Sam Liebeskind

Delegation for total idiots (like me): https://t.co/UY03RgMY61

One way to create a shared context is through shared struggle. This is why many organizations implement ritualized hazing3 to initiate new members, but the important thing is not the hazing, it’s the sense that you are working together with your fellow humans to achieve a super-human goal. Whether that’s to develop vaccines, to drywall a shelter,... See more

Everyone gave me a version of the same answer: Taiwan’s democracy is less than 40 years old. Martial law is still in living memory, and no one wants to return. So Taiwanese people don’t take elections and participation for granted; as cyber ambassador Audrey Tang put it, Taiwan views its government not as a “fossilized” institution, but as... See more

I know that travel is valuable because most knowledge can’t be written down. The most crucial info about a society is how it feels to be there—the rhythms of street life, where and when people eat meals, how gender works. You can read a million things about Japan without knowing the bodily experience of walking around in a truly high-trust society,... See more

Over a decade later, this is still the most useful framework for thinking about customers for your MVP. From @sgblank originally, I believe. https://t.co/BRltPCA3by

But digital media hasn’t become the antidote to television. Digital media, empowered by the serum of algorithmic feeds, has become super-television: more images, more videos, more isolation.

Digital intermediation could help offer this kind of access to what Zacka calls “the lively and diverse intermingling of strangers in the public arena” and what the urban planner Jane Jacobs described as the “great and exuberant richness of differences and possibilities, many of these unique and unpredictable—and all the more valuable because they... See more

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