Tanuj

We're biologically programmed to respond to them. They contain a lot of information. They have social power. They connect us to other people. So they're like a kind of candy that we're fed when we consume political information, when we read novels.

I feel like for these complex problems, it's basically impossible to design a framework de novo. And people try this all the time, but it very rarely works. Instead, what happens is you have an application that works well, and then basically you copy and paste that two or three times, and then you look at the diffs, and the things that aren't the... See more

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this building, it’s that reality has a surprising amount of detail. This turns out to explain why it's so easy for people to end up intellectually stuck.  Even when they’re literally the best in the world in their field.

You might think the fiddly detailiness of things is limited to human centric domains, and that physics itself is simple and elegant. That’s true in some sense – the physical laws themselves tend to be quite simple – but the manifestation of those laws is often complex and counterintuitive.

Unlike the main public internet, which runs on the (human) protocol of “users” clicking on links on public pages/apps maintained by “publishers”, the cozyweb works on the (human) protocol of everybody cutting-and-pasting bits of text, images, URLs, and screenshots across live streams. Much of this content is poorly addressable, poorly searchable,... See more

Providing this acknowledgement for the people you love is something that I think we could all get better at. Validating the other person’s perspective, reacting and explaining your own, maybe sending a smile. Just like the silence in Wong Kar-Wai’s corridor scene, it’s not just about what is said, it’s about what is unsaid: I see you, I’m here for... See more

Book is a format of different level that is good for presenting a whole system of knowledge.

But size is not the most troubling concept we have to deal with. It's time, or, more precisely, the time we have. If you're lucky enough to live to one hundred, you have five thousand two hundred weeks at your disposal.