It’s 2024, and when a new app comes out the conversation is still mostly about pricing.

Exhausting.

They just played Maps at this outdoor mall and goddamn what a song. Can you imagine the feeling of writing that and performing it for the first time?

I know what it feels like to finish a song I’d listen to, but that’s a level that can only be described as Immortal.

Trump is guilty. That wasn’t really ever in doubt, but the capacity for our system to connect unethical action to illegal action and convict one of the most powerful men in the world was in doubt.

I’m not sure I need a slashpage about it, but my Chipotle order is:

• bowl
• brown rice (light)
• black beans
• fajita vegetables (double)
• chicken
• mild salsa
• gauc
• Chipotle Tabasco (1/3 cup)

P.S. Cava is way better than Chipotle.

The best thing aboutut posting to my own blog first is that it makes me feel exceptionally silly to vaguebook/subtweet/whatever.

This is looking much better than yesterday. Trying Elixirs again.

I’m thinking about Manu’s consumption versus creation ratio. After deciding his own ratio is likely around 99:1, Manu states, “I believe people should consume less content and produce more.”

I’m not so sure. I’d bet my ratio is effectively 100:0. What do you think is ideal?

This old photo came up and I suddenly thought, “If I crop this and make it black and white I bet it’ll look cool.” Sure enough, I think it does..

After my allergy shots this morning, I took a long walk home…ish. I decided to stop down in the Wyman Park Dell, which was one of Gracie’s favorite spots in the world. I kind of regret not taking her here on her last day.

I realized what bugged me about Manu’s idea of a the consumption-to-creation ratio – he has the units wrong.

It doesn’t matter if you read more blog posts than you write. It doesn’t matter if I listen to more music than I write. It doesn’t matter if I look at art more than I make it.

What matters is how I spend my time.

I probably spend around four hours a day consuming some form of media/content, whether reading the internet, watching television or movies, listening to music, or reading a book. At most, I’m underestimating and it’s maybe six hours of time.¹ But I also spend at least five or six hours a week creating. Lately, a lot of that time is playing guitar– we’ve been meeting as a band about 2 hours a week, and I play for 20-30 minutes at least a few other days a week. I spend maybe an hour or two each week writing various blog posts.

So I think my real ratio is something like 6 or 7:1. By unit, I may be effectively 100:0, but I spend a pretty healthy chunk of my time creating.

I think it’s far more interesting to think about the ideal ratio of time spent consuming versus creating content. My current ratio feels pretty good, considering time and energy my job takes away from my creative mind. I suspect something like 9-10:1 feels pretty healthy. I think I’d really like to find a way to get closer to 5:1.

Read in 2024: Out by Natsuo Kirino, just in time for the 7PM bookclub at Atomic Books. 📚

In America, if you want to vote for the people who would prefer to tax the wealthy more than the poor, you’re also going to vote for the people who want to protect a woman’s right to choose. Communities come with a set of ideals that seem to have nothing to do with each other.

The size of a community is determined by optimizing who is in and who is out based on that bundle of ideals. Smaller communities might have a smaller set of niche beliefs, or they may have many beliefs that lead to just a tiny intersection of folks who are interested, engaged, and belong.

Workplaces can be like this, too. Much of the dust up at 37 Signals/Basecamp has to do with bundles of belief. At one time, the community of folks who liked 37 Signals product and content had a particular set of beliefs. Then, it turned out, the founders were uncomfortable and challenged by the assumed values of the community they created and found themselves in. They chose a pathway that ran counter to those values, and the community changed. ¹

Organized religion is a powerful community because it is both explicit about belief and complicit in creating those beliefs. It is a community whose purpose is to generate folks who must adhere to its values.

Communities use beliefs as boundaries– in these areas we’ve identified, here are the values we hold as a community. And communities break when new challenges arise and they are forced to generate new values. Lately, it seems a new burden that has been placed on communities– the inability to opt out of holding any value at all. I don’t remember the particulars, but I think it was sometime during the George Floyd protest that there was some dust up within an online yarn pattern community. I don’t remember if the yarn folks were taking the side I agree with or not. I don’t really think that matters. I think what that incident points out is that whereas in the past, trading yarn patterns would never have required establishing beliefs about police brutality directed at African Americans, today, sometimes that’s a requirement.

This is a huge burden on communities.

I play volleyball a few nights a week here in Baltimore. I have no idea what these folks think about what’s happening in Gaza. I don’t have any clue how they feel about Donald Trump. I don’t know if they’re worried or excited about AI. Because we are all self-centered, I project the views and values I have onto these people– I like them, and so my assumption is that we would generally agree on all things. But because I’m also somewhat self-aware, I’m positive if the rec league volleyball pick up players suddenly had to express their values across all of these areas of belief, our community would be fractured.

This is the dance we require. There are times we have to take a stand. There are times that certain values need to be a part of a community. There are times where the broader global discussion might even require that we all, to a degree, “take a side”. But there’s also a lot of pleasure and joy and community in spaces that can be more narrow. There are times and places that have a right to be guarded from having to expand their bundle of belief.

In the US, our political system is structured to guarantee two political parties. And many folks are often dissatisfied by their choices, because a system with two parties incentives generating a set of opposing bundles of belief that come as close as possible to splitting the population evenly. In this optimization problem, very few people can point to one political party and feel satisfied with the bundle of beliefs they are signing up for. Few individual preferences are met while we optimize for a very specific compromise. In politics, we require parties to take a stand on virtually every matter and make values clear in all things.

It’s not always the right decision to require the same of every community we walk in.

Snapped a string on my acoustic today in the first time in years. Also, probably the first time in years I just lost 2 or 3 hours playing at my desk like I used to for days and days when I was a young lad.

This disgusting boy is going to get cleaned up tomorrow.

No refunds

I was about to post some”leopards ate my face” comment about this latest story of conservative Christian women suddenly realizing abortion is necessary healthcare, but I see it’s already at the top off that subreddit.

I’m really excited about audio narration on my blog. I recently did some corporate training and really appreciated audio narration options for most written content. I also suspect reading my own posts aloud will improve my writing.

I want a better camera I will:

1. Actually carry around with me.
2. Mostly have a point-and-shoot experience— I just want to think “cool!”, then spend a few moments considering framing, take my picture, and get right back in the moment.

The iPhone still feels like that camera.

It’s that time of year where I think about how different my life would be if I had decided to get a PhD.

At every conference, once I deliver my presentation I just crash hard.

Communities converge on an understanding of how they are supposed to feel about something very rapidly on the internet. It seems to take no time at all for influential voices to emphatically determine what views are Good and Right and what views are Wrong. The Good takes are rapidly understood and the community as a whole uptakes this posture. The Bad takes and apostates are rolled out just as quickly to be shunned.

We have to make clear who is in, who is out. The views now share are required for participation.

No, this is not about cancel culture or some right wing left wing thing. It’s not about any one event or topic– it’s just about how faster communication gives our self-organizing impulses super powers.

There are a host of complex issues that are decided, at least from the perspective of various communities. These topics can range from Middle East politics and warfare to whether streaming music is ok. That’s not a joke or exaggeration– I’ve seen people write with equal fervor and I’ve seen whole sets of people group together online to take down the apostates on both of these issues.

This is not all bad. Shame is a powerful social and cultural tool to shape behavior. Norms are powerful. I think it’s great that most people can’t and won’t talk about members of the LGBTQ community the way we used to because you’ll be immediately shamed and dragged. I am perfectly happy at times to directly confront someone and ask if they’ve really thought about the consequences of what they’re saying or expressing.

But it does mean that there are many things that are not safe to share. I don’t think it’s always safe to play Devil’s Advocate or “try out” an argument or even an identity to see how it feels. Something that was easier in a smaller, anonymous or at least pseudonymous internet was seeing what it took to deeply make an argument before deciding for real what you believe.

It also means that sometimes when your peers and people you respect have all decided what the “right” view is, it’s very hard to comfortably express a less strident, more lukewarm, more timid, and possibly more complex or nuanced take, especially if you’re not ready, willing, and able to present a dissertation about your view point.

The way I’ve chosen to operate in this environment is to listen to the intensity of others. The best indicator for me that I should sit something out is when I cannot muster the same passion, conviction, or care the rest of my community finds. This almost always means one of two things:

1. I will end up agreeing with them, but for various reasons, I need to listen more and more carefully to be convinced. My own mind and emotions take a lot more evidence to get to the same conclusion my peers made it to right away. ¹
2. Folks are jumping on a bandwagon and squashing nuances and loudly proclaiming the easy thing. Anything I add to the conversation will drain me of all kinds of energy, likely ending in the person I’m talking with claiming they held the same belief that I do the whole time.

In both of these cases, I don’t need to speak. I can just listen. And eventually, I can decide that if we’re not heading toward the first case, I can stop listening. I can just opt out. It’s not a conversation, it’s a signaling competition.

Shorter version of my last post: I find comfort in the fact that I don’t have to participate in every conversation. I am a little disappointment that some conversations are reserved for people I trust with the ephimerality and privacy of a spoken conversation.

It’s a gift to have thoughtful people in my life.

Ocean City, MD