Sam Liebeskind

There is a sense of validation and pride that comes from being witnessed in a communal setting. My son’s high school wasn’t known for sports but one year it happened to have one of the top long-distance runners in New York state. There was no shortage of information about this guy. Beautiful color images of him huffing and puffing could be found on... See more

Angles that spread usually check the following boxes:

1. Surprising — presents unexpected new information or theories


2. True — we actually believe it


3. Important — has an impact on our behavior


4. Relevant — related to domains we care about


5. Cool — we think we’ll look impressive for sharing it

A more sensible way to think about where conversations need to be broken up, that’s not topic, is format. In a physical space, the analogy might be—if half of my guests are drinking wine from expensive stemware and half of my guests are playing Twister, I might send the Twister players into another room so they don’t elbow-knock a glass of Chablis.... See more

But we’re human beings, we do not want to be replaceable. We desperately want to be valued for who we are. Becoming disentangled from your web of mutual commitments, shared history, and collective responsibility is to be rendered into a transaction, a slave.2

We want to be loved, to be secure in the knowledge that no matter how much we’ve torn apart... See more

Donnelly and Schrantz are arguing for a major shift: “a long-overdue scaled investment in community organizing around the country.” I agree 100%, especially because I concur with them that how we do politics now, as a purely transactional process of extracting votes from people, has contributed to the crisis of democracy and the allure of strongmen... See more

also think we need to learn to enjoy locality. Culture emerges from the connections between people, and I believe these are always strongest in person. Face-to-face cultural engagement is necessarily participatory, online cultural engagement rarely is. Nearly all of my most fulfilling and exciting experiences, those that have made me feel part of a

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