language
As we are fed more content, we are pushed deeper into algorithmic niches. In return, we are encouraged to engage with more extreme and polarizing identifiers because it is more labelable, more indexable by the machine — the creation of the “Island". On this island, the slang, in-jokes, and archetypes which emerge as a community develops in... See more
a beautiful passage from sublime’s innaugural zine on why language matters, in the context of building a different web.
How Language Shapes Thought | Lera Boroditsky
youtube.comSometimes you want to say things, and you’re missing an idea to make them with, and missing a word to make the idea with. In the beginning was the word. That’s how somebody tried to explain it once. Until something is named, it doesn’t exist.
The more powerful communication technologies become, the more people will fight wars over words instead of territory. Language, when wielded at scale, is among man's most powerful weapons.
The world is built by those who can think, but it is ran by those who can articulate.
To give birth, to nourish,
to bear and not to own,
to act and not lay claim,
to lead and not to rule:
this is mysterious power.
to bear and not to own,
to act and not lay claim,
to lead and not to rule:
this is mysterious power.
Maria Popova • A Small Dark Light: Ursula K. Le Guin on the Legacy of the Tao Te Ching and What It Continues to Teach Us About Personal and Political Power 2,500 Years...
“His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origin of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace
― J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace