to $30k marks the bottom of this pullback. Even more exciting, the price action lines up with the potential for Bitcoin entering a supercycle. We won’t know the truth of that for at least another year, but forming a bottom for bullish continuation makes the case just a bit stronger.
Bitcoin Q & A
Q: What is Taproot for Bitcoin, and when does it activate?
A: Taproot is the first software update to the Bitcoin network in 4 years. It will activate in November.
Taproot replaces the signing method for Bitcoin transactions allowing for greater privacy between different wallet addresses: Lightning network, multi-signature wallets, and single-signature wallets. More importantly, this software upgrade is a foundational piece that new, unthought-of use cases can be built from. It took SegWit, the last upgrade, almost four years to be fully utilized, and I anticipate it will be a similar path for Taproot.
Thanks for reading,
Kent
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