Sixian

How, when each of us is forbidden to touch, can a renewed sense of our biopolitical entanglement emerge? It may come through a recognition that societal care is not only a personal, face-to-face, and skin-to-skin experience, but something that also happens at a distance, through impersonal systems upon which each of us relies. These too are social... See more

This was unexpected – because phones are such deeply tactile things. I pick up my iPhone X forty-five times a day, Apple Screen Time informs me: no wonder irreverent UK tech site The Register has christened phones ‘fondle slabs’. Our phones are not simply media devices or transparent conduits for the vast amount and variety of information that... See more

Developing a point of view is a long journey, and it’s not easy. But it’s a more forgiving path than specializing.

The de-centralization of timekeeping brought about by digital media harkens back to a much older style of measuring time. Before the invention of the telegraph, there was no way to instantaneously synchronize timekeeping devices across long distances. No time zones, no universal standard against which clock towers could be evaluated for accuracy.... See more

For products seeking network effects, having virality means that you can add new users faster to build your network effect and hit critical mass faster than your competitors. You don’t need virality to do this, as you can pay to acquire users, but virality helps you achieve network effects by growing the network more quickly. Sometimes... See more

Data embedding is the idea that by holding more and more of your clients’/users’ data, the harder you are to remove, and that gives you some defensibility.

So don’t wait for permission. If you’re unsure about the future of your career - don’t look for answers, don’t look for validation or labels - look for experiments, new networks and narrative air-cover. And remember that this networked permissionless world has enabled the opportunity to simply write your way into a new way of thinking and being

Girard taught that all desire is fundamentally a desire for being. In other words, all desire is metaphysical—it seeks a kind of inner transformation, a transfiguration of identity, which we desperately seek but even more desperately deny.