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From Varieties to Commodities

Have you noticed how “choice” in the supermarket doesn’t really feel like choice anymore? A whole aisle of bread, yet most of it made from the same kind of wheat. Apples that all look perfect, but taste mostly of cold storage. Tomatoes that travel halfway around the world but somehow forgot what flavour is. Somewhere along the way, our food system got… simplified. Not for our benefit, but for the benefit of the system itself — the trucks, the supply chains, the supermarkets, the spreadsheets.

From Healthier Soil To A Fairer Fork

Let’s be honest. The way we produce and consume food is broken. It’s a system that looks great on the surface, with supermarket shelves overflowing with produce from every corner of the globe, available any time of year. But when you dig a little deeper, you find a system built on a house of cards, and it’s costing us more than we think. Our industrial food system is a master of illusion. It presents abundance while creating scarcity—scarcity of nutrients in our food, of biodiversity in our fields, of topsoil on our farms, and of fairness for the people who grow it. It’s a system built on an extractive model, where value is pulled from the land, from communities, and from our own bodies, with little thought for the long-term consequences.

Fermentation as a Revolutionary Act

What if one of the quietest ways to resist our broken food system is simply… to let food sit? To watch it bubble, fizz, and transform — guided not by factories or corporations, but by microbes, time, and our own hands? Fermentation looks humble — a jar on the counter, a cabbage in salt, a whiff of something alive. But hidden in that jar is something radical: a way of reclaiming control, rebuilding community, and slowing down a world that’s moving too fast for its own good.

Part 4: A Cooperative Future for Public LoRaWAN

The dream of a global, public LoRaWAN network is a powerful one. While private LoRaWAN networks thrive for specific industrial and agricultural applications, the vision of a ubiquitous, low-cost network for tracking, sensing, and connecting the physical world remains just out of reach. We’ve seen two major attempts to build this future, each a fork in the road leading to a dead end. First came The Things Network (TTN), a noble, grassroots effort built on altruism. It did an admirable job, proving the power of a community-built network. But without a sustainable incentive model, it relied on the goodwill of gateway operators, a foundation that proved too fragile for global scale.

Part 3: From Degenerative to Regenerative

The Principles Are Sound After dissecting the broken models of the DePIN space, it would be easy to become cynical and dismiss the entire concept as a failed experiment. But that would be a mistake. The foundational principles of DePIN—of community-owned infrastructure, aligned incentives, and open access—are more powerful and necessary than ever. The failure is not in the vision; it is in the execution. The degenerative patterns I’ve observed are not inevitable. They are choices. They are the choices that lead down a path of techno-feudalism, where technology is used to centralise power, enforce scarcity, and ultimately render communities into surplus populations. It is time to choose a different path.

Part 2: DePIN's Fork in the Road

A Pattern Emerges The story of Helium, as I detailed in my first post, is not an anomaly. The slide from a grand vision of a “People’s Network” into a centrally-controlled system that primarily benefits its founders and a small handful of insiders is, unfortunately, a well-trodden path in the DePIN space. The issues of opaque governance, extractive tokenomics, and a disregard for the actual community that builds the network are not bugs; they are features of a flawed and deeply ingrained model.

Part 1: The Reality of DePIN

The Seductive Pitch The term DePIN, or Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Networks, carries an almost utopian promise. It paints a picture of a world where the essential physical networks we rely on—from wireless and mobile connectivity to mapping and sensor data—are built not by faceless corporations, but by us. It’s a vision of grassroots collaboration, where individuals are empowered to deploy hardware, share resources, and collectively own the infrastructure of tomorrow.

A New Charter for the Forest

Back in 1217, a group of rebellious barons forced King John to sign the Charter of the Forest. It was a revolutionary document for its time, a declaration that the forests of England were not the private hunting grounds of the king, but a vital resource for the common people. It protected their rights to graze their animals, collect firewood, and forage for food. It was, in essence, a charter for a forest commons.

The Contemplative Spirit

In the quiet hum of a working still, something more than alcohol is being produced. As the hours pass and the slow transformation from raw matter to refined essence unfolds, the distiller is offered a unique invitation: to be present, to pay attention, and to find a deeper meaning in the making. The previous articles in this series have explored the slowness, resourcefulness, and elemental connection inherent in distilling. We now arrive at the heart of the matter: the still as a mirror for the self, and the craft as a contemplative practice.

The Elemental Connection

In our modern lives, insulated by technology and concrete, it is easy to feel disconnected from the elemental forces that shape our world. We forget the soil that feeds us, the water that sustains us, and the fire that warms us. Yet, certain ancient crafts serve as a bridge, pulling us back into a direct and intimate dialogue with nature. Distillation, at its heart, is one such practice. It is more than a simple technique; it is a collaboration with the elements, a process where earth, water, fire, and air are consciously brought together to transform and purify. To stand before a still is to stand at the intersection of human craft and natural magic.