{"author":{"username":"farcaster","displayName":"Farcaster","fid":1},"timestamp":"2026-11-13T01:24:23.000Z","text":"$1024 IN PRIZES FOR VIDEOS ON ALBION'S SEED\n\nNext up in our interactive book club: Albion's Seed, by David Hackett Fischer.\n\nWhen was America founded? Most say 1776. But that was just the Declaration of Independence. The actual start was arguably 1607, when Jamestown was founded. That was the first permanent English settlement in North America.\n\nNow, why were the early proto-Americans leaving England back then to travel thousands of miles away to found new startup societies like Jamestown, Virginia? Some came for profit, just like startups today. Others were seeking what is today called \"religious freedom\", like the Puritans, who arrived in Massachusetts from 1630 on. What the Puritans meant was also *political* freedom — because God was the organizing principle of communities at that time, much as the State became in the 20th century. Thus, to be religiously free meant to be independent of others, to be a sovereign community.\n\nIn other words, some of these groups came to America for money, while others came for sovereignty...much like cryptocurrency today! And they were exiting a polarized England that was sliding towards what we now call the English Civil War. Perhaps also much like cryptocurrency today, with millions digitally exiting a polarized America for something different.\n\nAnyway, hopefully this whets your appetite to learn more about the four tribes that founded America (Puritans, Cavaliers, Borderers, and Quakers) and why they came. Because the way they peacefully left England to build their own self-sovereign societies abroad may be highly relevant for the years to come. Read Scott Alexander's book review here ( https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-seed/) and then you're ready for the task.\n\nYOUR TASK\nMake a short vertical video with a 9:16 aspect ratio on Albion's seed. Your goal is to make it good enough that someone else would repost your video on social media as the single best educational video they've seen on Albion's Seed. Feel free to use AI, but please don't make it look or sound like AI slop :)\n\nWe'll give $512 for first place and $128 each for up to four runners-up, subject to whether there are enough good submissions. Winners are paid in USDC to their public Farcaster wallet addresses by default. To enter, reply to this post with your vertical video. This prize runs for three days exactly from this post's timestamp.\n\nIf you only have an hour, read Slate Star Codex's review of the book[1]. Then flip through the whole thing here[2], and use AI to learn about it too. Reply to this post with your video; the best will earn a prize!\n\n[1]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-seed/\n[2]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195069056","images":["https://imagedelivery.net/BXluQx4ige9GuW0Ia56BHw/8b948f1a-456e-4f9d-e59b-6a43ea3cae00/original"],"farcaster":"https://farcaster.xyz/farcaster/0x39c77976","firefly":"https://firefly.social/post/farcaster/0x39c77976ededc0946c4ee7e9e6bd25b4160265c3"}