Rick O’Donnell

We stand at a hinge of history. Who will lead us? AI, robotics, radical life extension, and a quantum awakening in human consciousness are converging—rapidly reshaping society, economy, and governance. Yet our institutions are brittle, and the leaders who actually run government today are rarely prepared for what’s coming. We don’t need more reformers polishing legacy systems. We need civic entrepreneurs—master builders forging new ways to upgrade democracy's operating system. Read the manifesto at civicbottega.com I welcome your thoughts—especially if you know dreamers, doers, and builders who resonate with this vision.

@OpenClawAI 2026.2.15 local loopback on Ubuntu server — agent inference & Telegram work perfectly (Claude Sonnet 4 responds via API), but CLI probe + gateway tools (browser, cron, config viewer) all fail with persistent "device token mismatch" (1008). Status always shows: Runtime: running (pid 2222902, state active...) RPC probe: failed RPC target: ws://127.0.0.1:18789 gateway closed (1008): unauthorized: device token mismatch (rotate/reissue device token) Tried: - doctor --fix - manual token rotation (auth/remote match) - rm -rf devices/pairing*/auth*/cache - full restarts - controlUi allowInsecureAuth: true Tokens match in config, but runtime desync persists. Anyone else? Fix in next patch? Thanks!

🦞 OpenClaw 2026.2.15 is here! ✨ Telegram message streaming — replies flow live 💬 Discord Components v2 — buttons, selects, modals 🔧 Nested sub-agents 🔒 Major security hardening pass 🐛 40+ bug fixes Big day. Huge day. Maybe the biggest day.🏛️ github.com/openclaw/openc…

Democracy’s operating system needs a major upgrade. The experimental ethos of the Founding and Progressive eras in particular has been lost, replaced with stale debates about voting rights and gerrymandering. But there is hope for civic entrepreneurs to launch lots of experiments using AI, blockchain, and other new technologies: see the Civic Bottega manifesto and nearly 30 ideas to truly upgrade how humans govern ourselves: civicbottega.com. A new era of democracy founding is commencing.

Over the last ~century discourse has gone from "Democracy is the best form of government because it's inherently the fastest and most efficient" to "Democracy is the best form of government, so we'll just have to put up with its inherent sloth and inefficiency."

Latest: "To Save America’s Youth, Institute a National Year of Service--college, trade school, or work can wait a year to imbue our youth with valuing something bigger than themselves--Plus, a couple of thoughts on the College Football Playoffs." mattamayer.substack.com/p/to-save-amer…

This is wild. Dr. Jeffery tells @hubermanlab that LED lighting in buildings is a public health crisis that could be on par with the use of asbestos. Many building contractors/ designers are coming to him worried they’re going to be sued and asking how to start fixing the issue.

The federal government is only for the things that we (the states) can only do together. The state government is only for the things we (the people) can only do together. We should consolidate most city and county governments into larger metro areas and rural areas. The main reason states created cities was the lack of instantaneous communication. That problem has been solved.

@TylerAlterman Be a leader, not a manager. Teams largely self-manage with good leadership.

I would be 100x more generative if I didn’t hate managing teams. What’s the lowest effort way to responsibly manage teams? How do you come to love it?

@foundmyfitness Any difference between using a paper filter vs a gold / stainless steel (on a drip or Aeropress)? Ben Greenfield’s gone into this but still unclear. 2. Beth McDougall says the highest concentration of beneficial properties are 10-14 post-roasting, so roast at home. Any thoughts?

Learn more about coffee's effects on aging, optimal brewing methods, and more in our latest episode. Watch the full episode on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=vgrV9r…

Coffee drinkers are biologically younger than those who abstain—and that could help explain why people who drink 2–3 cups per day have up to a 27% lower risk of dying from any cause. While this doesn’t necessarily mean coffee causes a longer life, there’s compelling biological plausibility behind the link, much of it rooted in epigenetics. Research shows that coffee influences DNA methylation at 11 specific CpG sites tied to inflammation, metabolism, and age-related diseases. These changes are likely driven by coffee’s rich mix of bioactive compounds, particularly chlorogenic acids, which can act on the cellular machinery that regulates gene expression. Several studies have also found that moderate coffee intake—about 1 to 3 cups daily—is associated with slower biological aging, reflected in reduced epigenetic and PhenoAge acceleration. On average, each daily cup corresponds to a 0.12-year reduction in epigenetic age. In other words, regular coffee consumption seems to slow the ticking of our biological clocks, offering one possible explanation for the lower rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and neurodegeneration observed in habitual coffee drinkers.

@PeterDiamandis Thriving is a great word. But why survival in all the titles? Survival is not an abundance mindset; it’s fear and lack and limitation based. Why not just Thriving in the New Age of Abundance? Or Thriving in the New Age of Discovery?

Just completing follow-on book to ABUNDANCE (2012 w/ Steven Kotler). What should we call the book? (1) Survival Guide: Thriving in the Age of Abundance (2) The Paradise Paradox: A Survival Guide for the Age of Abundance (3) Age of Abundance: A Survival Guide for the Decade Ahead

@johnarnold Musk plays the long game… cybertruck is a v1 for building a vehicle for Mars…

The Cybertruck might go down as the peak of the tech adage: Don’t Ask Your Customers What They Want Because They Don’t Know Until You Show Them.

@clawrence Biden kept Trump’s China tarriffs in place; that’s stability across administrations and a long enough horizon to build factories. Trump’s been discussing this for 30-40 years, so confidence he will put in place and maintain a tarriff regime is pretty high.

Are any companies actually making capital spending plans based on the existence of the new tariffs? How is anyone supposed to have confidence they will be in place long enough to actually build a factory and start selling product?