Curation

as the amount of slop increases — whether human or AI generated — the difficulty in finding the right stuff to read is only increasing

The problem - and the reason the Vibe Coding Paradox comes up - is because we live in an age where it is possible to hack our way to attention without having to do the hard work needed to build trust.

With that, we misunderstand attention as value. But without trust, it really isn’t.

In an age of mass production, curation and taste matter more.

AI... See more

So when we wonder where all the websites have gone, know it’s the curators we’re nostalgic for because the curators showed us the best the web had to offer once upon a time. And the curators— the tenders, aggregators, collectors, and connectors— can bring us back to something better. Because it’s still out there, we just have to find it.

Here’s the... See more

Museums act as filters for cultural abundance. Only so much can be kept within museum storerooms or displayed in exhibitions. Limited word counts on exhibition texts require the winnowing down of very large topics to the small and essential. Many core museum functions, from the selection of what objects and information should be kept through to... See more

That an individual can him- or herself shape the way people understand the world is not itself radically new; however, concomitant with the rise in data has been what Clay Shirky has called a “cognitive surplus” (Shirky, 2010), whereby the connection and aggregation of humanity via the network also makes it possible to aggregate humankind’s time... See more

So that, I think, is the role of information curators: They are our curiosity sherpas, who lead us to things we didn’t know we were interested in until we, well, until we are. Until we pay attention to them — because someone whose taste and opinion we trust points us to them, and we integrate them with our existing pool of resources, and they... See more

Then there’s curation theater.

Posting endless ‘favorite reads’ lists composed entirely of current bestsellers. Ticks the boxes, but doesn’t quite reveal taste. Reposting LinkedIn hot takes, adding cute hashtags but not really contributing much commentary

CFC: What advice would you give to aspiring curators just starting their careers?

JA: I would say: cultivate a practice rooted in curiosity, listening, and long-term commitment. Curating is not only about articulating ideas, it is about building the conditions for others to create, experiment, and be heard. This requires patience, care, and the... See more

Technology treats the process of consuming and the process of creating as distinctly different, when the reality is that for our brains, the process of absorbing a book is not all too different from the process of producing one. We are always seeking new connections, combining and recombining old ideas to produce new ones. So why is it that we... See more