David Pennington

If people hate technology and think it clashes with nature, I find it hard to blame technology. We have careless technology because we are careless in evaluating it. We demand too little of it, or we are willing to sacrifice too much for too little in return.

Algorithmic systems reduce this randomness significantly. They optimize our information environment for relevance and engagement, which means showing us more of what we’ve already engaged with. The system can’t show us what it doesn’t predict we want, and it can’t predict interest in something that falls outside our behavioral patterns.

This means... See more

The randomness of physical space and human recommendation created collisions between existing preferences and unfamiliar possibilities.

Cynic Ethics

Foremost for understanding the Cynic conception of ethics is that virtue is a life lived in accord with nature. Nature offers the clearest indication of how to live the good life, which is characterized by reason, self-sufficiency, and freedom. Social conventions, however, can hinder the good life by compromising freedom and setting up... See more

Friction-maxxing is not simply a matter of reducing your screen time, or whatever. It’s the process of building up tolerance for “inconvenience” (which is usually not inconvenience at all but just the vagaries of being a person living with other people in spaces that are impossible to completely control) — and then reaching even toward enjoyment.... See more

“all destination and no journey”

Carl Benedikt Frey: “There is no iron law that postulates that technology must benefit the many at the expense of the few.”