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Crypto Leeches and Open-Source Bees

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Cryptocurrencies bring out the worst in digital greed: John Woeltz, 37, and an accomplice were charged with holding a man captive for three weeks in a Manhattan townhouse— torturing him in an attempt to steal his Bitcoin password . The horror of it is hard to overstate. But even more unsettling is what it reveals about a growing subculture: a ruthless obsession with crypto wealth, removed from any sense of ethics, community, or shared future. These are the crypto leeches—people who see money not as a lubricant for life, but as the point of life. Their behavior mirrors what I described in a recent post about how money, when disconnected from meaning, begins to take over the host like a parasite—hijacking the human mind, turning imagination into speculation, community into competition, and security into surveillance. If parasitic control is one metaphor, then nature offers us a better one: In that earlier post, I proposed a different vision: mycorrhizal finance, modeled after the underg...
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“Looking Good vs. Feeling Good” - Lasting Change Starts From Within

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In our quest for self-improvement—whether seeking better health, increased attractiveness, or greater wellbeing—we often reach for the quickest and easiest solutions. From miracle diets to surgical procedures, we tend to favor visible results and instant gratification. But what if the most effective approaches are the ones requiring the greatest effort—and the most self-awareness? That’s the idea behind the Social Compass app , a tool designed to help individuals navigate the deeper levels of transformation by identifying their personality traits, values, and behavioral tendencies. Using proven psychological assessments—like the Five-Factor Personality Inventory (FFI), the DOSPERT Risk-Taking Scale, and the Schwartz Values Survey—it maps out your unique profile, offering a personalized foundation for meaningful, lasting change. The Five Levels of Transformation Most self-improvement methods fall into a pyramid with five distinct levels. Each level offers a different approach to transfo...
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Money - parasitic mind control or mycorrhizal network

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In human societies, money, the conversion of social capital into financial capital, be it mussel shells, gold coins, paper money, or crypto currencies, can have an infectious effect, taking over mind and actions of money-obsessed people.  The effect of money on the mind and parasitic mind control have shocking similarities. Parasitic mind control is one of the most fascinating and disturbing phenomena in nature. Some parasites have evolved remarkable strategies to manipulate their hosts' behavior for their own reproductive success. These parasites are spectacularly successful in taking over host animals for their own profit, manipulating their hosts’ minds to become a vehicle for the parasite to multiply and spread.   Nature's most successful parasitic mind controller is the zombie ant fungus ( ophiocordyceps unilateralis ). The zombie ant fungus infects carpenter ants and completely alters their behavior.  It starts when a spore of the fungus lands on a carpenter ant, us...
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Overcoming the pyramid of professional oppression

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“ Why is it that Nobel prize winners are always nice, and the people right below them on the professional ladder are complete assholes?”  This question was asked to me about ten years ago by one of my hosts, a senior professor in economics, when I was giving a talk at a university in Florida.   My host was perfectly right – fully confirmed by my own experience of the last 22 years at MIT. A fair share of Nobel prize winners reside at MIT and Harvard, and many others come to visit – usually they are a pleasure to talk to, and amazingly approachable. The same universities are full of people with huge egos, right below the Nobel prize winners, who are convinced that they deserve the Nobel prize and just didn’t get it because some assholes were against them. These people pull the levers at the most respected academic institutions, as editors in chief of prestigious scientific journals, making tenure decisions for junior faculty, and deciding on funding and promotions. Usually, the...
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How Blind Trust in Generative AI Undermines Creative Work

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This summer, we experienced firsthand the damage caused by blind faith in the "superhuman" capabilities of generative AI, even among otherwise intelligent individuals. Here's what happened. We submitted a research paper to an academic conference, and after it was accepted, I paid the registration fee, booked flights, and arranged accommodations. A week later, we received an abrupt email from the organizers stating that our paper had been rejected. The reason? Their AI-based plagiarism and ChatGPT-detection tool flagged it as containing both plagiarized content and text generated by ChatGPT. This accusation was entirely unfounded. Our paper presented highly original work by our team, proposing novel AI algorithms to predict animal emotions—a concept never explored before. We detailed the development of an AI model to validate this approach, something completely unique to our research. By its very nature, it was impossible for our work to be plagiarized or generated by Chat...
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My life in Alternative Realities - fatherlanders and nerds don’t go well together

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We are all living in different alternative realities, people with different personalities see reality from very different perspectives, potentially leading to a lot of friction and misunderstandings. “Nerds” are open to change, they believe in the progress of technology and innovation. “Fatherlanders” abhor change, they like tradition and authority, valuing the fatherland above all, and would like to reestablish the good old times. “Spiritualists” believe into supernatural forces, they are religious, meditate and hope that the forces of nature will heal their ailing. “Treehuggers” believe into sustainability and global warming, they want to save nature by restricting technical progress. I experience  this friction frequently in my daily life. As a computer and technology nerd with spiritualist and treehugger inclinations, my communication with members from other tribes sometimes does not end well.  My interactions with officers of the US Department of Homeland Security and the...
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Taking control of your emotions leads to a more meaningful life - The ERM Way to Happiness!

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It’s all about relationships: interacting with other people can be the biggest source of happiness, but it can also be the biggest source of misery! The quality of your relationships is determined by your emotions: When you manage your emotions during a disagreement with your best friend, it helps keep your friendship intact. However, if you lose control and get really angry, it can lead to losing your job or even causing harm in situations like road rage. Your relationships also determine the meaning in your life. If you have spent years searching for the meaning of life but nobody else cares about it, your hard work won't bring much satisfaction.You will only get meaning from what you do if you are surrounded by likeminded people. Even more, the people who make you happiest will also tell you WHAT makes you happiest! To measure and improve happiness, I thus came up with the “Emotions, Relationships, and Meaning” (ERM) Way to Happiness. We have previously used the PERMA model fro...
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