aron
@aronshelton
Designing and navigating various contextual arrangements with an enigmatic sense of hope. #wayfinder
aron
“Interesting paths are not repeatable, but they rhyme." Who are you aspiring to rhyme with? - Jackson Dahl
I always try to find the first-order terms or the second-order terms of everything. When I’m observing a system or a thing, I have a tangle of a web of ideas or knowledge in my mind. I’m trying to find, what is the thing that matters? What is the first-order component? How can I simplify it? How can I have a simplest thing that shows that thing,
... See moreIt doesn’t matter how much we summarize, at some point, effort is required. More summaries won’t automatically lead to more understanding.
Seth Godin • The Cliffs Notes paradox
The new technologist believes in the power of good critique. It is not hostile to interrogate each other’s ideas, products, or goals.
Despite the presumption that we're each in our own algorithmic bubbles, served up bespoke content — when something strikes a nerve, our networked lives ensure the signal travels instantaneously. It reaches all. Sometimes: the good. Often: the bad. And most likely of all: the ugly.
Matt Klein • Balenciaga, Sad Dogs & Provocative Marketing
There will always be designers to design the Hummers and the bumper stickers, and there will always be designers to make websites to propagate the warnings and promises of David Foster Wallace. But a new generation of designers has emerged, concerned with designing strategies to subvert this “natural default-setting” in which each person... See more
Kevin Slavin • Design as Participation
Animating Questions and Humans In The Loop
The questions become less like, “What will technology do in the future?" and more like, "What does human sensing do now?"
Seven thoughts on ritual:
Rituals are the feedback loops we construct to construct ourselves.
Rituals shape the medium of time.
Rituals orient us.
Rituals are protocols.
Ritual is a form of play.
Rituals take place in a world set apart.
Rituals make meaning.
We need ritual technology. Technology designed for ritual use. Why? Most of the software we use daily is designed to engagement-max. Social media feeds, loot boxes, compulsion loops, gang gang yes yes yes ice cream so good. You’re caught in a feedback loop with the algorithm, and you are the squishiest part of that loop. Ritual technology operates on a different timescale. Underneath the fast twitch of compulsion loops is the slow thrum of ritual. Elder feedback systems. An antidote to algorithmic engagement addiction?
The ‘tetrad’ or ‘laws of media:’
enhances: awareness of inclusive, structural process
obsolesces: dominance of logical method
reverses into: technology (hardware) becomes software
retrieves: metaphor, logos
‘Laws of Media: The New Science’ (Marshall and Eric McLuhan, 1988)
https://www.a16z.news/p/laws-of-new-media?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web