When you hear "better than nothing," ask whose responsibility the "nothing" is, and whether the "better than nothing" solution simply lets them abdicate that responsibility & check the box. AI is the ultimate "better than nothing" technology. Don't negate this argument — reject the whole framing.

I keep trying to keep a rhythm with BlueSky, but of all my internet things, it ends up feeling the most doom-scroll-y and I drop away. I've worked hard to curate my feed and yet the smart people I like hearing from nonetheless contribute. How are you guys doing this thing everyday? Pro tips welcome.

A lot of advice for improving team velocity looks like speedrunning: sequence break as much as possible, any% everything in between. But life isn't a video game, and shoveling crap at colleagues and customers is not a winning long-term strategy. No LLM can stand in for actual human teammates.

I've been re-watching Monty Python's Flying Circus over dinner the last few weeks and when I hit episode 12 I did a spit take. If I was teaching history right now, I'd ask my students to watch this sketch and reflect on current events. 🫠 "Well, I think he'd do a lot of good for the stock exchange."

“To hell with the future. It's a man eating idol.” Ivan Illich

I spend a lot of time explaining what I mean by #complexity informed. I enjoy it, but I wished there was a video (more invitation than explainer) to help me do the job. After hunting for something that didn't really exist, I decided to just make it. Maybe it'll help you too: youtu.be/o-gOyaXZLqo?...

I've fallen into lurker mode with this site lately but I'm still here... and this week I wrote this thing that seemed to resonate with a bunch of folks, maybe if you're into #SystemsThinking or #Complexity you'll dig it too:

Hi. I wrote a thing about learning and apprenticeship that intersects a bit with #edusky and #complexity and would love to hear from you if it resonates...

just saying: it's possible that "I'm gonna dramatically constrict my state capacity while plotting dramatic imperial expansion, and expanding my set of internal enemies while alienating most of my foreign allies" is the beginning of a world-historical masterstroke. but also possible that it isn't

Y'all pick a lane. Then make a little progress in your lane each day. Every serious, experienced organizer I know is Doing Their Thing. Instead of freaking out about each bit of bad news, we're in our lanes rapidly building dual power infrastructure and networks that don't rely on the goverment.

me, increasingly, in response to literally everything youtu.be/lFIYKmos3-s?...

Being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive for an indefinite timeframe gives me an interesting metaphor that helps me deal with things like large-scale corruption in government or commerce. Bear with me for a second while I try to explain.

Do these folks not realize that something being "allowed" or "not allowed" on social media platforms is, uh, not quite the same as something being completely and socially acceptable? Also... xkcd.com/1357

This guy gets it. www.instagram.com/p/DE24GKTNRA...

Last year, my health insurance company refused to negotiate a reasonable 2025 contract rate with my doctor's org, so in November I got the dreaded "we're no longer in network with your insurance, starting 1/1/25" letter. My options are now to pay out of pocket (not feasible) or find a new doctor.

What is a man? A reasonable little pile of facts, sorted reasonably. qwantz.com/index.php?co...

“Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” ― Simone Weil

the perfect rating doesn't exi...... 📽️

“Contemplative Lemmy With Lens Flare” (2024)

Oh how I wish more folks understood how important this nuance is: “Disinformation can work by introducing false evidence, such as a forgery or a hoax event. But it can also work by shaping the frames through which people interpret the evidence they see.”

Bubble Bobble was the first NES game I ever beat. A truly special game for me. When I met the guy I’d eventually marry I learned it was the first game he ever beat as a kid too. We later got matching Bub & Bob tattoos in place of wedding rings. You either get it or you don’t.

Conscientization =/= radicalization.

Perhaps because she’s a friend and not just a random internet “thought leader,” it’s literally never occurred to me until recently that others in my network would likely appreciate Abby’s takes. I bet some of you will. Especially now:

Live your life such that only a relatively small number of people celebrate your death

Here's a little something I wrote about the c-word.

jpeg is the working class image format. png is for coastal elites. tif belongs to the ivory tower intelligentsia. gif is libertarian borderline sovcit and webp is the DNC

"Every new scientific investigation must trace this same path. You must first estrange yourself from the old ways of thinking, and then you must fall in love with new ways of thinking, and you must do both of these things before they are reasonable."

Went to my high school class reunion last night, was chatting with a friend about yearbooks, found mine, and had a chuckle rediscovering this section that was written as a "20 years later" prediction back in 1999. Oddly accurate in a way I feel slightly unnerved by.

I've been enjoying a small little booklet by Darby Hudson titled YOU'RE GOING TO BE OK (BECAUSE YOU'RE FUCKED NO MATTER WHAT), and this gem is one I can't help but share:

Your IKEA product name is your name spelled backwards with an umlaut. Refinnëj, the step ladder that somehow adds the height you need but at an increased horizontal distance making it just as hard to reach the thing.

If you want to hear some *masterful* podcast hosting, check out this episode of BraveUX where Brendan --somehow-- weaved all my abstract tangents and messy metaphors about #Design #UX #SystemsThinking and #Complexity into a coherent interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=e257...

Back when I joined Twitter, I had toes dipped in lots of not-very-overlapping follower groups: systems thinking, scicomm, UX, rhetoric, quantum physics, semiotics, education, public policy… A cool thing to see now, as I rebuild my feed here, is that so much of those worlds have since collided.

Is there a name for the special kind of writer's block that results not from a commonly assumed lack of ideas, but from all the ideas doing this?

The design, systems, and complexity communities love a garden metaphor these days (and for good reason - I use it a lot too) but I’ve started to feel increasing itchy about it. This piece does a great job exploring why: www.noemamag.com/the-entangle...

“We do not obtain knowledge by standing outside of the world; we know because we are of the world. We are part of the world in its differential becoming.” Karen Barad

This explains why conservative fear-mongering is such an easy play in America. — Ppl believe trans ppl make up 21% of the population (Real number: 1%) — Ppl believe Black ppl make up 41% of the nation (real number 12%) — Ppl believe Jewish ppl make up 30% of the nation (Real number, 2%)

“He thought that the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single big mac.”

Today’s draw:

A plane full of happy meals and sad humans

The stairwell in the central parking garage at Logan is low key one of Boston’s best art installations. Fight me.

resolved: people who insist that all social media sites must be places where users are constantly encountering and arguing with people over fundamental disagreement do so because their actual, real lives are echo chambers where they do not encounter any meaningful difference from day-to-day.

Update: can now play Rosanna without disrespecting it, bought a double bass pedal, and committed myself to getting Limelight by New Years. Next up is figuring out how to look cool (or less dorky) while playing. A long game.

It’s really been a tale of two dumpster messages for me lately

A lot of people asking this question and the answer is simply that the rules and laws don’t enforce themselves and the people responsible for enforcing them would just prefer not to. Bartleby the Nation

So this place is really finally happening isn’t it. I’m thrilled but ooof do I need to get back in shape for it. Like a ‘couch to 5k’ program - except it’s from LinkedIn to Blue Sky.

Action is a great antidote for fear.