Sixian

Looking toward a post-pandemic politics, the problem of over-individuation within the systems we use to model ourselves is compounded by the physical isolation each of us experiences in extended rhythms of lockdown. The situation has brought new cultural and interpersonal realities, many of them unfamiliar and uncomfortable, such as the tense... See more

Historian Scott Gabriel Knowles proposes that we think of the “deferred maintenance” of public infrastructures as slow-motion disasters, which sustain the oppression of marginalized and underserved populations. 23 Summers, meanwhile, emphasizes the “debt burden on the next generation,” since the cost of fixing the world compounds over time.

This is why most of us spend our lives on a never-satisfied search for the next object of desire. There is always another model somewhere making us wonder if what they want, we should be what we want, too.

So in this post I’m going to reject the commonly accepted wisdom and look at why specializing is hard, why it fails and what an alternative path looks like. The answer lies in developing strong opinions and a distinctive vibe.

Feral Atlas, curated and edited by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena, Feifei Zhou, invites you to explore the ecological worlds created when nonhuman entities become tangled up with human infrastructure projects.

These semi-pseudonymous networks have strong enough network effects to fend off the competition because they’ve given their users a persistent online identity to which they commit. As social creatures, people are emotionally invested in creating, building, and maintaining their reputations — even if that reputation is semi-virtual.

Male storytelling is a sublimated hunting narrative, female storytelling is a sublimated gathering narrative. One is born of brags, the other is born of rumors. One kind of writing throws a metaphorical spear at a metaphorical beast, attempting to kill it and bring back the carcass. The other kind puts relatively unresisting things into bags, and... See more