Ian Vanagas

Chaos causes conflict and entertainment.

The more I examined these efforts at sedentarization, the more I came to see them as a state’s attempt to make a society legible, to arrange the population in ways that simplified the classic state functions of taxation, conscription, and prevention of rebellion. Having begun to think in these terms, I began to see legibility as a central problem i... See more

Thinking about inputs and outputs to the system in a method-agnostic way lets you take a step back from the algorithmic jargon and consider whether other fields have developed methods that might work here using different terminology.

In any civilization, an age can be measured by whether or not the best and brightest are applying their talent and wealth to make that civilization work better, to inculcate patriotism, to build and improve institutions, and improve the lives of their fellow citizens.

Information bankruptcy is a common problem for communities to have. When there is too much information to absorb, members often give up on absorbing any of it at all. It’s a play off of email bankruptcy, where someone ignores or deletes all emails beyond a certain date.

Just as important as the ability to share content itself is the ability to easily share how something is made. The most common remixed media is all visual; meme templates lay out the recognizable format and it’s intuitively obvious how to change them into messages that suit your niche or community.

Create something, anything—write a line of poetry, doodle an image, hum a melody, take some objects near you and arrange them into a sculpture, do a dance move. Now destroy what you created, physically if you can, but also mentally. Forget it completely. The world is changed. You are changed. The idea will return in one form or another, in your min... See more

Jeff Jordan – who’s been involved in everything from eBay to OpenTable to Airbnb – said off the cuff “the secret to everything I’ve done, and it’s not a secret, is economic empowerment. It is building things that help people make money.”