What we value
Examining what this "value" thing is we are all trying to create
What we value
This is the paradox of our time: the very tools designed to free us from labor are trapping us in an endless cycle of escalating work.
Tina He • Jevons Paradox: A personal perspective
Yes.
What we have long called the creator economy is evolving to become more of a “meaning economy,” where the creators and brands and experiences that engage us will do so through story, craft, and a deeper and more sophisticated sense of meaning. The creator economy was ultimately driven by content (enabled by ubiquitous access to content creation and... See more
Meaning is tied to values. Values are scarce.
Anne Helen Petersen once memorably described this as "LARPing your job"—performing a theatrical version of productivity. Workers engage in elaborate displays of "being at work": staying visible on Slack, responding to emails at all hours, and maintaining a digital presence that signals industriousness. The tools have evolved—from software that... See more
AI Phobia Is Just Fear That ‘Easier’ Equals ‘Cheating’
If you pretend to pay them, they’ll pretend to work.
Work has to be tied to performance and salary. People have to have an obvious target to shoot for.
By the simplification-as-collapse theory, good futures, ones worth working for, are by definition going to be too complex to be legible before we’ve actually lived through them. If you tell your story in a powerful, inspiring, coherent way that millions resonate with, and cannot see in what way your story invisibly features degrowth and collapse,... See more
every story is a degrowth story
Ok, I think I see where he’s going. But I think there’s also a possibility of a counter narrative that can re-write the degrowth one in terms of growth.
Collapsed states are simpler states, so anyone working towards a simpler state — and anyone telling an intelligible tale is doing precisely that — is working towards a collapse. The failure of a world begins with a failure of the imagination to comprehend increased complexity, and an urge to retreat to greater simplicity.
every story is a degrowth story
I don’t think this is necessarily degrowth, it’s compression. This feels like simplicity is a return to understanding of what’s valuable after building on top of it. It’s the flower budding, blooming, wilting, and blooming again. It’s cyclical and growth oriented, because uncapped growth is deadly to the environment and will be rejected.
The Rise of SNARF
SNARF stands for Stakes/Novelty/Anger/Retention/Fear. SNARF is the kind of content that evolves when a platform asks an AI to maximize usage. Content creators need to please the AI algorithms or they become irrelevant. Millions of creators make SNARF content to stay in the feed and earn a living.
SNARF stands for Stakes/Novelty/Anger/Retention/Fear. SNARF is the kind of content that evolves when a platform asks an AI to maximize usage. Content creators need to please the AI algorithms or they become irrelevant. Millions of creators make SNARF content to stay in the feed and earn a living.
Jonah Peretti • The Anti-SNARF Manifesto
This is one of the battles we are fighting. Kill SNARF with fire.
the peaks of shame and grandiosity
The Source 🌊
the past telling us we are bad for not conforming to the safety of rules that no longer apply and the future pulling us toward a state that we know surely must exist somewhere, and we’ve just got to get to it, then we’ll be safe.
All we know is that we aren’t safe now. And all we want to be is safe.
I don’t want to wait for the world to change.
I want to live it.
I want to live it.
How I’m Planning to Defeat Global Ecosystem Collapse (By Living the Alternative)
This is the secret to time travel. You have to be the first one to the be the example that others can follow.