About Me

Some questions that organize my attention:

1. What if it were good tho? Almost nothing is actually designed. Even when a lot of design effort has gone into creating something, so many assumptions remain unquestioned that >90% of the design decisions were made by accident or copying other systems. I see design as beginning with the basic metaphors we use to construe the entire situation in which our design will be used.
2. Whose job is this? Blame is a confusion. But it matters to sort out exquisitely why exactly things went the way they did, so that we can bootstrap non-naive trust that we will be more capable of steering what matters to us going forward.
3. What needs to be said, even though it feels like it should go without saying? What’s obvious to one person is not obvious to another. Sometimes our best interpretations of what’s going on are overindexed on past threats, and we need a simple statement of the truth to make it obvious that those projections don’t fit the current reality.
4. Huh, it actually seems that way to you? A lot of conversations break down from people taking issue with each other’s words, rather than actually managing to imagine what the other person’s experience of the world is like, and then trying to figure out what the world-as-a-whole must be like in order for your experience and my experience to be true at the same time.
5. What does the larger whole want?

Active projects:

1. I’m working with Midjourney’s Collective Intelligence team to build systems that will help people have better conversations where they can get past otherwise-intractable stucknesses. Read the secret to co-gnosis for some broad gestures towards what we’re hoping to make possible.
2. I’m playing around with a project currently called simply “AI Chat But Good Tho“, which came out of recognizing that the default interfaces that people use to chat to LLMs are boring and not even really chat-like. It’s been very fun to conceive of the LLM as being one of the users of the software, not just part of it. I have some plots for how to turn this into a startup.
3. Researching memetics and cultural evolution. Read this one-pager on the evolution of consciousness for more on this, or this thread about memetics by my close collaborator Michael Smith.
4. Articulating the nature of trust. I had some big insights in 2020 about how trust works, and anticipated at the time that sharing them with the world would be a huge part of my life’s work. The Midjourney work excites me in part because it’s a chance to do that at scale, but I’m also doing it in small conversations and in writing. Feel free to reach out to interview me on your podcast or youtube channel!

Inactive recent projects:

1. Intend, is an app that helps people stay in touch with what matters to them, on a day-to-day basis, and act strategically & improvisationally. You can read about the philosophy here: intentionality, not productivity. As of early 2025, it’s on indefinite backburner, in that I’m not actively working on it. But you can still use it!
2. The Mating Dance: finding your center in courtship. Romance seemed like a great context in which to apply my Non-Naive Trust Dance framework, because even people who don’t have an obsession with creating groups with high amounts of collective consciousness, still often want to be very attuned and awake with their romantic partners, and in any case want to make sure they did proper due diligence before deciding whether to commit.
3. Experimental Church. “Maybe we can figure it out together” is one of the names of God. I’ve been exploring bringing people together in prayer, song, and worship, in a way that doesn’t require us to deny any obvious reality that we can tell for ourselves. So far the main thing I’ve learned is that I have a lot more praying to do.

I aim to be a visionary who also has his feet firmly on the ground, and I think I’m doing a pretty good job at it.

Older creations

Over to the right is the album I recorded in 2012. My public GitHub has a few things on it. I have a website called what if it were good tho? I ramble and dance and sing on YouTube, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends. I tweet on twitter and I have a bluesky account but haven’t used it much.

You can see a spreadsheet here of what I’m reading, including books I only barely crack open. I started this sheet when I began a new style of reading where I don’t assume I’ll finish every book I start. There are too many books for me to do that! But I want to track them all anyway.

If you’re new to my blog and trying to figure out what to read, I say start with my top posts, which is a good index with some brief descriptions of what posts are about.

Things people have said about me

“Malcolm is the most emotionally intelligent person I know who can articulate the thing he is doing when being emotionally intelligent” and also “the key thing I guess is to have strong opinions but at a sufficiently meta level. which is kinda your superpower?” — Ivan Vendrov

“I unsubscribe pretty ruthlessly and I’ve gotten consistent value from your writings since I subscribed in 2017.” — someone who reads my blog

“I don’t know the man well, but from observations one of Malcolm Ocean’s strongest skills is providing incredibly detailed and useful feedback” — @seconds_0

“Thanks for helping me to be a better human and leader. Your space holding allowed me be more vulnerable, to understand myself better rationally and be more in touch with myself emotionally. Often fascinated how you integrate that so well. I feel more loving because of you.” — Oliver Sauter

“my life has gotten a lot better since I met you and I’d hazard to say that’s no coincidence” — @maybegray

“This is why you’re my top 3 less hated rationalists.” — Silver V

“I’m a long time admirer of your yearly review posts – thank you for making and sharing them! They inspire me to take on my own self-experiments and develop processes for self-improvement.” — another anonymous blog reader

“Malcolm, being friends with you means one is constantly examining their own thoughts and perceptions. How could I not evolve?” — a friend in university

“You and I share the humour of little children, but at the same time the scheming of super villains. Because of this we bond, finding the most simple thing hilarious, and we plot on how to expand it. You have wit and cunning beyond your years, and you are very selfless.” — a friend in high school

“Malcolm is amazing alpha tester.” — Conor White-Sullivan

“Malcolm you are such a vibe. Holy cow.” — Robbie Stainton

“God said ‘I need a really, really good designer. Especially for words.’ And thus Malcolm Ocean was born.” — Michael Smith

Connect with me

Follow me on Twitter, or shoot me an email.
(I’m not interested in guest posts or promotions, but if you’ve got a more personal desire to collaborate with me then check out my Work With Me page and get in touch.)