aron
@aronshelton
Designing and navigating various contextual arrangements with an enigmatic sense of hope. #wayfinder
aron
In a long-context world, maybe the organizations that benefit from AI will not be the ones with the most powerful models, but rather the ones with the most artfully curated contexts.
You Exist In The Long Context
“Beauty is the mystery of life. It’s not in the eye, it’s in the mind—and it’s because of awareness of perfection in the mind. As a matter of fact, I think that we see perfection and then we see beauty, you know, that they’re different. Like I see a, I look down a valley and I think, it’s just perfect. Perfection is easier to see than beauty. You
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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?
Edison did not look for problems in need of solutions; he looked for solutions in need of modification.
It 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
We enjoy media by ourselves, but we also *use* media to communicate. Am I being spoken to by the piece of media, OR is the media speaking for me? In this era, the latter is increasingly more relevant because of the ability to share the extra context around the media (the fandom). It’s not that the piece of media has to have a particularly salient... See more
Media Saturation & Having Media Speak For Us
Good protocols, in short, manage to catalyze good enough outcomes with respect to a variety of contending criteria, via surprisingly limited and compact interventions.
Venkatesh Rao • The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols
“I found a piece you wrote in the footnote of a book that I admire.” In other words, it took effort for us to find each other. And much like an inefficient light bulb gives off heat, folk search algorithms have the byproduct of context.
In the end, maybe that’s the only definition of authenticity that doesn’t fall apart under close inspection: not a... See more
In the end, maybe that’s the only definition of authenticity that doesn’t fall apart under close inspection: not a... See more
Elan Ullendorff • Folk search engines
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?"