Agalia Tan
By the eighteenth century, a new ideology was taking form, especially in Britain, that “greed is good” (to use a recent summary formulation), because greed spurs a society’s efforts and inventiveness. By giving vent to greed, the logic goes, societies can best harness the insatiable ambitions, great energies and ingenuity of their citizens. While g
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
when creating vector, i thought of...
the zine theme is bypassing the invisible hand. When Adam Smith first came up with the metaphor of the invisible hand of the market, he was referring to how individuals acting in self-interest could promote good for the public. But what this was also an argument to allow market forces to play out.
Today, the invisible hand has our heads turned, and has placed efficiency on a pedestal. What results is a society characterised by clockwork.
Everything is clockwork.
- My favorite part of the research process is figuring out “who knows this audience better than they know themselves”
if your audience is parents, talk to teachers. they will give you better insight than parents themselves. - It’s the rent you pay to occupy space in my brain until this problem is nailed to your satisfaction. Sometimes I’ll do focused, dedicated work on the task. At other times I’ll let my brain do its subconscious thing, a looser more associative form of thinking. I’ll be thinking about it at some level on every dog walk and every bus journey. Eventuall... See more
from How the work really gets done
- Every collector was someone explicitly asking to be part of something I’d made. It felt exciting.
from What if you gave yourself the gift of inner acceptance?
when creating vector, i thought of...
I really want this to be for vector too :) For those that seek us out, or stumble upon us and find us a treasure trove
- The highest form of leverage is reputation.
from Brain Food: Necessary Virtues
- The thing that’s vexing you: is it a situation or a problem?
Problems have solutions. If we care enough, we can find a way to solve a problem, but it might cost more money, require more effort or involve more risk than we’d prefer. If we’re ready to ease some of the constraints, that problem might go away.
Situations don’t have solutions. That’s why ... See morefrom Inverting the vex
- I notice we tend to talk about challenger brands from the implicit position of ‘Blimey! Who would have guessed that would work?!’ Yet from the very first second you hear a good challenger idea, it’s screamingly obvious when it’s gonna slay⁵. The whole challenger approach IS JUST ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE BOOK OF CONVENTIONAL WISDOM INNIT.
- “A lot of mistakes come from copying people playing a different game than you.”
from Brain Food: Perfection is Impossible
- the more we have the confidence and ability to make things from what we already have, the less we feed the capitalist system that doesn’t care about us or the people making our stuff or the planet that our rampant consumerism is actively making uninhabitable.
from Redefining "Handy" and Learning How to Make Things