Latest newsletter installment on language. theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/owning-our...

Enjoyed this conversation on Illich, conviviality, and more with Sam Pressler at Connective Tissue. open.substack.com/pub/connecti...

Manufactured inevitability. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/t...

Manufactured Inevitability is such a fitting term from @lmsacasas.bsky.social for the push for generative AI. It could describe every Axios AM or LinkedIn influencer in my feed

This is the sort of thing I had in mind when I wrote about "manufactured inevitability." theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/manufactur...

Joseph Weizenbaum: “The myth of technological ... inevitability is a powerful tranquilizer of the conscience. Its service is to remove responsibility from the shoulders of everyone who truly believes in it. But in fact there are actors.” theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/manufactur...

Manufactured inevitability. www.yahoo.com/news/ohio-st...

Latest newsletter. theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-waters...

@lmsacasas.bsky.social drawing on Greek mythology to describe how our tech makes us forgetful. This is true in medicine where tech and the reductionism that joins it makes us feel efficient, but draws us away from the heart of the practice. theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-waters... #medsky

This is quite the paragraph from Hannah Arendt’s acceptance speech for Denmark’s Sonning Prize in 1975.

'Vibes' are the unit of measurement for perception when you've technologically extend your nervous system beyond the body. That's McLuhan in Understanding Media 👇

Just stumbled on this 1990 Publisher's Weekly review listed on the Amazon page for the book that somehow got posted with the editor's notes for revision still tagged on to the end. Sorry to see the Dracula reference get cut!

This is pretty damn close to what I was imagining… a bunch of people recording parts of Leaves of Grass. All public domain. Just beautiful and Old Internet in the sense of vintage, in the sense of better. librivox.org/leaves-of-gr...

"In a time of acute loneliness, the proliferation of AI-generated content seems not unlike an act of pollution, compromising the integrity of the social ecosystem." It was kind of Meta to provide a demonstration of what I just wrote about. open.substack.com/pub/theconvi...

I ended up writing about that little painted cat I found and the contrast it created for me to AI-generated content. theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-cat-in...

Taking a walk with my kids today when one of them noticed this charming cat painted where a limb had been cut off an oak and all I could think was that I would take this, and the spirit that inspired it, over every AI-generated image or video I've ever seen.

We didn't deserve Kurt Vonnegut

I wrote about how AI undermines reading, particularly reading books — about summarization and “optimization culture.” And, for paid subscribers, I have a list of recommended books from those I read this year 2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/mark-all-as-...

"... researchers should certainly work on innovative education — including computer-aided education. But we ought not to use entire generations of schoolchildren as experimental subjects." Joseph Weizenbaum being eminently reasonable about computers & education in 1985. h/t @marcwatkins.bsky.social

And then there’s Weizenbaum on the false comforts of deploying technology in schools instead of addressing structural social inequities.

From @lmsacasas.bsky.social: "...with regard to the principle that life cannot be delegated, we might helpfully ask, 'What are the thresholds of delegation beyond which what we are left with is no longer life in its fullness and wholeness?'" theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/life-canno...

Last installment of 2024: "Life Cannot Be Delegated." theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/life-canno...

Lewis Mumford, "Authoritarian and Democratic Technics." Written 50 years ago, still relevant.

“The viability of technology, like democracy, depends in the end on the practice of justice and on the enforcement of limits to power.” – Ursula Franklin

This recalled a list of 10 points of unsolicited advice I put together for tech writers back in 2014. thefrailestthing.com/2014/03/30/1...

As always, excellent questions to ask about technology before blind adoption. (AI in this case.) I'm also reminded of my experience in France bumbling with the language. I did in fact spend time listening and discovering alternatives to many American assumptions I didn't even know I had.

As measured and perceptive as anything yet written on AI.

A brilliant read on Illich, good intentions and AI from @lmsacasas.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/theconvi...

The Convivial Society is one of maybe 3 newsletters I subscribe to and one of the 2 I actually regularly read. They're almost always bangers. Highly recommended.

"To Hell With Good Intentions, Silicon Valley Edition" theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/to-hell-wi...

“When the enclosure of the psyche is complete, we lose the right to wander and roam and loaf about in thought, just as the enclosure of the commons restricted freedom of movement and disdained economically unproductive but life-affirming forms of leisure.” — @lmsacasas.bsky.social

“... the transformation of the commons into a resource, regardless of who profited, was itself a great loss.” Resit the enclosure of the human psyche. theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-enclos...

“... the transformation of the commons into a resource, regardless of who profited, was itself a great loss.” Resit the enclosure of the human psyche. theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-enclos...

This is a beautiful concept from @lmsacasas.bsky.social, who I'm glad made it on here

Marilynne Robinson, "Language Is Smarter Than We Are" (1987). www.nytimes.com/1987/01/11/b...

Alright friends, new post in which I offer an analogy that I hope is helpful and constructive: "Resist the Enclosure of the Human Psyche." open.substack.com/pub/theconvi...

Stumbled on this letter from Tolkien to Auden today. There's a wealth of wisdom latent in these lines—for writing and for living.

Has anyone yet written "More Work for Teacher" in the spirit of Ruth Cowan's classic "More Work for Mother"? I wrote something to that effect in 2011, but that was just a blog post.

A wonderful connection to the thoughts of Illich and McLuhan, and a fruitful analogy to help us think about the (inter)net closing around us.

Alright friends, new post in which I offer an analogy that I hope is helpful and constructive: "Resist the Enclosure of the Human Psyche." open.substack.com/pub/theconvi...

A wonderful conversation on Lost Prophets with @lmsacasas.bsky.social on Ivan Illich and technology. There is a tension with Illich, in that institutions can hypertrophy and cripple us, but we also need them, especially in an era when tech is so formative.

“Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don't really have any rights left.” — Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (1964)

NEW FROM ME: Elon Musk's space junk is a threat to us all. Starlink satellites will pollute the atmosphere, land in your backyard, and - a fresh new nightmare - could hit airliners at 35,000 feet. buttondown.com/creativegood...

"We must challenge this authoritarian system that has given to an underdimensioned ideology and technology the authority that belongs to the human personality. I repeat: life cannot be delegated." — Lewis Mumford, "Authoritarian and Democratic Technics" (1963)

@lmsacasas.bsky.social diagnosed something similar a couple of years ago, writing about AI images: “(…) in place of occasional experiences of depth that renew and satisfy us, we are simply given an infinite surface upon which to skim indefinitely” theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/lonely-sur...

The comments section on this post has become a real treasure trove.

Alan is one of the most thoughtful and charitable writers I know. I've been reading his work for over twenty years, and glad to see he's on here.