Thomas

Pretty much every marketing tactic is built around treating people as a means to some end (making money). In fact, Kant struggled much of his life with the ethical implications of capitalism and wealth inequality. He believed that it was impossible for anyone to amass a fortune without some degree of manipulation or coercion along the way.

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But Alfani’s observation that the rich as a group have no clear social function is borne out by the fact that, in the Musk era, they have reacted to populist pressures largely by justifying their fortunes as individuals. When they maintain a combative social-media presence, fixate on meritocracy, employ idealistic language to describe for-profit... 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

Ambition isn't about getting more money, more goods, bigger houses, greater acclaim from people you don't know or respect. It's not about anything that can fit on a spreadsheet or graph, or that lends itself well to bragging on social media. All of that is just grasping, not ambition.

Ambition is about the echoes you want to leave reverberating in... See more

We are so focused on evaluating our social networks and broadcast platforms from a distribution perspective that we often forget to analyze the other side of the two-sided content marketplace: creation. But our current internet culture is as much driven by frictionless distribution as it is by frictionless creation.

Instead of treating A.I. like a normal technological development whose emergence and effect is conditioned by the systems and structures already in place, we’re left anxiously awaiting a kind of eschatological product announcement--a deadline before which all we can do is urgently and at all costs prepare, a messianic event after which we will no... See more