Brian Thomas Clark
@btc
Strategist/Producer/Collector
Digital Experience Director @risd
Brian Thomas Clark
Social media encourages us to think of every thought we have as interesting; it makes everyone else feel accessible, and therefore disposable; it exposes us to endless bad actors, hardening our hearts and compelling us to suspect the worst; it rewards vulnerability, but also incentivizes defensiveness; and, most cogently for the purposes of this... See more
Dirt: What was 'replying'?
What was 'replying'?
Shouting into the void that answers back.
Mariah Kreutter on what it means to “reply” in 2023.
dirt.fyi email
10/9/2023
We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests... See more
nytimes.com
culture25 and
The Wisdom and Prophecy of Jimmy Carter’s ‘Malaise’ Speech
The trends he saw emerging two generations ago now bear their poisonous fruit in our body politic.
Carter’s central insight was that even if the country’s political branches could deliver peace and prosperity, they could not deliver community and belonging. Our nation depends on pre-political commitments to each other, and in the absence of those pre-political commitments, the American experiment is ultimately in jeopardy.
Some companies have sought to alleviate the strain by offering sessions in mindfulness. But the problem with scheduling meditation as part of that working day is that it becomes yet another task at which you can succeed or fail. Those who can’t clear out their mind need to try harder – and the very exercises intended to ease anxiety can end up
... See moreAI images remove viewers from the complex conditions of life in favor of commercially or politically expedient fantasy, all while packaging this fantasy in a realist mode that makes it less ideologically suspicious, easier to take at face value.
It’s the Real Thing! | Leo Kim
But the curation was never about financial reward. It was “there's a small unscalable business here about taste, that people rely on and really like, and everyone who works on it doesn't make very much money, but they're very cool.” We just don't live in a world where that's an acceptable way to live. There's a lot of economic pressures and again,... See more
Dirt: Complicated Culture
taste and Media & Culture
Second, by not letting algorithms decide what deserves your attention. If you want to feel creatively and intellectually alive, stop mindlessly consuming the internet and start mindfully curating it. You need a space away from social media's compulsive rhythm, where your ideas can grow at their own pace.
Sari Azout • What Matters in the Age of AI Is Taste
making-meaning and taste
II. Process
I overheard something nice around the office a few months ago.
Speaks to a lot of the nature of work projects, strategy, possibly life too (it’s certainly true in therapy, minus the digital part). Essentially it’s a more clever-sounding way of saying... See more
I overheard something nice around the office a few months ago.
“ You don ’ t reach a moment of digital transformation . You just keep transforming.”
Speaks to a lot of the nature of work projects, strategy, possibly life too (it’s certainly true in therapy, minus the digital part). Essentially it’s a more clever-sounding way of saying... See more
Judgement always wins
Salmon Theory 12/3/21
It can be hard to encourage people to speak candidly in front of the CEO, but Duckett says she has a go-to question she “always” asks employees to get them talking.
“What would be the one thing that you’d change if you were [in my shoes], like, ‘Finally I get to be the CEO and I can get something done’?”
By asking that one question, you “immediately... See more
“What would be the one thing that you’d change if you were [in my shoes], like, ‘Finally I get to be the CEO and I can get something done’?”
By asking that one question, you “immediately... See more