Brian Thomas Clark

I feel alienated from people that believe technology can solve loneliness. To me, effective accelerationism is doomerism disguised as optimism. The belief that things won’t change and the belief that if they do change, through technology, it will be for the better are both sides of the same coin. In fact, just as entropy is an arrow of time, I... See more

Now in his mid-30s, Chayka questions whether the nearly endless availability of cultural content to younger generations has made them value it less, compared to the effort it once took to discover what you might love. But a decade or more ago, I was wondering the same thing about people his age. Before that, perhaps older people thought the same... See more

In writing this history of the 21st century, Blank Space, I noticed that one important marker of our era is the cultural success of widely loathed people , such as Paris Hilton, Kanye West, and Donald Trump. They all figured out a powerful media hack for which there is no known antidote: Sociopathic behavior spurs the media to write lots of... See more

As anything scales too effectively - from fashion to restaurants to music - the market opens for more non-scalable alternatives. Once Starbucks opens on every block, many of us crave the artisanal coffee shop. Once our favorite Italian restaurant becomes a chain of three, we grow tired of it. Why? First, so much of what we buy and do is tied up in... See more

Value-based marketing:

“Marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. This is a very noisy world. And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear what we want them to know about us. One of the greatest jobs of marketing the universe has ever seen is Nike.... See more

Our Cringe = Sublime SEED touched on some of this — simply opting out of performance becomes an act of quiet rebellion. Going for a walk without posting about it. Writing a thought without tweeting it. Wearing an outfit without wondering how it will look on Instagram. These small acts chip away at the scaffolding of digital humiliation culture.

Every carefully tended knowledge garden is a fingerprint of consciousness: A unique archipelago of interests, insights and inspirations that could never be replicated, even by the most sophisticated AI.

By thoughtfully collecting and connecting the ideas that move us, we not only create an invaluable external memory system (which can be great for... See more

In “This Is for Everyone,” Berners-Lee argues that the web’s lack of compassion is “a design issue ” that can be fixed. “There’s still time,” he writes, “to build machines that serve the human,” that “promote the dignity of our fragile species on this isolated globe.” It’s a moving vision. But it’s hard to reconcile with the entropy of today’s... See more

Boredom is when you do the things that make you feel like you have life under control. Not being bored is why you always feel busy, why you keep “not having time” to take a package to the post office or work on your novel. You do have time—you just spend it on your phone. By refusing to ever let your brain rest, you are choosing to watch other... See more