Thomas

In a speech delivered years ago, Ev Williams used agriculture as a metaphor to understand what’s possible on the Internet.

Agriculture was a tremendous invention – it got people fed and freed them to do many things. But agriculture – taken to the extreme in the pursuit of profit leads to a sick and obese population and industrialized farms with lit... See more

The role of metaphor and narrative, as opposed to new theories or experiments, is too little recognised in discussions of the historian of science Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shifts, supposed (and contested) moments of dramatic change in science. All scientists know how to go about scrutinising a theory: you use it to formulate some testable hypothesis,... See more

The easiest way to feel the absolute value of something is to imagine, as vividly as possible, its disappearance.

Even when the tradeoffs are more clear, I think that technology has to feel humane and serve very human purposes to be worthwhile. Most gadgets feel careless and unwholesome and I worry that they, subconsciously, cause us to treat our homes differently. They are not viscerally pleasing, and if you have enough of that sort of thing in your home I th... See more

It’s already happening https://t.co/tSjt5fvdMq

Walking lets you read the world — and much like the slow, contemplative mental processes involved in reading a book, the pace with which one moves through the world while walking allows for a different, deliberative kind of seeing . You notice more. You think more.