problems

If you have a theory that’s been working pretty well for a while — it made good predictions, it solved real problems, it explained a lot of mysteries — you should stick with it in the face of apparent contradictions, at least for a while. When you hit a snag with a reliable theory, think “maybe it’s complicated” instead of “oh it’s wrong”. It may s... See more

A sense of dread as I see this. We are slowly seeing the end of the open web. - AI search powered experiences take away clicks from high quality publishers in aggregate + - Crawlbots from AI companies not playing by the rules leading to - High quality publishers are looking to get paid *now* for "the value of their data" to compensate for traffi... See more

Exploring the internet together should be like exploring a vast old library with your friends. Wandering down different shelves, skimming the pages that catch your eye, and occasionally one of you hollers in a whispering voice, "come check this out!"

Here’s a law of rule-making: you are always in an existential crisis, whether or not you know it.

One option is to recuse ourselves from social responsibility. One could work at Facebook for the free lunches or join a low-tech commune in the woods. Another is uprising: shouting grandiose calls to burn society down, lighting symbolic bonfires to make the revolution seem real. But a third option, the most difficult, is to lean into the challenge ... See more

Systemic problems require systemic solutions. We can recognize that technology is critical to our future without replicating the narrow techno-utopianism of the past. From the beginning, a new left techno-optimism must be willing to engage with social justice, politics, and history in a way that past techno-utopians have not.

Over the past two generations, such big questions have fallen increasingly to small, local governments. Why? Because our national governments have collectively failed to build the planetary institutions necessary to solve Earth’s biggest problems, from climate change to pandemics, corruption to poverty. They have also failed to protect democracy wi... See more