Robin Good
@robingood
The *curation guy* - indie author, speaker, advisor - focus on empowering subject-matter experts, artists, creators.
robingood.substack.comRobin Good
The article argues that LLM-powered wikis solve Vannevar Bush's 1945 maintenance problem but fail to address his more fundamental vision: the "trail"—a personally-voiced, sequenced path through knowledge built by committing to ideas, discovering they're wrong, and revising them.
The distinction matters because synthesis (what wikis do) prevents the frame-revision thinking that produces original writing, while trails require the cognitive pressure that comes from irreversible commitment.
Synthesis itself is the problem: by resolving tension before a writer commits to a position, the system removes the pressure that forces thinking. The distinction matters because it redefines what "better" knowledge systems should actually do—protect unresolved problems rather than solve them.
A trail was not a list of related documents. It was a sequenced, annotated, personally voiced path through knowledge — built by a human mind as it moved through the stored material, making connections, adding marginal notes, recording the reasoning behind each associative jump. Bush imagined that researchers would share their trails with each... See more
Nodes and Trails
Tools like Sublime, Glasp, Arena, Cosmos let us put aside “nodes”. None helps surfaces our “trails”.
this is also my way of building milk and cookies into something bigger while keeping the original feeling intact. the essays will still be here. the notes will still be here. the book club, youtube, instagram, all of it is part of the same little universe. but the magazine feels like a more intimate room inside that universe: a monthly edit of what... See more
Substack • things that have been helping me live better (in one place)
but lately, i wanted to make something that felt different from a regular post. less like one long argument, more like a little world to enter.
things that have been helping me live better (in one place)
Some women are memorable because they are beautiful. Some because they are charismatic. Some because they are wealthy or visibly accomplished.
But there is another category of woman who leaves a stronger impression than all of them.
A woman with perspective.
She can speak about things with depth. She has her own lens on the world. She notices details... See more
But there is another category of woman who leaves a stronger impression than all of them.
A woman with perspective.
She can speak about things with depth. She has her own lens on the world. She notices details... See more
Gabrielle Dubois Meloff • How to develop a point of view
This may very well be the kind of worldbuilding I’d like to pursue. This is what it looks like.
The algorithm rewards what can be quickly understood, quickly desired, quickly copied, and quickly shared.
What it rarely rewards is slowness. And...
This is why so many people today appear highly curated but strangely interchangeable. They may have a... See more
What it rarely rewards is slowness. And...
- Depth develops slowly.
- Taste refines slowly.
- Wisdom arrives slowly.
- Originality builds slowly.
This is why so many people today appear highly curated but strangely interchangeable. They may have a... See more
Gabrielle Dubois Meloff • How to develop a point of view
There are many people who have mastered the art of presentation . They know how to curate a life that looks appealing from the outside. They have a recognizable aesthetic, a polished routine, a personality that translates well online. They know what to wear, what to say, what to post, and how to appear interesting.
Far fewer people have something... See more
Far fewer people have something... See more
How to develop a point of view
Ce que la curation implique, et que la sélection n’implique pas, c’est la responsabilité. Le curateur signe ses choix. Il peut se tromper et sa réputation en dépend. Cette prise de risque intellectuel est ce qui distingue un acte curatorial d’un acte algorithmique et c’est précisément ce qui lui confère de la valeur dans un monde où les algorithmes... See more