Motivations Behind Typed

22 May 2021

An acquaintance inquired about my personal motivations behind building Typed and how it’s aligned with my lifelong mission of utilizing technology to achieve equality of opportunity and balance of power. Here are my thoughts.

Intelligence is the process of turning chaos into an interpretable, comprehensible model of information that is primarily communicated through an agreement of expression called language. Humans intentionally allocate energy - that comes in multiple forms - to bring order into entropy of ideas, generating net value for the community given individual incentives. As you see, the second law of thermodynamics is greatly pertinent even beyond physical phenomena.

One primary form of the aforementioned value is knowledge, which I believe is one of the most essential needs of human survival and prosperity. Considering life as information propating through flesh (very well put by Robert Breedlove) and applying the concept of universal darwinism to the domain of the intangible, knowledge is power. It’s almost identical to the concept of money (reason why I hold crypto #LaserEyes). A minimum exists to sustain basic needs, and the remaining excess is completely the owner’s discretion of use.

The pace of idea generation has been faster than ever before, which I believe is not only aligned with but of interest to humans based on the natural impulsion of the territorial imperative - seeking to expand our dominion over space and time. The internet is almost an ideal place to achieve this. Leveraging technology that enables humans to go beyond traditional limitations of physical barriers, the ability to express (and potential influence) one’s thoughts and ideas to the mass has never been this easy and impactful. However, the critical limitation and potential danger here is that people only view the final result of these ideas. How it came to be is usually unknown; this limits one’s ability to fully grasp the context of an idea and potentially question its validity.

Here are two things that Typed achieves.

It serves as a knowledge management and generation tool that intentionally aids one’s ability to bring order into the chaos of scattered information available today. Google was a major leap in lowering the barrier to access of information through simplified access. Despite its success (and alongside other successful knowledge generating, storing, and sharing tools), it inevitably contributes to the chaos and fragmentation of the ever-increasing amount of information today. As a tool existing a layer above this goldmine of information, Typed brings together consciously chosen pieces of knowledge based on goal-directed relevance and importance - reason why I like to call Typed my second brain.

Secondly, this ‘process’ of bringing order and generating value is naturally transparent. One’s motivations and sources behind ideas are clear unless the writer intentionally attempts to hide or deceive. Imagine the thought leaders of our society generating and sharing their ideas through Typed where the complete process of their thinking from ideation to their final comment is transparent to all. Imagine having a comprehensive understanding of how the greatest ideas (political, academic, etc.) came to be. The implications are huge.

For some people, it’s just a piece of text. For others, it’s power.

It’s a rough version now, but we’re certainly getting there.