SpaceXponential

The pressure to perform and live up to the expectations of others is not a new social phenomenon — nor a bad one. **^^But the way it manifests at the internet’s global scale increases its intensity tenfold — especially for young people. The goal is no longer to simply live up to the high expectations of your parents and peers — online you could be... See more

We want a platform where we can swim in curiosity, where we can feel like our contributions amount to more and more over time, where we are encouraged to seek out the most arcane pieces of information and to juxtapose those pieces of information with current events in order to re-orient ourselves.

Above all, we want to be able to  play  with

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Now, though, I realize that this confusion stems from making the same mistake I did in that old analysis of Facebook: I was looking to the real world as a guide to understanding the Internet, when it was in fact inevitable that the Internet would, over time, come to impact the real world. Some of that impact will be fleeting, like many of the... See more

Before Clubhouse existed, Twitter created a proto-cult platform where aspiring cult leaders could build enormous audiences, disciples retweeted their messages, leaders blessed followers with public replies, and so forth. Instagram and TikTok have followed the Twitter model and minted new cult leaders and behaviors of their own.

But a few specific... See more

Bohm considered unexamined thought to be the crux of most issues that humans face. He says, “When we see a ‘problem,’ whether pollution, carbon dioxide, or whatever, we then say, ‘We have got to solve that problem.’ But we are constantly producing that sort of problem — by the way we go on with our thought.” His concept of dialogue is meant to

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In our reality, Ted Nelson served as a muse rather than the Internet’s architect. Legend has it that he conceived of Xanadu as an antidote (or amplifier) for his attention deficit disorder. He dreamed of a word processor that allowed users to surf through and freely explore associations, related material, and alternate contexts of any given piece

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Wisdom from @david_perell's Monday musings. Infrastructure is philosophy made visible.

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, distinguishes two kinds of cryptoeconomic systems: objective and subjective. In an objective system, the protocol’s operation and consensus can be maintained at all times using solely nodes, knowing nothing but the rules of the protocol itself. Subjective systems, on the other hand, require more additional... See more

Curation means making arguments through objects as well as words, images, and sounds. It implies a spatialization of the sort of critical and narrative tasks that, while not unfamiliar to historians, are fundamentally different when carried out in space—physical, virtual, or both—rather than in language alone. It means becoming engaged in... See more