for spooky season this year I wrote about Italo Calvino's remarkable 1967 lecture "Cybernetics and Ghosts", wherein he speculates about whether a machine could ever write great literature. joelgustafson.com/posts/2025-1...

“If you desire to see, learn how to act”
- Heinz von Foerster’s Aesthetical Imperative

A lot of problems are just rooted in lack of constant organization!

I've been finding myself trying to reengage healthily w social media, since this is really where we can find open discourse for all. Twitter has been "not the same" for a while surely, but I find those who keep up earnest writing and iterating w what we already have commendable.

every time I draft an "idea" post, I find myself hesitating from actually publicizing the idea. A blogging/tweeting draft is a good forcing function though

this now actually sorts posts by time for arbitrary spatial queries, which i didn't think was possible at first

Feel like there could be more discourse on what it means to use AI chatbots just as a search engine, without considering their generative capabilities that directly replace human labor. Their searching ability seems little more familiar than their other uses, but it might have non-obvious biases.

I love this lens of seeing meaning bc of shared culture

Three arguments for vr serving as better replacement for interacting on the net

New market creation requires Bucky Fuller design:

“A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist.”

I still rmbr the first feeling of overwhelm I'd get from the Internet from seeing all the knowledge to consume. But nowadays the dominant feeling I get is more on the lines of discouragement than overwhelm, esp when I'm consuming more than producing, forgetting to think on my own terms.

There is real stickiness to platforms once enough people have joined one. Especially once you have built history on a platform, you don't want to lose what's been compounded, and it's often hard to extract and move that data. Good eg is Spotify accumulating your listening history from the beginning

Websites and blogs feel mostly dead because people are social and want community

"Compensating feedback usually involves a "delay," a time lag between the short-term benefit and the long-term disbenefit" -- Peter Senge

Have been feeling lately like I should write about or say something, without necessarily knowing what to say. After thinking about that challenge, it’s probably a sign that I should step back and read more.

What you become attached to, becomes your identity