Severin Matusek

The creative recession is fueled both by diminishing demand for creative work as well as diminishing the margins that once made that work viable. The distance between creation and consumption has been compressed: discovery is automated, and the legacy hallmark of creatives, producing difference, has been flattened into an infinite scroll of... See more

Functionalist theories, building on Durkheim’s insights, analyze totemism in terms of its social functions. From a functionalist perspective, totemism contributes to social cohesion by providing a shared system of beliefs and practices that reinforce group solidarity. The totemic system establishes social boundaries, regulates behavior through... See more

Today's sincerity is less about saving the world and more about building a world worth saving, starting with your own corner of it.

The voices that helped shape Light and Shade include: Noman Bashir, computing and climate impact fellow at MIT; James Bridle, artist, writer and technologist; Alex de Vries, PhD candidate at VU Amsterdam’s Institute for Environmental Studies and founder of Digiconomist; Linda Dounia Rebeiz, artist, designer and writer; Shaolei Ren, associate... See more

Today, of the labor market, it’s said that AI won’t take your job, someone who’s good with AI will take your job. But that feels only partially true, and only for the next few years. Those of us who’ve got our 10,000 hours, and have graduated to be delegating and being paid to think are likely to be OK.

Something that troubles me is the idea that maybe everything is becoming financialized because financial markets are the last remaining system capable of aggregating distributed information and enabling coordination at scale.