Sixian

Note how different this sort of meaning making is from what we generally see on today’s web. The excitement here is in building complexity, not reducing it. More importantly note how meaning changes here. We probably know what the tweet would have “meant”, and what a blog post would have “meant”, but meaning here is something different. Instead of... See more

We are in a period which I think is dominated by two great cultural signifiers. An analog system that belonged to our parents, which has been shot full of holes. It is the symbol of the ruined castle. "Gothic High-Tech." The ruins of the unsustainable. And the other symbol is the favela slum, "Favela Chic," the informalized, illegalized, heavily... See more

A new generation will arise who does not need things explained to them in this way. They will not wonder at a slogan like 'futurity now', because they will have never known anything different.

Enterprise Gateway Marketplaces are going to be a big part of the ongoing marketplace revolution.  They make it manageable for small vendors to sell into S&P 500 customers that are normally out of reach and make it easier for enterprises to work with outside vendors to get the latest business products and services without having to bring them... See more

History written by the victors offers glimpses of marginalized figures, for whom we need to “fabulate” stories to “strain against the limits of the archive” and “represent lives… through the process of narration.” Building relationships between things is a form of authorship too.

The assumption that my desires are all my own—this story that I tell myself—is what the French social scientist René Girard calls “The Romantic Lie.” The Lie is that I want things independently, or that I choose all of the objects of my desire out of some secret desire chamber in my heart. I know a good thing when I see it; I know what’s desirable... See more

Every day, each of us takes social cues from our friends and colleagues that can be easily be misinterpreted and provoke a mimetic reaction. Our “default mode” is to respond to violence with violence, however small and passive-aggressive the provocation might’ve been.