NET Society

Ep79 Celebrity Wrappers

The Net Society crew is back together to unpack a week of internet spectacle, AI froth, crypto privacy, and demographic anxiety. They kick things off with Shl0ms’ Monet fakeout, using the viral AI art discourse to talk about attention games, bots, and the strange durability of crypto art. From there, they debate Martha Stewart’s AI home management startup and whether celebrity-backed ChatGPT wrappers are a real consumer wedge or just another top signal. The conversation then widens into model commoditization, low switching costs, U.S.-China chip strategy, robotics, and the next phase of the AI race. The crew also digs into Zcash, financial privacy, Hyperliquid’s USDH drama, and the exhaustion of retail crypto getting co-opted by insiders. The episode wraps with a detour through World Cup bloat, declining birth rates, “full-time children,” family formation, and the unsettling prospect of pregnancy robots. Mentioned in the episode SCHL0MS Monet post https://x.com/SHL0MS/status/2054280631807316329 [https://x.com/SHL0MS/status/2054280631807316329] Martha Stuart Home AI https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260512987617/en/Martha-Stewart-Announces-Hint-a-New-Home-Management-Platform-Built-on-Human-Expertise-and-AI [https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260512987617/en/Martha-Stewart-Announces-Hint-a-New-Home-Management-Platform-Built-on-Human-Expertise-and-AI] 99% of people don’t use paid AI https://x.com/JohnLeFevre/status/2025334966884708846 [https://x.com/JohnLeFevre/status/2025334966884708846] Trump’s trip to China https://x.com/nypost/status/2055098939351650595 [https://x.com/nypost/status/2055098939351650595] Robots working 8 hour shift https://x.com/adcock_brett/status/2054603963996278786 [https://x.com/adcock_brett/status/2054603963996278786] Coinbase x Hyperliquid news https://x.com/coinbase/status/2054894760859504936 [https://x.com/coinbase/status/2054894760859504936] World Cup halftime show lineup https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/articles/madonna-shakira-bts-co-headline-historic-final-halftime-show [https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/articles/madonna-shakira-bts-co-headline-historic-final-halftime-show] Jasmine Sun China on AI and work https://x.com/jasminewsun/status/2055069143716766099 [https://x.com/jasminewsun/status/2055069143716766099] Show & Hosts Net Society: https://x.com/net__society [https://x.com/net__society] Aaron Wright: https://x.com/awrigh01 [https://x.com/awrigh01] Chris F: https://x.com/ChrisF_0x [https://x.com/ChrisF_0x] Derek Edwards: https://x.com/derekedws [https://x.com/derekedws] Priyanka Desai: https://x.com/pridesai [https://x.com/pridesai] Production & Marketing Producer/Editor: https://x.com/0xFnkl [https://x.com/0xFnkl] Social: https://x.com/v_kirra [https://x.com/v_kirra] * (00:00) - Shl0ms, Monet & AI Art Discourse * (06:44) - Bots, Attention Games & Online Astroturfing * (10:54) - Martha Stewart & Celebrity AI Wrappers * (15:24) - Model Commoditization & Low Switching Costs * (23:27) - China, Chips, Robotics & the AI Race * (36:03) - Zcash, Privacy & Hyperliquid’s USDH Drama * (43:03) - World Cup Bloat, Birth Rates & Pregnancy Robots * (58:33) - Welcome & Disclaimer

Ep78 Slop, Stunts & Millennial Politics

The Net Society crew is back together for a wide-ranging conversation on politics, crypto, AI, and the accelerating weirdness of the internet. They open with Spencer Pratt’s LA political rise, using it as a lens for how celebrity, AI slop videos, and direct-to-feed campaigning may be reshaping political media. From there, they compare LA and New York political content, Mamdani’s street-level style, and the possibility of a broader reform movement breaking through old institutional structures. The crew then turns to crypto, unpacking major token and infrastructure moves around Arc, Canton, Circle, public companies, and the growing convergence between blockchains and traditional finance. Consensus in Miami becomes a referendum on crypto’s cringe problem, before the conversation shifts into AI, where Anthropic, xAI, Colossus, Cursor, Grok, OpenClaw, Hermes, and agent harnesses all point toward a new phase of frontier technology competition. The episode closes by asking whether AI agents are following a DeFi-like arc: real innovation buried under waves of noise. Mentioned in the episode Spencer Pratt LA Mayor Campaign AI Slop vid https://x.com/charliebcurran/status/2051647381981290697 [https://x.com/charliebcurran/status/2051647381981290697] Mamdani Ken Griffin video https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/2044508902809628760?s=20 [https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/2044508902809628760?s=20] Bullish acquires Equiniti https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/crypto-exchange-bullish-strikes-4-2-billion-deal-for-transfer-agent-in-tokenization-push-4af8f41f [https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/crypto-exchange-bullish-strikes-4-2-billion-deal-for-transfer-agent-in-tokenization-push-4af8f41f] Consensus 2026 memes https://x.com/cryptosmiff/status/2053175297818911145?s=20 [https://x.com/cryptosmiff/status/2053175297818911145?s=20] And https://x.com/brookejlacey/status/2053196312091427119 [https://x.com/brookejlacey/status/2053196312091427119] xAI and Cursor https://x.com/xDaily/status/2052867330418335989 [https://x.com/xDaily/status/2052867330418335989] Show & Hosts Net Society: https://x.com/net__society [https://x.com/net__society] Aaron Wright: https://x.com/awrigh01 [https://x.com/awrigh01] Chris F: https://x.com/ChrisF_0x [https://x.com/ChrisF_0x] Derek Edwards: https://x.com/derekedws [https://x.com/derekedws] Priyanka Desai: https://x.com/pridesai [https://x.com/pridesai] Production & Marketing Producer/Editor: https://x.com/0xFnkl [https://x.com/0xFnkl] Social: https://x.com/v_kirra [https://x.com/v_kirra] * (00:00) - Spencer Pratt, LA Politics & AI Slop Campaigning * (08:35) - Political Ads, Memes & the New Media Playbook * (19:17) - The Pratt Hat, Reform Movements & Institutional Frustration * (22:59) - Arc, Canton, Circle & Public Company Tokens * (29:46) - Consensus Miami & Crypto’s Cringe Problem * (33:25) - Anthropic, xAI, Cursor & the Compute Wars * (38:10) - OpenClaw, Hermes & the Future of Agent Harnesses * (46:50) - Welcome & Disclaimer

Ep77 The Headless Internet

The Net Society crew is joined by John from SuperRare for a wide-ranging conversation on AI agents, headless software, crypto infrastructure, and the strange future of machine-mediated markets. They open with AI psychosis, neurotic models, compute subsidies, and the rising push toward CLI-first products, before exploring what happens when agents become the primary users of SaaS, payments, marketplaces, research tools, and crypto rails. From there, Aaron walks through a set of 2035 and 2040 agent economy predictions, including autonomous micro-enterprises, agent procurement, machine capital markets, self-sovereign AI, robotic factories, and AI-managed civic infrastructure. The episode then turns toward internet culture, Brian Johnson, peptides, crypto’s identity crisis, NFT market momentum, DeFi hacks, AI-assisted hacking, and the question of what new digital culture could actually bring buyers and creators back into the room. Mentioned in the episode Guest John from SuperRare https://x.com/SuperRareJohn [https://x.com/SuperRareJohn] Rare protocol https://rare.xyz/?utm_source=chatgpt.com [https://rare.xyz/?utm_source=chatgpt.com] Bankr https://x.com/bankrbot [https://x.com/bankrbot] Brian Johnson Tweet https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/2049687845082910812 [https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/2049687845082910812] Show & Hosts Net Society: https://x.com/net__society [https://x.com/net__society] Aaron Wright: https://x.com/awrigh01 [https://x.com/awrigh01] Chris F: https://x.com/ChrisF_0x [https://x.com/ChrisF_0x] Derek Edwards: https://x.com/derekedws [https://x.com/derekedws] Priyanka Desai: https://x.com/pridesai [https://x.com/pridesai] Production & Marketing Producer/Editor: https://x.com/0xFnkl [https://x.com/0xFnkl] Social: https://x.com/v_kirra [https://x.com/v_kirra]

EP 76 Spiritual Geography

Everything is Casino. The Digital Art Timeline is a Church Basement Art Fair. New York is alive and well. Austin and El Segundo are hardware hot zones. Another Vibe Shift? The future of adaptive web design and AI UX. Etc.... Show & Hosts Net Society: https://x.com/net__society [https://x.com/net__society] Aaron Wright: https://x.com/awrigh01 [https://x.com/awrigh01] Chris F: https://x.com/ChrisF_0x [https://x.com/ChrisF_0x] Derek Edwards: https://x.com/derekedws [https://x.com/derekedws] Priyanka Desai: https://x.com/pridesai [https://x.com/pridesai] Production & Marketing Substitute Producer/Editor: https://x.com/v_kirra [https://x.com/v_kirra] The usual Producer/Editor: https://x.com/0xFnkl [https://x.com/0xFnkl]

Ep75 The Graveyard

The Net Society crew records live from New York and opens with a familiar question in unfamiliar times: are we actually back, or just bouncing inside a bear market. From there, the conversation moves through competing views on crypto’s current state, with debate around institutional demand, stablecoin growth, ETF flows, and why the next leg up may still require more pain. The crew then explores what machine-to-machine payments could actually look like, from agentic software and API micropayments to the early shape of a machine-native economy. That leads into a sharp discussion on AI product building, where they argue that the models are already good enough and the real bottleneck is ambition, taste, and the ability to frame better problems. In the back half, they work through a run of crypto casualties and controversies, including Foundation’s collapse, Lattice shutting down, and the Bittensor Templar blowup, before closing on a more optimistic note: why so many of the most interesting builders in AI seem to come out of crypto, and how that culture may shape what comes next. Mentioned in the episode Response to Covenant https://x.com/const_reborn/status/2043083033969033610 [https://x.com/const_reborn/status/2043083033969033610] Lattice winding down https://x.com/latticexyz/status/2044103611072835744 [https://x.com/latticexyz/status/2044103611072835744] Show & Hosts Net Society: https://x.com/net__society [https://x.com/net__society] Aaron Wright: https://x.com/awrigh01 [https://x.com/awrigh01] Chris F: https://x.com/ChrisF_0x [https://x.com/ChrisF_0x] Derek Edwards: https://x.com/derekedws [https://x.com/derekedws] Priyanka Desai: https://x.com/pridesai [https://x.com/pridesai] Production & Marketing Producer/Editor: https://x.com/0xFnkl [https://x.com/0xFnkl] Social: https://x.com/v_kirra [https://x.com/v_kirra] * (00:00) - Are We Actually Back? * (10:44) - Machine Payments & Agentic Software * (13:09) - AI Product Building, Ambition & Taste * (20:27) - Foundation’s Collapse & Platform Fragility * (25:24) - Bittensor Drama, Templar & Governance * (34:02) - Lattice, Onchain Gaming & Crypto’s User Problem * (42:14) - Crypto Builders Winning in AI * (49:09) - Welcome & Disclaimer