Thomas

I like to use that word now, soul . I prefer using soul to mind , not that they’re the same concept at all. “Mind” automatically seems to evoke “versus body” in the minds of everyone, including myself, no matter how hard we try, no matter how many times we’ve noticed that the brain is an organ of the body and that the human mind emerges from the... See more

If I look at things that have turned out well in my life—my relationship, some of my essays, my current career—the "design process" has followed the same pattern. It has been what Christopher Alexander called an "unfolding."

If I look at things that have not turned out as well—my education, the books I've written and hidden on a hard drive in our... See more

Social media’s combination of global reach,

performance metrics, platform design, content

format, and algorithmic interference have changed

how creators make for others, and how others

perceive and interact with creators' work.

The results are an eternal presence, persistent

feedback, an unrealistic expectation of virality,

harmful social comparison,

... See more

“By paying a certain kind of attention, you can humanise or dehumanise, cherish or strip of all value. By a kind of alienating, fragmenting and focal attention, you can reduce humanity – or art, sex, humour, or religion – to nothing. You can so alienate yourself from a poem that you stop seeing the poem at all, and instead come to see in its place... See more

“The problem with social media platforms is not just that they seek to hook us on their products, it’s also that they offer themselves as the answer to profound human desires, which they are ultimately unable to satisfy.”

L. M. Sacasas

Desire, Dopamine, and the Internet