Sam Liebeskind

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, t... See more

Dunning highlights a thorny and persistent problem with the system of nonprofit neighborhoods: it channelled and mediated the voices and interests of residents in ways that muffled direct challenges to the distribution of power within their communities.

Insofar as the neighborhood nonprofits that represent them have depended on government for their ... See more

Not everyone who joined a bowling league (when people did such things) loved bowling. Many loved being with other people first and bowling came second or not at all. Being together is what mattered. The venue did not.

• #fyi — had a thought, no real hill to die on.


• #suggestion — there’s a hill, I’m not going to die on it. But this is what I would do if I were you.


• #recommendation — I’m climbing the hill, I won’t die on it. But I’ve thought about this a lot, and don’t ignore the feedback.


• #plea — I don’t like dying on hills and that’s not really what we do, but this i

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This shift in perspective clarifies that humans have always used technology to increase our ability to control our environment. There are few biological or physiological differences between ancestral and modern humans; instead, the relevant differences are improved knowledge and understanding, tools, technology and, indeed, AI. In a sense, modern h... 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.

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