Sam Liebeskind
@samliebeskind
product partnerships at New_Public; previously community & growth @ Geneva
Sam Liebeskind
Memory Banks | Are.na Editorial
are.na
Concepts & artifacts for AI-augmented democratic innovation: Process Cards, Run Reports, and more
Aviv Ovadyareimagine.aviv.me
Zooming out: great communities, in the traditional sense, required limited options so people would remain dependent: no specialists or external trade (to ensure we all collectively worked together), and no diversity or weird ideas (to ensure a homogenous group with a focus on tradition). We had far worse medical treatment, underwent excruciating manual labor, and didn’t necessarily share the same interests with others, but because we were dependent on each other, the bonds were strong. Now the options are virtually limitless, and we’re seeing our social bonds decay as a result.
In the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) project, a cohort of over 10,000 children in the US was tracked longitudinally. A 2023 analysis of the data revealed that the earlier a child was reading for pleasure, the more this correlated with higher scores on cognitive tests and lower numbers of mental health issues, even after controll... See more
But if this ideal of freedom may be absolute within its domain, this is possible only because the domain is narrow, tightly limited by rigorous conditions for entering it.
Ari Schulman • Why Speech Platforms Can Never Escape Politics | National Affairs
It's unfortunate because too much of a good thing (and it is a good thing – shrewd and well-intentioned people sharing the things that have helped them), when consumed in a frantic haze, becomes a bad thing (a cacophony of voices shoving advice down your throat, bolstering your belief that there's something you're doing wrong and if you just fixed ... See more
Kasra • That tweet won’t save you, and neither will this blog post
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
Parenting and family stuff and Passdown Project
In the mid-1990s, Dr. Marshall Duke and Dr. Robyn Fivush developed a measure called “Do You Know?” It had a series of 20 questions, including: Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school? Do you know where your parents met? Do you know an illness or something terrible that happened in your family? Do you know the story of your birth? It turned out that having the answers to these questions was the single best predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness. Children who know more about their families tend to do better when they face challenges, be more resilient, and moderate the effects of stress. Our family’s story—our history—is linked to our own personal identity and knowing that we belong to a larger family. “Children who have the most self-confidence have . . . a strong 'intergenerational self.’ They know they belong to something bigger than themselves,” said Dr. Duke…
that local journalism is a crucial facet of society that connects us to the places we live and the people who live around us and gives us a sorely needed sense of shared reality in an atomised age; that this kind of journalism has been decimated in Greater Manchester and pretty much every other community in this country because its old business mod... See more
Irrational optimism and the rebuilding of local journalism
…if it inspires them and thrills them, as well as imparting useful information