aron
@aronshelton
Designing and navigating various contextual arrangements with an enigmatic sense of hope. #wayfinder
aron
The limitations and possibilities of using computational models, specifically AI, in environmental inquiry and the implications of a systems view of the environment.
Linkclose attention inevitably facilitates transformation. Tsing calls this “the arts of noticing”, tactics for thinking without either the abstraction produced by quantification or deeply held assumptions of progress. If we are “agnostic about where we are going, we might look for what has been ignored”
“It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.“ - Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the
... See more
provocations and design
The fork on your plate isn’t inevitable—it’s propaganda. Its design has been polished by centuries of iteration, yes, but also by centuries of forgetting. We stopped asking why a fork looks the way it does because it became too familiar to question. It’s not a tool anymore; it’s a dogma.
But supernormal isn’t about inevitability. It’s about normalization. When something becomes so ubiquitous, so embedded in daily life, it disappears from view. That’s not just true for objects—it’s true for the systems we live by. Markets, money, time.
This quote from Elias Canetti, I think really solves what we're discussing: “A crowd exists as long as it has an unattainable goal. The image is acquired and there is nowhere else to go.” Setting off images allows crowds to condense their energy somewhere.
In order to imagine where the future is headed, let’s first lay out the three main steps of connection building to examine how the physical and digital worlds fare at each:
- Discovery : you find someone you want to meet, or that person finds you
- Connection : some initial contact is established
- Connection strengthening : further interactions
Joey DeBruin • The digital flip
The math is simple: more people are consuming more of everything than ever before, but there are very few hits of real scale. That means that many of us spend our time in niches, not in the center.
Variety and the long tail
“Because of the interconnectedness of all minds, affirming a plausible positive vision may be about the most sophisticated action any one of us can take.” -- Willis Harman