It's 2 AM. A thumb hovers over a smartphone screen, switching between a crisis report from thousands of miles away and a banking app showing a low balance. Heart racing, breathing shallow—your body treats both as identical threats. One you can act on. The other you cannot. The Problem With Caring About Everything Modern information … Continue reading How to Stop Drowning in Other People’s Problems
Tag: community
Bartle Taxonomy of Player Types
I came across this idea in this Tweet: https://x.com/coloradotravis/status/1703962045279093171?s=20 I think it is applicable to any community. Any community is going to have people that are: Achievers: People that like accomplishing things (~10%) Explorers: People that like to learn things or have new experiences (~10%) Killers: People that want to compete and win against other … Continue reading Bartle Taxonomy of Player Types
Accept, Reframe, Or Reject
"EVERYONE GETS SHITTY FEEDBACK sometimes. There are a variety of reasons for this, starting with the fact that giving feedback is difficult and most people are terrifically bad at it. But even those who have developed strong feedback skills will still sometimes do it poorly, because the attention and care required to do it well are … Continue reading Accept, Reframe, Or Reject
Having a Good Internet Experience
Try to use different lenses of interpretation and without an agenda. Learn to block people, preferably with your mind. Keep your shit to yourself. Learn to say, "It's none of my business." Lurk. Be skeptical. Focus on the positive. I thought this Tumblr post was useful, so I reformulated the suggestions as the above. True … Continue reading Having a Good Internet Experience
Tragedy vs. Comedy Modes
As Brown notes, Meeker argues that Western Civilization is mostly founded on the “tragic mode,” inspired by the great tragedies in which a “larger-than-life character attempts to bend the world to his (and it’s always his) image.” The character’s success “is also his undoing,” and tragedies end in bloodshed, death, and a funeral of some kind. Our … Continue reading Tragedy vs. Comedy Modes
The Corruption of Apology
"True apologies are precious. They’re a secular process of remediation, drawing on moral intuitions shared by many religious traditions. They encourage membership in one’s moral community because they are fundamentally relational: They heal the bond between wrongdoer and wronged. By temporarily humbling the perpetrator and vindicating the victim, they pave the way for both sides to make up. Apologies … Continue reading The Corruption of Apology
The Purpose of Dialogue
Open Question: What is the purpose of dialogue? People generally only change their minds when in conversation with someone that loves them. How many conversations are we having with people we love?Maybe the point of conversation is to change our own minds. If we aren't coming from that place, are we in dialogue at all?Trying … Continue reading The Purpose of Dialogue
Communities vs. Transactions
My wife and I have different ways of looking at the world. It occurs to me today that the ambiguity of these two ways of looking at relationships is often exploited. I think my wife's understanding is typical. In her view, people do things for one another because they care about one another. Unless it … Continue reading Communities vs. Transactions
Third Place
"The third place is a concept which identifies places which are not home (first place) or work (second place).As ‘informal public gathering places’, they are places of refuge, where people can eat, drink, relax, and commune in order to develop a sense of belonging to a place. They are gathering places where community is most … Continue reading Third Place
Oddkin
"Here’s Donna Haraway, talking about kin, in Staying with the Trouble (2):"Kin is a wild category that all sorts of people do their best to domesticate. Making kin as oddkin, rather than, or at least in addition to, godkin…troubles important matters, like to whom one is actually responsible….What shape is this kinship, where and whom … Continue reading Oddkin
A Community is Defined By Its Center and Not Its Periphery
"My sense is that you need to build up a nucleus of people who know each other and who can network and support each other [in developing a proficiency in a technology with the complexity of R.]"—Hadley Wickham in an interview with Dan Kopf, "What’s next for the popular programming language R?" Quartz. August 17, … Continue reading A Community is Defined By Its Center and Not Its Periphery
Run Your Own Social Network
"I suppose I'll repeat what I said multiple times in this document, which is that running a small social network site for your friends is hard work, but it's worth it. It is first and foremost the work of community building, and only secondarily is it a technical endeavor. And it's completely possible to do, … Continue reading Run Your Own Social Network
Arduous Interfaces & Abrasive Situations
"However, such a move seems to imply the utopian view that you can bring people into close virtual proximity and have everyone simply get along splendidly. McLuhan was closer to the truth: we will face arduous interfaces and abrasive situation regardless of how benign the companies and how ethical the design." —L.M. Sacasas, "No. 17: … Continue reading Arduous Interfaces & Abrasive Situations
Alienation at Home
"Who is going to be brave enough to ask where home is, and seek out something else if they don't like the answer?"-Hanif Abdurraqib, "Under Half-Lit Fluorescents: The Wonder Years and the Great Suburban Narrative," in "They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us." Columbus, Ohio: Two Dollar Radio, 2017. I remember the moment I … Continue reading Alienation at Home
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