Sixian

The body is now presumed to have more in common with the segmented clock face — which at least approximated natural rhythms, even if it locked them into a standard compatible with the needs of capital — than it does with the “vapor” of internet time.

The antithesis is that collectivist coordination is its own reward; that we “formation fly” because we simply like mutuality and interdependence more than isolation and independence, and any collectivizable rewards for doing so are simply gravy.

So let's use video because I just think it's a great example. If you think about music and how you consume music, you actually consume catalog product a lot. I certainly do. And I think most consumers do. Songs that I've listened to once, I will listen to again and again, and again, at some point. With video, that's less the case. Once I watch... See more

And there was something else to look at what urban planner William White calls triangulation. You don't have to directly engage with other people who are here. You can both be looking at the fire. You're having a nice time. You're warm, you're feeling good. And over the course of sitting for a while, there's opportunity to strike up a conversation... See more

There is a case that could be made here that history is in fact a series of convergences and divergences driven by the rise and fall of correlated opportunities on wealth frontiers. That the only reason we ever coordinate enough to form societies is to go after such frontiers, and that otherwise we’re not actually a very social species.

I think an important part of imagining this version of yourself is forgetting it.

Having an opinion is like having taste. It demonstrates a sensibility and way of thinking that is key when a senior client is considering a consultant for a project.

One holds onto an aspiration for back to normal (although the desirableness of that version of the present has come under question as well) and thinks of recent events as mere hiccups and minor diversions in the greater scheme of things.

"My site is really a record of my becoming who I am. I started so early in my 20s. I didn’t know who I was. I wasn’t doing that much reading then. And it eventually became that. Right now, I rarely read the internet at all. I spend most of my days buried in book piles and letters and diaries and old philosophy books and what not. There’s this term... See more