dreaming of a better internet

An Albert Einstein quote: “Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times since he never gets to see or hear anything else.” Even though on the Internet,... See more

people still carve out community in the most hostile of places and subvert platforms to create space for human-first desires. We create solidarity infrastructure out of text chains, subvert government control through form submissions, and carve intimate sanctuaries in the comment sections and profiles of algorithmically controlled wastelands. We... See more

Our modest goal with Substack is to help accelerate and amplify the advent of the culture future through a better media system. Culture is not just about getting what you want; it is about learning what to want. It shapes our values, beliefs, identity, taste, and how we relate to other people. And in turn, we shape it, when we choose what to pay... See more

That's the thing with the internet. It is not a singular place: the internet is made up by many internets. Some are connected, and some are not. This makes it hard to talk about the internet because your internet is unlikely to be similar to mine. Even when we visit the same social site, we experience different worlds. Where D sees a subcategory of... See more

Bluesky acts more like a particularly large Discord server--a place to socialize, bullshit, banter, and kill time--than it does like a proper Twitter replacement. For many people I think this is fine; I’m not sure how much the world needs a “Twitter replacement” anyway. But the distinction is still important. Part of what’s made Twitter so

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