I changed the game from “online debate” to “potluck at my house.” I changed the goal from “let’s debate ideas” to “let’s enjoy each other’s company while having a stimulating conversation.” I changed the conversational medium from “type into a comment text box” to “discuss over food and drink.” And I changed the question from “What do you believe?” to the biggest unanswered question in my own head: “What’s the endgame for the gun-control debate?”
[By realizing that we knew less, we felt somehow wiser.]
A traditional essay makes a single case and puts all its weight behind it. A problem brief collects the best proposals [and criticisms] that attempt to answer the open question. That means it might have two or five or a hundred different proposals, each with supporting evidence and proposed actions, each a result of a collaboration between supporters and opponents.
[Focus on end-games instead of arguing specific points.]
the low doorway is meant to remind guests to enter with respect.
And so we struggle to reach out, and to respond with our fragile hurting brains. We want connection, and we also find the possibility potentially very difficult when we’re not doing so well. After all, if you invite someone over, they will see your messy house, and maybe judge you. And everyone’s “house” is a mess right now in one way or another.
love the hack to reach out right before ‘correspondence bankruptcy’ to reduce pressure on the recipient 👍🏽 i also try to generally cultivate a norm of ’no response necessary’ with anything i send; if it’s urgent i’ll call or say so.
this made me reflect on my frequent desire for solitude, often by saying or feeling that ‘my social cup is full’. i never thought that it might cost me some ‘social muscles’ but i can see that as a possibility if it goes on for too long. nevertheless, i’d like to think that i know when i want to have company and when not, that i have good judgement in balancing this within myself.
in what seems to now be a previous life, where i felt an overwhelming lack of social interaction, friendship, or companionship, i practiced what i called ‘shake the tree’ once or twice a year: dm everyone with warm wishes and my current city. many were happy i sent this, many reacted with a simple emoji, many didn’t respond, but it generally felt worthwhile for me.
A new world is being born. It is a world where the old rules, more often honored in the breach than the observance, no longer matter. It is a world where vast bureaucratic structures and technologically advanced systems carry out in public view vast killing projects. The industrialized nations, weakened, fearful of global chaos, are sending an ominous message to the Global South and anyone who might think of revolt — we will kill you without restraint.
Evil is protean. It mutates. It finds new forms and new expressions. Germany orchestrated the murder of six million Jews, as well as over six million Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Freemasons, artists, journalists, Soviet prisoners of war, people with physical and intellectual disabilities and political opponents. It immediately set out after the war to expiate itself for its crimes. It deftly transferred its racism and demonization to Muslims, with racial supremacy remaining firmly rooted in the German psyche.
Germany today is Israel’s second largest arms supplier following the U.S.
[To any disagreement, you can ask: What’s really at stake here? If true, what happens? What truth would cause you to change your mind? If this were no longer a problem, how would we get there?]
[‘Nutpicking’ is to select the most extreme viewpoint so that it’s easy to tear apart; an empty victory that invites another cycle.]
[Consider helping the opposition build their strongest arguments and enlist them to build up yours. Iron sharpens iron, and each of you is best suited to find flaws in the others’ approach.]
[We’re easily blind to the loopholes in our own desires.]
[Even if one side wins through power, do they really expect the other side to simply shut up about it forever?]
What is your relationship to the unknown? What is it like to have sensitivity to nature and spirits?
[Reason habituates us to asking black-and-white questions like “what is real?” and “what actually happened?” when actually there’s no need to go there, to the point that some people feel a sense of duty to correct others who believe in something considered unacceptable.]
[Ghosts are more heart-realm metaphors than head-realm beings.]
To ask a good question, walk right up to the perimeter of your current understanding about something and find a question that you don’t know the answer to.
[Instead of “are ghosts real?” ask “what experiences led you to your beliefs?”.]
It’s amazing to have a chance to peek into someone’s belief systems and memories, a treasure trove wasted by a bad question.
[People don’t need to answer, or do so truthfully.]
[Open and honest dialogue requires the information shared to not be weaponized.]
[The fruits of disagreement include: 1. security (negotiating for foundation); 2. growth (taking risks to discover new possibilities and potential security); 3. connection (being able to relate to people with diverse perspectives); and 4. enjoyment, learning to enjoy fundamental disagreements because the discussion brings new nuance each time.]
[Going beyond battling for security diffuses the zero-sum game to enable everyone to gain and grow from the experience.]
[NEDERA: Notice when emotionally activated; Experince the emotion; Differentiate by finding the words that best describe what you’re feeling; Express by speaking it out loud; Resonate by allowing any body changes as a result; Resolve through crying; Act and update to create any boundaries needed around what provoked you.]
[By focusing promotion less on a specific product and more on compelling future outcomes, you can become a go to point for the larger activity or lifestyle and be perfectly positioned to point towards what your business offers: for example, Lululemon selling yoga, the ACME Saddle company selling horseback riding, designer brands selling desirability, Nike selling success…]
[When offering something people have no references for, or that they don’t know they want, copy needs to be framed not in terms of simply features but outcomes that speak to where the customer is. Doing a better job providing what customers want goes hand-in-hand with communicating that as well as possible. It’s imperative to eliminate every little thing that could get in the way of a fluid experience, because the person using this already has too much to deal with and now they have to learn your random piece of software.]
[No points for features if they don’t squarely address the larger purpose.]
Every bit of grace, refinement, and thoughtfulness on our part will pull people along. Every petty irritation will stop them and give the impression that it is not worth it.
Injuries we experience are a reminder of what strangers may be carrying when they avoid things, and how we can be more mindful or compassionate when confronted with people who seem like or say that “they can’t”.
In the same way that Instagram forces posting regularly in order to exist, perhaps all reverse-chronological timelines force ephemeral content. You can reference or quote to old tweets if you’re lucky, but still feels like ‘posting once makes it disappear’ unless you repeat the same isolated fragment frequently. How can one get a sense for how another thinks if they only read one tweet at a time and those tweets are spread out over a year? Perhaps ‘update platforms’ are not designed to understand larger thoughts? Blog posts can also be reverse-chronological but each can include dense context and past references so that you can collapse time in order to understand larger thoughts. So perhaps ‘update platforms’ are best suited to your ‘current status’ and those might as well disappear after 24 hours like ’ephemeral stories’; if you want to get around ephemeral content, use a blog.
If too focused on technique while playing piano, we miss enjoyment and the point of sharing stories. Is there a similar consequence if too focused on “breathing correctly” as opposed to enjoying and feeling each breath?
Old English had “he walks not there today”, similar to other languages with negation after the verb. We change/contract that to “he doesn’t walk there today”. Perhaps a useful explaining device.
It can be a security tactic (around people who choose to deploy anger) that they become hard to estimate under unknown conditions. When anything can turn into an explosion, the environment becomes one of constant fear.
Develop your apps locally with .local domains and HTTPS using LocalCan™ app for macOS
Nicer than my current setup of editing /etc/hosts, adding 127.0.0.1 loc.whatever, entering my password… But I hesitate to have an experience too difference from another person who would run my apps.
Like the concept of Changelog as with Ghost and others. Not sure yet if this pattern would fit somewhere in my universe.