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Just a moment...
If left unmanaged, conflicts naturally tend to escalate in both scale and scope. AI should help us stay towards the lower left of this graph. But tha
Can AI Mediation Help Bridge Political Divides?
Spoken disagreement is more constructive than written ... - Nature
A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy
If left unmanaged, conflicts naturally tend to escalate in both scale and scope. AI should help us stay towards the lower left of this graph. But tha
Can AI Mediation Help Bridge Political Divides?
Spoken disagreement is more constructive than written ... - Nature
The River Clyde Pageant - Landing/Info Page
It was only because I showed up and I paid attention," he said. "I looked for places to go. I looked for communities to join. I looked for ways to bec
What replaces it is not yet clear. My students do not appear to be nihilists (which is remarkable to me for reasons I will get into in another essay).
The press that Dewey hoped could enable public formation was instead consolidated to prevent it. The newspaper did not become an instrument of inquiry
Social media platforms don’t produce a common public; they produce competing sub-publics, each with its own sense of what everyone knows. To answer th
Dewey’s faith in the potential of institutions that treat democratic knowledge not as a problem to be managed but as a capacity to be cultivated is ha
What replaces it is not yet clear. My students do not appear to be nihilists (which is remarkable to me for reasons I will get into in another essay).
The volunteer tourists inherited it from the backpackers and gave it a moral upgrade. Now you weren’t just searching for the authentic Other; you were
The social-platform layer offers the feeling of encounter with the friction surgically removed. As one analysis of Gen Z’s parasocial turn put it, onl
Bourdain is the figure (an avatar, really) where the lineage became a media product, where elsewhere stopped being a place the Western seeker went to
What replaces it is not yet clear. My students do not appear to be nihilists (which is remarkable to me for reasons I will get into in another essay).
So when people opt to devote their energy to tracking the latest TikTok star or scrolling content instead of nurturing interpersonal relationships, th
Social media stopped being primarily about connecting socially a long time ago. People still use a range of technologies to connect to friends and bui
Taste for Privacy: How Context, Identity, and Lived-Experience Shape Information Sharing Preferences
The social-platform layer offers the feeling of encounter with the friction surgically removed. As one analysis of Gen Z’s parasocial turn put it, onl
“A market had opened up for illiberal transgressions, no matter how banal and empty. According to Marx, cultural inertia accelerated this development.
Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution
The reflex Rousseau articulated was not, fundamentally, about travel. It was about the location of the cure. Modernity is hollow; the cure exists wher
The question is not whether Attie should exist. The question is whether any open protocol can sustain the sanctuary frame its users need, without betr
Protocol design is the art of defining which positions may be expressed, what rules may be defined (and, importantly, correctly and cheaply enforced),
2) Clear Roles & Decision Rights Without clear swim lanes and decision rights, individuals on teams feel disempowered and projects tend to stall out.
"Don't ignore the problem, but keep it light. Take action with a smile. Adding tension won't solve your troubles faster. Even when the problem is har
Novelist Charles Kingsley on happiness: “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us hap
And I came to believe that heroism is neither being perfect, nor doing something spectacular. In fact, it’s just the opposite: it’s regular, flawed hu
How organizations practice rest is one of their most powerful displays of values— and responsible leadership.
So there is a way in which Shabbat is more philosophically important now than it has been in previous centuries. And of course, there’s also the secon
I know there is a phenomenon of “technology fasts,” but it's a lot harder to do if it’s not supported by a community that is doing the same thing. In
From Something Else to Something Specific: Journalist as Circulator
The press that Dewey hoped could enable public formation was instead consolidated to prevent it. The newspaper did not become an instrument of inquiry
Dewey’s faith in the potential of institutions that treat democratic knowledge not as a problem to be managed but as a capacity to be cultivated is ha
In a world where AI agents are running wild, will we see a new wave of online social spaces that are “human only” - or at least “human verified”? Wha
Search engines built an ecosystem that benefited publishers and the platforms,but publishers see those same platforms as continually taking more value
OSF
No one owns the traditions. We are all here as stewards. Many of the regulars act as if they’re hosts. Newer people have deemed themselves hosts, too.
The End of My Career as a Professional Feminist
It is worth recalling that the foundations of liberal political thought were laid in part by Hobbes, whose central concern was neither liberty for its
The five principles of prompting I developed work equally well as management techniques for humans: Give direction. Describe the desired style in de
People who are good at solving poorly defined problems don't get the same kind of kudos. They don’t get any special titles or clubs. There is no test
2) Clear Roles & Decision Rights Without clear swim lanes and decision rights, individuals on teams feel disempowered and projects tend to stall out.
Algorithmic feeds: good or bad? Many people claim they just want a chronological feed, but studies consistently show the vast majority of people prefe
In the 1970s and 1980s, the philosopher of technology Langdon Winner dismantled the idea that technology is a “neutral” tool (Winner, 1978). Winner’s
Just a moment...
In every case, the platform's architects // successors assumed that the product was the platform and the community was an emergent feature that would
There's a fantasy popular among technologists and policymakers that community can be engineered. That if you identify the right variables and apply th
On protocol organizing
The open protocol community has inherited two intellectual traditions, both inadequate to this problem: an engineering functionalism that treats proto
Just a moment...
For a modern take we can look to Vyld, a biotech company fom Germany established in 2021. As a producer of women's health products made of seaweed it
Tech communities, like any community, are messy. If you’re fortunate to land on one that’s inclusive and welcoming then there are exciting things comi
The club model teaches us something: organizations that endure don’t try to include everyone. They’re clear about their identity, even as that identit
We believe that a healthy ecosystem competes on innovative features, not critical mass. The social web should be centered around people, not platforms
It was only because I showed up and I paid attention," he said. "I looked for places to go. I looked for communities to join. I looked for ways to bec
Vincent Van Gogh on the accumulation of small things: “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. The tri
When you wait, you lose momentum. And momentum is incredibly powerful because when you’re inspired, you act—and you do it with enthusiasm.
The quest for perfection is paralyzing. I’ve watched engineers spend weeks debating the ideal architecture for something they’ve never built. The perf
The human eye is one of the most sophisticated optical instruments in existence. It automatically adjusts focus, adapts to light levels from pitch dar
nytimes.com
Many of the most meaningful things in life look inefficient when viewed through the wrong lens. But that doesn't make them wasteful. It makes them hum
“We would never rely [solely] on the AI-generated summaries,” said Seward. “Reporters are going back and listening to the real [podcasts] but using th
Subject line: What brought you here? Body: Hi, I'm really glad you've decided to try our podcast hosting platform! I'm Justin, one of the co-founders
Here’s how 90% of brands do their welcome flow: • Email 1: “Welcome to our brand!” • Email 2: “Here’s our story” • Email 3: “Check out our top produc
When systems that were designed for resilience are optimized instead for efficiency, they break.
This is the economic story: friction has become a class experience. Wealth has always helped smooth over bumps - but when the physical world is such a
The system always balances its books eventually. The more we optimize individual experiences for frictionlessness, the more collectively dysfunctional
Many of the most meaningful things in life look inefficient when viewed through the wrong lens. But that doesn't make them wasteful. It makes them hum
cohorts deliver unexpected outcomes. And here’s why you should really care about cohorts - businesses and individuals operating in uncertain environme
Over the last year, I've had the privilege of leading Mozilla Foundation's reimagining of technical grantmaking. Alongside Mehan Jayasuriya, Lisa Gute
But I don’t think platform companies should—or can—act as the governance layer of our online lives. In this, I share tech journalist and Bluesky board
Decentralized networks are harder to infiltrate and harder to destroy. This movement is not leaderless, but leaderful, and there are no few specific p
Data collection is inherently creative. Depending on the data you choose to collect from the world, you can begin to see the world from a different pe
junior pm: i have to run my first global alignment meeting and i'm freaking out senior pm: what's your plan? junior pm: schedule the call, walk ever
A great story about simplicity from Akio Morita, the instigator of the Walkman project at Sony: Engineers had the technology to add the recording func
Long-tail users of user-centered design are not given the degree of control necessary to adapt the design object or tool to their unique needs, and de
The engineer who truly understands the problem often finds that the elegant solution is simpler than anyone expected. The engineer who starts with a
"Every product in the world, the quality at the end of the day is simply a reflection of how much the people who created it gave a shit about the prod
we have a world where friction gets automated out of experiences, aestheticized in curated lifestyles, and dumped onto underfunded infrastructure and
Long-tail users of user-centered design are not given the degree of control necessary to adapt the design object or tool to their unique needs, and de
Ads or No Ads?In the early days of the newsletter, we were approached on several occasions with offers of money in exchange for advertising. Some peop
I was struck by how natural the idea of serving the public felt inside libraries. I had spent much of my career pushing, prodding, arguing, fighting,
“We realized it’s almost better to empower a single editor in each market,” Heafy said, “and centralize the rest of the operations.” Behind that shif
There is evidence that participatory exercises tied to formal decision making processes - fromparticipatory budgeting (C. Johnson, Carlson, and Reynol
Betri Reykjavik, or Better Reykjavik, is the City of Reykjavik’s online engagementplatform used for the crowdsourcing of solutions to urban challenges
Betri Reykjavik has potential to be a model for manyothers since it is an example of digitally-enabled open innovation platform withuniquely high leve
The details we think matter likely don’t when we go deep enough: The “accordion” exercise we did felt like powerful psycho technology the way it compl
Don’t aim to impress. Aim to educate. As a presenter, if my intention is to impress, perform, or entertain, I’m going to be nervous because my focus i
Unplugging Is Not the Solution You Want
Society is increasingly cutting the nourishing ties that attach us, and calling it innovation. I worry about how encouraged we are to do things effici
I couldn’t help but come to the conviction, right there on the bus, that one of the most important questions modern man must ask himself is how much t
Start in the future and work backward
If you pay attention, you’ll see that today’s winning brands understand the customer’s story is the only one that matters. Your most important job as
Solving a problem for your user is great, but easing their cognitive dissonance can have a much greater emotional impact. There is likely something th
The Questions Before the Questions
So much value and love for the process of writing and what it does for the coherence between heart, brain, imagination, lived reality, unseen, and see
You can’t write a viral essay that says “it’s complicated and I’m not sure.” But this is the only path to truly novel insight.
Writing is a task that takes both objective and subjective intelligence. LLMs ace the objective parts the same way they ace every test; you can’t faul
Free-flowing exchange of work can establish non-transactional community. Not, like, asking your electrician to work for free, but asking your tech-sav
“We don't make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies”. -Walt Disney
I think that’s a common outcome in volunteer-based organizations—they rely so much on unpaid labor to exist that there’s really no other resource allo
A working-class-focused media could be supported by the dozens of media-oriented philanthropies and local news initiatives funded by taxpayers, like t
Another lesson to take away, however, is that you need to refine your personal brand and know exactly what you symbolize — that is, which slice of the
Cities are predicated on a set of trade-offs that no longer make sense. Middle-class people tolerate density, pollution, disease, crime, high taxes, a
This is all to say: it’s worth listening when a place calls to you. It’s worth thinking about whether the place you live enables your goals or stands
If you feel an undeniable pull to a city, don’t ignore it—go. I truly believe there’s a reason we’re drawn to certain places, and once you take the le
“Cultural and media studies offer a different perspective on the notion of what constitutes a public . In locating the term “public” as synonymous wi
“That the proliferation of a multiplicity of competing publics is a step away from greater democracy. “It follows that public life in egalitarian, mu
“The boundary between public and private is part of the conflict between public spheres. For example, until recently, only feminists though domestic v
Participants report that talking to the system’s chatbots is “freeing” and rewarding. In one example, a student who interacts with a “teacher” chatbot
The platform also gives participants a sample of comments to agree or disagree with. Unlike other platforms, users cannot reply to other users’ commen
Polis ensures that participants focus on the content of comments and the state of the conversation, because there are no direct conversations or inter
Meaning Supplies
