digital life

the decline of third places means there are fewer places to just hang out and bump into each other. Other economic and social factors have surely contributed to this change, but I suspect that it’s largely due to the new third place—the one in the palm of our hands. We hang out online, which means we don’t hang out at all.

It’s not just movies and TV, of course — we’re all aghast at how much time we spend on devices, consuming content , whatever that means. Reading and watching and posting and shopping, always shopping for things and ideas and comfort and distraction. Surely this endless marketplace will turn up something that satisfies us at some point! I complained... See more

AI 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.

In order to make room for this weird, this liminal zone of possibility, we need to get off the grid-like map of quantized utility and grow a culture instead. We do this together by forming clusters of human weirdness; groups of people with varying forms of space, voltage, and potential between them. We need a cohort, a rabble...what Jews call a... See more

Keepsakes—like luxury watches or rare books—are already finding their place in the second-hand market, attracting collectors and enthusiasts of contemporary relics. In the future, digital keepsakes could also acquire invaluable worth. Imagine, for example, a Friend pendant worn by a major celebrity or a groundbreaking scientist. This small object,... See more

AI might take over some of our jobs, but I believe it will also lead to a major resurgence of arts and crafts. It might mobilise people in new ways. New luddite rebellion? Bring it on! Not only will we need creativity to find purpose in life (because what are humans for then?), we will also come to cherish the handmade with a renewed sense of... See more

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

So which direction are we moving in? Down the same old path – where identity is just content, content is monetised, and monetisation demands a steady drip of oversharing and low-key emotional collapse? Or could we actually start to build new ways of being online? Ones that prioritise people as people, and not just scrolling spectacle?

Until then,... See more