Sam Liebeskind

And there was something else to look at what urban planner William White calls triangulation. You don't have to directly engage with other people who are here. You can both be looking at the fire. You're having a nice time. You're warm, you're feeling good. And over the course of sitting for a while, there's opportunity to strike up a conversation... See more

The digital sphere is artificially built and those who operate it get to set its rules in ways that are enforced in code, which is to say that are enforced as the laws of the system itself. That is how structural power is established. Many parts of the digital landscape are presented on the surface as consumer goods (social, search) or as markets... See more

I was distracted by a sudden recollection of all the instances I had heard the attributes of countries being used to describe the accomplishments of internet companies: the number of users of a streaming service being equated to the populations of sovereign nation-states, a company’s online-advertising revenue to the GDPs of several countries, all... See more

In automation theory, a “centaur” is a person who is assisted by a machine. Driving a car makes you a centaur, and so does using autocomplete.

A reverse centaur is a machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine.

When you have a densely connected network like that, not only are the friendships more rewarding, but everyone else also becomes more important to each other for mutual support, like Metcalfe’s Law. A densely layered quilt is much stronger than a seam sewn by a single string.

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 in their way. And it’s worth noticing what surroundings speak of enchantment, cultivate the conditions you feel at home in, and aim toward them. Life is more malleable than we think. It’s a surprise... See more