nibras

The opposite of agency is learned helplessness. If people believe that we can’t do very much to stop the world’s problems, it’s unsurprising that they’d be terrified to bring children into the world. But this seems like a mental trap that we can, and should, teach people to resist falling into. As  Clare Coffey writes  in “Failure to Cop

" I want to highlight how the value of coding isn’t really about teaching programming skills. It’s about teaching agency."

Learning to be on the lookout for beautiful things is a way of contesting the relentlessly rationalistic view of the world that surrounds us. Just as we produce thoughts by talking things over, we produce memories by composing them and reflecting. By taking lots of photos you may come to find more things you cherish.

" Despite our devices becoming easier to use over the last few decades, technical proficiency appears to be more widely dispersed across younger populations, as opposed to older generations, where it is viewed as a specialized skill reserved for a small percentage of the population. However, I’d guess that young programmers typically know less abou

The world doesn’t happen  to  us; it is shaped by us. More people now have access to simple tools that allow them to “program,” or modify, the world around them. Teaching kids that the world is programmable – whether it’s through actual coding, games like Roblox and Minecraft, encouraging them to ask for what they want, or even white-hat

observation is a skill to be developed, and a necessary one before understanding aesthetics.

" Younger generations didn’t become “more technical”, per se – if anything, they’re probably less technically literate overall. It’s  programming  itself that became easier, because there are now so many tools and layers of abstraction available that make coding a much more trivial practice than before."

My sense is that those with a strong sense of personal agency don’t always realize that not everyone shares this position.