I drew the I Ching again this morning, sipping my cup of cacao in the quiet of my car—my makeshift office, roastery, and ideation lab all rolled into one. The oracle gave me 29, The Abysmal, and 58, The Joyous, for the third time this week on an even day. Tuesday, Thursday, and now Saturday. There’s a pattern here, a rhythm in the chaos, and I can’t help but feel it’s nudging me toward something deeper. The judgment for The Abysmal says, “If you are sincere, you have success in your heart, and whatever you do succeeds.” And The Joyous? “Success. Perseverance is favorable.” It’s like the universe is whispering: keep going, even when it’s messy.
This reading ties directly into what’s been swirling in my head—and my projects—lately. I’ve been wrestling with production challenges in the Agroverse initiative under the TrueSight DAO ecosystem. Our manufacturers in Brazil are unreliable. Pricing fluctuates, process control is a mess, and timing? Forget about it. It reminds me of the Nvidia GPU chip bottleneck—how one company’s production can hold an entire industry ransom. AI giants like Google, Meta, Tesla, and Amazon aren’t sitting idly by; they’re ramping up in-house R&D to build their own chips. Key observation: when external dependencies choke you, the answer isn’t to negotiate harder—it’s to internalize control.
So, I’m taking a page from their playbook. This morning, I shared a thought in the TrueSight DAO Beer Hall channel: let’s ship all 683 kilograms of cacao beans to San Francisco. Bring it in-house. Why? Control. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- Tighter grip on the production process.
- Driving down unit costs through economies of scale.
- Layering in AI-driven manufacturing automation—more on that in a sec.
- Offering cacao beans at competitive prices along the West Coast.
Let’s break this down a bit. For roasting, I’ve got access to a commercial roaster at Val’s place that handles 3 kilograms per batch. With 499 kilograms to process, we’re looking at roughly 150 roasts. Cracking and winnowing? That’s trickier. Right now, I’m doing it out of my car—yes, my car—because the equipment from Rusty is too bulky. I’m eyeing a smaller winnower on Amazon (check it here: https://a.co/d/iM42bw6). My goal is whole, uncracked beans, not shattered nibs. Most machines crush everything to bits, which tells me either the beans are over-roasted or the tech isn’t right. I might just 3D-print my own winnower—more control, again.
For ceremonial cacao, I’m switching to a pulverizer for powdered form. Two minutes per batch versus four hours for solid bars? No-brainer. And premium dark chocolate? Let’s start small—onboard one store in SF, gauge sales volume, then scale. I’ve got a few spots in mind—Will’s place in Gilroy, Dragon’s in Mount Shasta, maybe a commercial kitchen.
Stepping back, I’m seeing a bigger picture. Bringing production in-house isn’t just about cost savings; it’s a chance to dive deep into IoT tech. I’m already tinkering with assembled boards and 3D-printed components. Imagine a custom winnower for whole, uncracked beans—something no competitor offers. Everyone else sells nibs. We could stand out by preserving the bean’s integrity, letting the unique taste profile of each farm shine through.
This ties into something I’ve been mulling over lately: chaos theory. I’ve been reading up on it, and it’s clicking with how I’ve intuitively built TrueSight DAO. Early on, I saw the DAO as a collective gathering of shards—insights in people’s heads, spare resources in backyards—pieced together into a coherent project. That’s fractal, right? Chaos theory talks about dissipative structures, where turbulence (new signals from participants) doesn’t destabilize the system; it elevates it to a higher equilibrium. I’ve always welcomed that turbulence in the DAO. It’s not noise; it’s growth. And when you string those higher equilibriums together, it starts looking like a Fibonacci sequence—spiraling upward.
Here’s a wilder thought. Working out of my car—constraining myself to this tiny space—reminds me of Boyle’s Law and the Koch set. Mathematically, the Koch set shows you can have an infinitely long perimeter within a finite area. What if I apply that to my work in the DAO? Small space, outsized impact. Infinite distance in a tiny circle. Could that fractal principle shape how we expose the taste profiles of each farm in our supply chain? Or how we use blockchain for transparency—going deeper, more detailed, more infinite than anyone else?
Reflections for the day: I think TrueSight DAO is stumbling onto a mathematical framework I’ve felt but never articulated. Maybe it’s tied to insights from psilocybin rituals during equinoxes and solstices—fractals are everywhere when you’re out here among nomads and hippies. Chaos isn’t just a theory; it’s a lived experience. And in our cacao journey, opting for the fractal—diving infinitely into the details of each bean, each farm, each process—might be how we differentiate. Not generic supply chain transparency, but a Koch-set-level depth that no one else touches.
So, here’s my question to you: What’s your Koch set? Where in your life or work can you take a small space and stretch its impact to infinity? I’m curious—drop a thought below or cast your own oracle (https://oracle.truesight.me/?reading=6-7-8-6-7-8) and see what the universe nudges you toward.
- Technology
- Agriculture
- Blockchain