Sublime

An inspiration engine for ideas

AllPeopleCollectionsArticlesAudioBooksFilesHighlightsImagesLinksNotesTextTweetsVideosSocial

It’s not that certain platforms (ahem, Twitter.com) tend by some crazy fluke to be lousy with trolling, shit-posting, and abuse. They are set up to enable it. They live by engagement, and that means by exchange: not of information but of triggers. The troll plays the instrument the way it’s meant to be played. And the instrument’s creator is forced

Adrian Daub • What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley (FSG Originals x Logic)

Postman believed that technological change tended to shape every aspect of the world around us, and that its danger was that it would set the boundaries for our thinking. The major risk Postman identified is that we might begin to accept technology as a part of nature, as though it were the inescapable way of things. We have to remember that these ... See more

Now anyone can publish, the gatekeepers have changed. Our new navigational mechanism is largely "on demand". The audience cherrypicks from an endless feed of stories shaped by people in their network. What shows up in that feed is governed by a set of rules because there's a vast amount of content to choose from now that everybody has the mic. We c... See more

Troy Young • People vs Algorithms

While the obstruction of taste and the tactic of corrupt personalization may feel like individual problems—users must work harder to identify what they truly like—it also quickly scales up into massive social issues. When millions of consumers are subtly misled and thus ultimately fed what they consume, certain kinds of culture are choked off from

Kyle Chayka • Filterworld

There will always be designers to design the Hummers and the bumper stickers, and there will always be designers to make websites to propagate the warnings and promises of David Foster Wallace. But a new generation of designers has emerged, concerned with designing strategies to subvert this “natural default-setting” in which each person understand... See more

Kevin Slavin • Design as Participation

Evoking the scene that Lola recounted at the start of this chapter, Adams told me of his own style in the field. “I go out there and sit down at a machine. I turn to the person next to me and say I design these things, that’s why I’ve been sitting here playing this machine next to you for twenty minutes, because this is what I do. Let me show you t

Natasha Dow Schüll • Addiction by Design

Interoperability still persists in some categories of internet services. It thrives, notably, in video games where users create “mods”: game remixes or DIY components that can consist of altered art, modified gameplay, randomized game elements, add-ons such as new weapons or tools, and other custom bits.

Chris Dixon • Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet

Murphy broke the silence. “Did you ever hear this theory that Eno has? About the farmers and the cowboys? There’s two types of artists—there’s the farmers and the cowboys.

The farmers, like in his studio for example”—he said, gesturing to the screen—“he’s mostly kind of doing the same thing, refining and refining and refining the same thing. And th

Meg began by acknowledging the central place of hope in our lives and culture. “The idea that history moves forward, the idea of progress, is one of the building blocks of Western civilization. Part of the bedrock we stand on. But we made it all up. We think our technology will save us, but it actually traps us. Our activism is fueled by similar no

Sublime

Adrian Daub • What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley (FSG Originals x Logic)

Troy Young • People vs Algorithms

Kyle Chayka • Filterworld

Kevin Slavin • Design as Participation

Natasha Dow Schüll • Addiction by Design

Chris Dixon • Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet

Andrew Boyd • I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor