SpaceXponential

The many analysts, including me, who had argued that Trump could not win the general election were relying on pre-Babel intuitions, which said that scandals such as the Access Hollywood tape (in which Trump boasted about committing sexual assault) are fatal to a presidential campaign. But after Babel, nothing really means anything anymore––at least... 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

The key to Clubhouse’s rapid accession is that its social design makes it an ideal platform for cults at a time when the social internet is rapidly evolving away from organizing around communities and toward cults. Clubhouse’s rise likely signals major strategic shifts that several legacy social platforms are going to have to consider.

 "I believe," he writes, "that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, new friends."  The point is that a cappella harnesses the creative intelligence of a whole group. By contrast, says Eno, high art is about separating geniuses from foot soldiers. "A cappella subverts that: it's highly composed music but there's no... See more

Process is the new god; not product. Anything that stands in the way of the perpetual mash‐up and remix stands in the way of the digital revolution. Digital Humanities means iterative scholarship, mobilized collaborations, and networks of research. It honors the quality of results; but it also honors the steps by means of which results are obtained... See more

In a world of perpetual data overload, [curation] implies information design and selectivity: the channeling, filtering, and organization into intelligible and usable information; the digging up of new or long ignored cultural corpora. Most of these corpora are simply sitting in storage: less than 1% of the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent... See more

This new game encouraged dishonesty and mob dynamics: Users were guided not just by their true preferences but by their past experiences of reward and punishment, and their prediction of how others would react to each new action.  ...  The newly tweaked platforms were almost perfectly designed to bring out our most moralistic and least reflective... See more

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once commented that: “When eras are on the decline, all tendencies are subjective; but, on the other hand, when matters are ripening for a new epoch, all tendencies are objective. Each worthy effort turns its force from the inward to the outward world.”