Toby Shorin's Website, Year , Summer of Protocols

Toby Shorin

Writer, Researcher, Technologist

Now

I'm currently participating in the Summer of Protocols research program from Ethereum Foundation. I'll be in San Francisco in part of June and July.

About

I am working to understand the nature of identity, agency, and value, and how technology is changing these issues today.

I am sincere to a fault. I care tremendously about ideas, and I can't help but see the greatness in people. I crave moments that vibrate, alive with possibility. Above all, I want to taste my life, and to fully allow the delight and sorrow and timeless mystery that come from making true contact with others.

I'm the co-founder of Other Internet Research Institute.

Work

As an independent researcher, I'm charting a path for serious intellectual practice outside the academy. In recent years my research focus has drifted toward understanding the institutions and social technologies that shape our lives, and how they relate to my perennial interest: the moral architecture of our world.

Other Internet is a nonprofit institute that supports work in this vein. We've funded and supported theoretical and experimental research on internet-native institutions, blockchain governance, education, and internet communities.

Prior to Other Internet, I held design and product positions at some early stage software companies. I continue to advise friends and founders of orgs and startups I think should exist. I've worked with and advised Coin Center, Variant Fund, Gitcoin, Brud, Tlon, Interchain Foundation, Propel, USB Club, One Fact Foundation, and Metropolis.

Writing

I write on my blog, Subpixel Space, as well as for Other Internet. I've written about a lot of different things, but a recurrent theme is how technology, moral regimes, and social structures shift and influence one another.

Here is some of my more well-known cultural analysis:

And here are a few business-oriented pieces of writing:

Workshops, Talks, Facilitation

Sometimes I give talks or lead workshops.
Cult Design Workshop, Pioneer Works
The New Era of Trust, Refactor Camp
Value Investing in Cults and Religions, Refactor Camp
Networked Institutions, Greenpill Podcast
Authenticity Dungeon, New Models Podcast
The Desire for Full Automation, Trust

Other Projects

Along with Tom Critchlow, I'm one of the creators of Quotebacks, an open-source tool for web-native quoting and conversation. We're not so good at maintaining it, but it's one of my favorite projects.

  • Companions
Poem

windswept piles of time
acover slick surfaces
where you might fall and break.
they built a culvert here
so that memories flow downhill
is this orientation natural to living beings?

two moths alert me
I am still in the presence of engines of creation
moss and stay-green fern
won’t protect your head
from a sudden entrance into a round stone

mount forsake
mount my name
auto-kenosis
was it called before me or after?
it's this opening up
and I have arrived here, I for it

Code of Practice
  1. Eat fruit every day.
  2. Create more value than you can capture.
  3. Be concerned with truth.
  4. Do not betray the principles of interaction.