David Pennington
@davidpennington
I write stuff. I’d like to write more stuff. Currently: reclaiming my brain.
David Pennington
dtpennington.com
Attention is first philosophy—
Philosophy is not only a system of thought but a mode of attentiveness, an exercised openness to what exceeds us yet calls us to deeper participation. Its systematic aspects are downstream of this attentiveness, and can certainly become a scaffolding by which others can train their own attention, but it is at its root... See more
Philosophy is not only a system of thought but a mode of attentiveness, an exercised openness to what exceeds us yet calls us to deeper participation. Its systematic aspects are downstream of this attentiveness, and can certainly become a scaffolding by which others can train their own attention, but it is at its root... See more
Attention is First Philosophy
Said differently, we try to measure what we value.
But we inevitably end up valuing what we measure.
But we inevitably end up valuing what we measure.
Sari Azout • Becoming unLLMable
he model produces better work. Some of my peers believe that large language models produce strictly better writing than they could produce on their own. Anecdotally, this phenomenon seems more common among English-as-a-second-language speakers. I also see it a lot with first-time programmers, for whom programming is a set of mysterious incantations... See more
Clayton Ramsey • I'd rather read the prompt
Not because machines are writing, but because we are beginning to write like them. Predictability has become a virtue. Voice is flattened into tone. Style is reduced to format.
Carl Hendrick • Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us
As content becomes more engineered than written, AI has stepped into the role of ghostwriter; fluent but fatally hollow. Tools like ChatGPT and its cousins can produce grammatically perfect, tonally inoffensive copy at scale. What they lack, of course, is experience. They have no stake in what they say.
Carl Hendrick • Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us
The reading brain, once forged by sustained attention and deep engagement, is now adapting to an environment built for speed, distraction, and artificial fluency. What we are witnessing is not the end of reading, but rather the end of the essential consolations that reading affords us. Reading, but in ultra-processed form.
Carl Hendrick • Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us
Death of Thought and Techocalypse
The result of an ROI driven culture - how can we get instant benefits out of spending our time in the here and now?
“Your homework is to stop canceling each other, find out about punk, and get laidwhile you’re at it,” I told them. “Punk isn’t a hairstyle; it’s getting your friends together to make useful stories outside approved systems. And it’s still happening right now, all over the world.” MAGA has adopted an authoritarian style of punk that disdains what El... See more
archive.ph
Don’t even mention dating or — gasp — sex when the simple act of looking into someone else’s eyes provokes anxiety. But what could they do? Give up their phones and the corporate-controlled, like-driven culture, which is all they’ve ever known? Silent scream emoji!
archive.ph
This is what a frictionless world looks like. Everything accelerates, until you forget what it means to try.