SpaceXponential

Every good cult leader needs a stage - Perhaps the most distinctive thing about the Clubhouse chat-room model is that it provides a stage where leaders can talk while followers listen as part of an audience—and sometimes wait to be called on.

I think of my friends with wild creativity and technical skills, who aren’t at all interested in participating in the conversation in the art world, with no intention to be remembered for their art, or anything. Something about the idealism of web3, its insistence on a narrative of revolution now, its urge to change the course of history right... See more

We reached a head at a certain point. Our disagreements with Stuart were about what type of person should be on the platform, what they should be doing, and what’s allowed. We wanted anything to be allowed and there not to be a hierarchy, or telling someone what’s important or not. Stuart was very much the opposite, and he wanted to control the... See more

Bits of information provide neither meaning nor orientation. They do not congeal into a narrative. They are purely additive. From a certain point onwards, they no longer inform — they deform. They can even darken the world. This puts them in opposition to truth. Truth illuminates the world, while information lives off the attraction of surprise,... See more

A university museum worthy of its name must become at least as much a laboratory as, say, a university library. An archive must become a place of teaching and hands‐on learning. The classroom must become a place of hands‐on engagement with the material remains of the past where the tasks of processing, annotating, and sequencing are integral to... See more

Political risks aside, whatever the blockchain of facts could discover about consensus has already been thoroughly demonstrated by Trump Tweets. Trump Tweets have shown us that access to, obviousness of, and even universal agreement on the facts often achieves nothing for public discourse. Everyone agrees on the exact words he said, but their

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We are unable to act ethically towards that which we have not first attended to; this includes other humans, but also the non-human other. The art of attention requires, among other things, an openness to being moved and transformed, the development of language, and the resistance of algorithmic life.

This image appears in two channels,  Sublime  and  Feeling Futuristic . You can probably start to guess what these two channels are getting at, but it takes visiting both of them to understand the nuances of their content. While  Feeling Futuristic often feels like some combination of wonderment, apocolyptic visions, and speculation on what our

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This is nothing new in the physical social world, but it is revolutionary in the digital social world, where groups and shared messenger threads have historically always been communal spaces.

Cult leaders are their own moderators

Cult leaders need mechanisms for elevating and blessing followers, as well as mutually reinforcing power

Cults need... See more