I carry this quote by the late Barry Lopez with me everywhere I go. It serves as an evergreen reminder and encouragement for me to stay focused on what matters in the midst of darkness, contradiction, paradox, and loneliness.

I have so much trouble when self described "design leaders" are posting "this is why extraction and destruction are good actually".

If an AI system cannot show who authorized a decision, it should not be making it. Wrote about judgment routing, signing authority, and why invisible discretion is dangerous: makingpublicwork.com/who-holds-th...

People working in tech deserve both awakening to their part in the state of the world, and also compassion for not already knowing it or knowing how to extricate themselves yet

So much of what I've been seeing and hearing in the “systems change,” systemic design, and change-making worlds in recent years amounts to a conflation of *skills* as *values* that everyone should hold. (1/2)

So many people claim to be changemakers and refuse to give up the structural power afforded them by the system they say they want to change. It's why that bit of jargon makes me so itchy.

If you evaluate a technology’s ability to do a job “better than a human”, you have to include all the benefits that the human version of the practice created, in terms of social bonds, regenerative capacity and cultural meaning.

Today's Washington Post article about the memorial for my dear friend, Pableaux Johnson, in New Orleans last weekend. www.washingtonpost.com/food/2025/03... Alternate link: archive.is/l582G#select...

Over 500 people attended the Celebration of Life for Pableaux Johnson (pableaux.com) this past weekend in New Orleans. Here are links to the memorial service and second line parade that followed. I miss him. Memorial: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejqU... Second Line: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjs...

Pableaux Johnson Indian galleries in Bitter Southerner bittersoutherner.com/wild-creatio...

AKA abductive process or multiple description: how one context informs and describes another context. Nature does this all the time, and it requires circular feedback, among other things. Good luck trying to get a computer or an algorithm to think or assemble anything by abductive inference.

If you weren’t Pableaux’s friend, he just hadn’t met you yet. Photo by Cheryl Gerber.

Pableaux (pableaux.com) was selected as the 2025 Documentary Photographer of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Here's a podcast interview from 2017 in which he gives more insight into his approach, process, and connection to his community. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

"Wouldn't it be grand?" Pableaux would often say. So, wouldn't it be grand if people picked up his tradition of regular Monday red beans gatherings in his honor? In a world aching for meaningful connections, wouldn't it be grand?

Thread:

Pableaux Johnson memorial second line. Mon Jan 27th, 2025. Tuba Fats Square. 6pm. Young Dex Brass Band playing

From an intro I wrote to an editor once--it explains how important Pableaux Johnson was to my career. Without him I'd be living a very different life. I am absolutely gutted by this news & I'm so sorry that people in his everyday life in NOLA and elsewhere have lost this friend & community member.

A long story about Pableaux Johnson and me that I'm not sure many people know. We met in 1996 at an advertising agency in Austin, Texas, and became fast friends. He was a freelance designer, there trying to make ends meet. 🧵/1 pableaux.com

My dear friend of 30 years. So many adventures with you that I’ll never forget. I wouldn’t have expected that when I talked to you recently that it’d be the last time. I’m heartbroken. Gonna miss you, boyo. www.nola.com/news/pableau...

Abductive process is the language of metaphor, mutual learning, and evolution. There's little adaptive creativity without it.

Gregory Bateson: CONSCIOUS PURPOSE (i.e. actions taking the shortest logical or causal path; direct correctives; coupling of conscious thinking with our biological context; design) + DUALISTIC THINKING (i.e. mind/body split; mind vs. matter) = HUBRIS (i.e. pride, overconfidence, arrogance)

Hot damn.

The idea of designers contributing to society is fascinating - as many designers wish to do it, or think they are doing it, but yet exclusively design for corporations which often are detrimental to society. #designcogntivedissonance

@idilgaziulusoy.bsky.social @camerontw.bsky.social Do either of you have examples or evidence you could share of anyone doing design-led transition work, sustainability transitions work, or transition pathways exploration as a paid service offering? Who are the paying clients/funders of that work?

Taking time is an act of resistance. ... to ask "who feels unwelcome?" ... to ask "who has self-doubt?" ... to ask "who is interrupted?" ... to recognize these are harms ... and to take responsibility against doing harm –– Read more 🔗 medium.com/inclusive-so...