What we value
Examining what this "value" thing is we are all trying to create
What we value
In early 2021, while most founders were chasing quick exits, I was laying the foundation for something more sustainable. The digital fingerprints are clear in my content DNA—establishing values and identity wasn't just personal branding. It was memetic groundwork.
The Time Architect: From Building in Public to Bending Time
What’s your content DNA look like?
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.
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.
Creators make money so they can make stuff, instead of the other way around.
Dr. Gena Gorlin • Fantastic Builders and Where to Find Them, 5th Installment
This is an important thing to realize.
So this is not going to be fun 13 years, but it’s not going to be entirely bleak either.
every story is a degrowth story
This is a very bleak look at things, and I believe won’t age well. I predict that most of his biggest concerns will be alleviated in the next 2-3 years, because if we don’t, I think we won’t make it past those
Friendship quote resonated.
- Paladin saves the world? Degrowth story.
- Barbarian masculine energy saves the world? Degrowth story.
- Enlightened sexless bureaucracy saves the world? Degrowth story.
- Nurturing feminine energy saves the world? Degrowth story.
- Unbridled technological acceleration saves the world? Degrowth story.
- Unbridled GDP growth saves the world? Degrowth story.
- Saintly
every story is a degrowth story
These I agree are degrowth stories.
I think the connection he’s making is to the book, so that the loss of complexity in society leaves people feeling lost and unvalued, and that leads to societal collapse.
What if we don’t tie society to complexity?
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.
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.