Our Times
The concept of efficiency — how much one can accomplish per unit of time (or per dollar, etc.) — requires a quantitative numerator as well as a denominator. It requires a metric. Therefore, it tells us nothing about results we cannot quantify or measure. When we gear our society around efficiency, we produce more and more of the measurable, while... See more
The British writer Robert Colville says we are living through ‘the Great Acceleration’, and like Sune, he argues it’s not simply our tech that’s getting faster – it’s almost everything. There’s evidence that a broad range of important factors in our lives really are speeding up: people talk significantly faster now than they did in the 1950s, and
... See moreJohann Hari • Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention
By way of contrast, the ideal of limitlessness consumption serves the modern economy quite well, but it does not serve the person well at all. [2] This ideal imparts to us all a spirit of scarcity that darkens our experience: not enough time, not enough attention, not enough capacity to care. But upon what does this spirit feed? It feeds, in part,
... See moreL. M. Sacasas • The Art of Living
This is the era of no good choices. Take schooling, for example. Keeping children home robs them of education and socialization. It scars their futures, steals their joys. It makes it impossible for their parents to work, or even to rest. But sending them to school endangers their health, and that of their teachers and their families. The argument
... See moreEzra Klein • There Are No Good Choices
I’m afraid many now have no capacity to even understand the concept of there being a simulacrum. The digiverse is effectually flattened out into what people see as reality. There are now so many ways we interact through screens and with pixels that the difference no longer seems to matter. Think, people really are willing to hand things over to... See more
Nicholas Smithsubstack.comSchirrmacher nannte es den digitalen Zwilling : Bei jeder Transaktion unterstellt das System den Akteuren eine maximal egoistische, maximal nutzenorientierte Gesinnung. Diese Konzepte, die aus der nicht-kooperativen Spieltheorie des Kalten Krieges stammen, leben von einer größtmöglichen Paranoia: Niemand ist, wer er vorgibt zu sein, und die
... See moreNils Minkmar • Kate, Moskau Und X: Wir Haben Ein Ego-Problem
Narratives may not be adequate for understanding the complex reality that confronts us, but they may nonetheless be necessary to get us to do act responsibly in the face of that reality. In other words, we’re now operating at a scale for which our most basic cognitive tool may no longer be adequate.