33: Islands of sanity
Plus first followers, middle-aged Japanese men and Moloch game theory
Something light to start because later you’ll read a depressing statistic about TikTok and the impending collapse of civilisation.
Trade-in. Real, actual middle-aged men are the stars of this trading cards game going viral in Japan. Take Mr. Fujii (68), a former prison officer turned community volunteer:
His card is so sought after that local kids have even started asking him for autographs.
Infraordinary FM. Take the internet’s most mundane APIs — pinball scores, tides, tugboats, bird sightings — and turn it into a serene, beautiful and bizarre little radio station. Thank you Daniel, for sharing this at Interesting.
Flex your noggin
Critical atrophy. A Microsoft study hints at the damage AI can have on critical thinking. Gen Z are being hailed as the most gullible. And this horror stat is the nail in the coffin: average dwell time on TikTok has surpassed 35 hours per month.
Curiouser. I’ve been trying curiouser.ai, a new tool claiming to be the first to make you think. It’s also the first AI thing I’ve paid for which, now I think of it, was rather sneaky. TLDR; like ChatGPT without the sugar rush.
Questions. Good ones are the new scarcity, because answers are cheap. And asking strategic questions is the “new competitive advantage”. (But is it new tho?). Our friend Einstein weighs in:
“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes”.
As a manifest example, we have the “antilibrary”, a concept Nassim Nicholas Taleb borrowed from Umberto Eco’s collection of 30,000 mostly unread books. Together they are a “queue of curiosity”, a constant reminder that certainty and completion are dangerous.
Writing. I’ve discovered Harry Dry, a whip smart copywriter of the sharpest order. Strong LinkedIn game, three rules for writing I don’t quite understand but also regular, practical tips. Separately, this lovely collection of slightly rude notes about writing says: “lots of people think they need to get better at writing, but nobody thinks they need to get better at thinking, and this is why they don’t get better at writing.”
Digital bits
Stop the press! An IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE about misinformation with TOBY JONES! June to September. Some Guardian bumf. More interesting is the 40-person arts production company Sage & Jester whose mission is to tackle misinformation.
Much like Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto (see edition 31), a different team are doing Waiting for Godot in Fortnite now. Theatre + Game platform + Twitch is where it’s at.
Our Story has been announced, an NHM x Attenborough immersive show for the summer. It’s possible this is a project I indirectly contributed to in 2021 that has mutated so many times I can’t quite be sure.
The National Gallery’s Imaginarium is now live. I’m not a fan of art in virtual 3D, but the stepped storytelling around certain artworks is nice.
Big stuff
Oh Molochs. This depressing game theory describes the zero-sum spiral of one person standing at a concert so everyone is forced to stand.
“Per the Hebrew myth, Moloch is a faceless force that sees us all sacrifice what we hold dear as a collective to an end that leaves us all categorically fucked.”
In society, we hope for change whilst knowing capitalist systems will continue extracting until armageddon. The cognitive dissonance is exhausting but accepting it, argues Sarah Wilson, is a relief. Our job is to create islands of sanity, which is a lovely way of talking about resilience building and mutual aid. After all, we don't have fangs, we don't have horns, our only way to survive is to be part of a tribe.
Amazon. I like this protest poster and I like Matt’s “Escape the Amazon” invitation to ditch the f***ers and join a chat group that shares alternatives. Can you believe 1/4 of UK households spend over £200 per month on Amazon? That’s a lot of coin in the wrong pocket.
Unions. True democracy depends on them and, let’s be honest, late-stage capitalism (ie oligarchy) isn’t designed to be democratic. A movement in the US is aiming to unionise and mobilise 3.5% of the population (circa 11 million). In the UK, Rachel Coldicutt is circling the idea of a society for hopeful technologists.
Growth. Work-wise, we’re thinking about growth and achieving scale in different ways. This RadioLab episode sidled into my headphones. Fingertips grow back! Squash grow massive in Alaska (lots of light). And Fibonacci (not his real name), whose sequence describes a specific type of growth, was building on an ancient Indian way of counting syllables in song which, as a technology of information storage and transmission, was the internet of its time.
Something silly
Strategic buttons. Here’s someone getting angry about touchscreens claiming to be the pinnacle of intuitive design when a dial will do just fine. Tangentially, “Buttons” is the somewhat bizarre name for one imagined future in a University of Edinburgh study about digital cultural infrastructure. This one is all about portability and sharing data. There are 7 other scenarios.
Enthusiasm. An undervalued force in actually making things happen. Swiss Miss credits various enthusiastic forces in a lovely post because: “Confidence is impressive, but enthusiasm can change people’s lives.” Which reminds me of the First follower video.
I will now enthusiastically sign off!!! And if you can enthusiastically forward these words to one other person, the world might become infinitesimally better.
B.
PS - In April I spent four days on the Coastal path with my Ma. You can watch these daft Reels if you like. Walking is so much more than A to B perambulation. It’s dreaming, connecting, nourishing, remembering. When people say, but what action can I take? Tell them to walk somewhere, because walking makes space for feeling, which is where action comes from.
