thinking in public
thinking <=> building
in science we have theories and laws, in math and logic we have axioms. these are great constraints for thinking; there's meaning to pushing the borders, stress testing, and play within these constraints. it's less clear what analogous tool we have when thinking in everyday life...
yet our tools for thinking in public have grown tremendously with the progress of mass media
social media was the latest promise of connection and democratic voice amplification but at this point i think we can admit that the experiment did not live up to expectations or was co-opted along the way
social media is:
- not fun
- gives you frictionless "want" (extreme emotions, "porn", novelty, etc.) --> that we, in a highly developed country, mindlessly want more++ is a damned state
- horrible social comparison and social group theory
- emotional and intellectual fatigue via hyperstimulus/hyperswitching
- a whole generation of people who want to be influencers instead of "actioners"
ergo this blog:
- i'm doing it for my fun
- incentivize long-form thinking for me
- enact a new social possibility with my friends
what this should not be:
- act as another "needle in a haystack" filter --> i'm sure you'll find novel ideas and cool resources here but it's not the point; thinking and wrangling is the point; we have stacks of needles already and we don't need more!
- act as a journal (scrap or published) --> i want to give ya'll ideas that are more formed then something i'd jot down in 10 seconds but also i don't want to wait to publish until something is 100% polished and referenced. it'll sit heavily. squarely. somewhere in the middle.
- periodic --> my mind doesn't care about structured time. not many of us think intuitively like that. so the pacing of this will be like a river; when it pours it becomes a rapid; in a dry season it may disappear altogether. over time it's shape will change.