11: Philosophy, DAO’s, and Re-Defining a City // Citizens Series #4 – David

This is the fourth episode of our Citizen’s Series. This series of episodes give all CityDAO Citizens, an opportunity to get to know each other a little bit more and have a more meaningful discussion about topics and ideas that can’t be explained fully in our discord server. If you’re still not a part of the CityDAO Discord Server, please join today and freely pick a channel of your choice. We are overjoyed to inform everyone that our CityDAO Discord has grown from 7,000 to 33,000 people, which is truly amazing.

Our guest for today is David, a CityDAO Citizen who has also been elected as one of the CityDAO Council. He is a lawyer who has spent a lot of time in China. Some of the main issues and topics that Eric and David talked about in this podcast are education, voting, the concept of CityDAO University, space as a concept, redefining a city, David’s vision for CityDAO, and many more.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

• 4:39 Having studied Chinese philosophy for most of his life and lived in China for a long time, David believes that the interconnection of cities is a western idea. From the Chinese perspective, cities may not be involved and connected with each other and there’s nothing wrong with that.
• 8:48 For 15 years, David lived in China and he enumerates some of the differences between living in China and the US.
• 12:26 Being in China for a long time, David does not believe that there is no freedom in China.
• 17:03 David shares his own concept of a city.
• 18:40 There are some things that David has shared with the CityDAO council about his idea of a city.
• 23:50 David discusses what he is currently working on in CityDAO.
• 25:22 When it comes to voting, David and the other council members have created two types of voting. The first one is the CIP or the CityDAO Improvement Proposal and the other one is the GIP or the Guild Improvement Proposal.
• 30:51 David clarifies that his different viewpoints and beliefs have nothing to do with his administration as a CityDAO council member.
• 32:37 At 15 years old, David became interested in Dao De Jing. David shares his background story as a lawyer in New York and as a professor of law in China. He also has a successful theater group in China.
• 37:00 For 6 years, David has been teaching law full-time at an international university in China.
• 38:16 David talks about one of his most favorite legal rules, which is called Dying Breath or Dying Declaration.
• 39:14 Currently, David is finishing his Master’s Thesis and his topic is using Daoism as a metaphysical construct to discuss the metaverse.
• 42:56 According to David, CityDAO is working within the confines of the law.
• 46:44 For David, there is a common theme between law and theater.
• 52:06 The biggest takeaway that David gets from working with CityDAO is that an issue can be brought into completion with a single-minded purpose.

Key Points from the Interview:

1. “If for CityDAO, we wanted to develop a city, I’ve never thought of that as just CityDAO buying a plot of land, putting up a bunch of buildings, making roads and saying this is CityDAO city number 1, because to me that’s such a blank canvass, there’s no artistry to that, there’s no culture to that, there’s no unifying principle, it’s just people in a space.”
2. “One of the great things about CityDAO is that we are working within the confines of the law.”

Resources Mentioned: