provocations

Memes may dominate how we communicate online, but in the last few years, their rapid spread has also necessitated the birth of a parallel, shadow ecosystem, where the best ideas are paradoxically harder to find. Not everyone wants their ideas to go viral anymore. One friend writes a newsletter that he asks people not to share around. Another... See more

Normal behavior is forgotten. Only weird behavior survives.

Nobody tells stories of when you did the expected — they only tell stories when you did the unexpected.

Normal behavior costs nothing in the short term — but it disappears into the abyss.

Unconventional behavior costs a social price in the short term — but the actions live on as story assets... See more

Most AI backlash is economic anxiety coated in a veneer of social justice. Alfalfa farming consumes 19 times the water that data centers do; there’s no sound environmental reason to boycott Claude but not GPS. When people say “AI is a moral stain,” they really mean: I am scared that I won’t be able to pay my bills.

‘To create, one must first question everything’ — Eileen Gray, born 9 August 1878

it matters whom we put on the stages of our world, whom we adore. Our collective love has been wildly misappropriated, particularly in Silicon Valley, but also all over the place.

Anxiety, the next gumption trap, is sort of the opposite of ego. You're so sure you'll do everything wrong you're afraid to do anything at all. Often this, rather than "laziness" is the real reason you find it hard to get started

“the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”