Which game are you playing?
CC #20 - Know your rules | History of the Wheelie Suitcase | Rotting Internet
Hi friends - I am back!
Initially, I thought I would spend a greater amount of time on reading & writing during the summer months. In the end I did less reading & writing than normal, especially during my holidays. However, I have to say it did feel great to take time off and spend time not thinking about literally anything going on outside of the borders of my vacation home. Now however, I am quite excited to be back and share some thoughts with you that have been pondering in my head for quite a while!
đ§ Food For Thought
Which game are you playing?
I came across this great philosophical article a couple of weeks ago - itâs based on the assumption/fact(?) that everything and everyone in this world will stop to exist at some point. This might sound quite depressing but in fact it is also very much liberating and inspiring:
Sure, the great catastrophe has not happened yet. But it will. Before long, everyone here will be gone. (âŚ) Even if we achieve immortality through science, the sun will eventually explode. Even if we escape the solar system, other suns will die out as well. Though the outer trappings of life have been revolutionized, the basic character of living on the wheel of time cannot be altered. I find our battle to fend off hopelessness, the steadfast refusal to give in to nihilism, and the ingenious attempts to construct meaning systems out of whatever broken materials we find at hand, to be the greatest nobility of which mankind is capable.
Darryl, Life is a Disaster, Life is so Beautiful
Taking this viewpoint on life turns all of us into game players. By constructing meaning systems we are writing the rules of our very own game. Some âlife gamesâ might be similar, sometimes people will have some rules in common but some people will also operate under a completely disjunct set of rules.
I can recommend taking a minute to reflect on which game(s) you and the people you are interacting with, are playing and by what rules these operate. It helps to get a bit of an outside perspective on your personal reasoning and understand the motivation and incentives behind other peoples actions better.
Keep on playing! đ˛
đ Things I Enjoyed Reading
đ Â How to build a small town in Texas
A manual on the things to take into account when building a town from scratch - making up a founding myth is one of them.
Ideally you want to build a new town in a region where there are already people present, near larger cities or along a ânecklaceâ of small towns. This makes it easier to attract citizens, and it also makes the town less isolated, more easily connected to outside markets, tourism etc. but in this scenario the land is marginal and a bit far from towns and airports. Hence, save space for a convenient and scenic (you canât do fast at this scale) rail or canal or river ferry connection to the nearest larger town. It will raise the value of the town land itself and everything it produces will have a better access to a market (especially perishables). It is also a great way to bring tourism into the city without having to provide parking.
đĽÂ The Internet Is Rotting
An essay about the implications of deleted websites for our worldwide open-source knowledge base
This absence of central control, or even easy central monitoring, has long been celebrated as an instrument of grassroots democracy and freedom. Itâs not trivial to censor a network as organic and decentralized as the internet. But more recently, these features have been understood to facilitate vectors for individual harassment and societal destabilization, with no easy gating points through which to remove or label malicious work not under the umbrellas of the major social-media platforms, or to quickly identify their sources. While both assessments have power to them, they each gloss over a key feature of the distributed web and internet: Their designs naturally create gaps of responsibility for maintaining valuable content that others rely on. Links work seamlessly until they donât. And as tangible counterparts to online work fade, these gaps represent actual holes in humanityâs knowledge.
đź Why the new employer of choice is no employer at all
Great analysis of the trend towards freelance/independent work and its implications for corporates and employers in general
Traditional employers need to confront the reality that the internet is and will be their biggest competitor for top talent. Regardless of whether a company is fully remote or hybrid, every organization is at risk of having its top people poached by the seductive draw of independent work. To adapt to this new reality, companies will need to understand the benefits and drawbacks of going independent so they can build an employee experience that allows them to remain competitive in the war for talent.
⨠Random Cool Stuff
𧳠Did you know the wheelie suitcase was officially only invented after the moonlanding? How could it possibly take so long to invent something so simple? Well, turns out somebody already had the idea earlier and there were some women using it but it wasnât widely adopted in society because it was seen as âunmanlyâ to wheel around your stuff.
Lesson Learned: A great innovation doesnât have much worth if cultural norms prevent it from gaining a foothold.
đ We need more moonshot thinking in our world - why not start with defining your own personal moonshot?
đ Elon Musk is building his âStarbaseâ town aka. rocket launch facility in the midst of a national parc. A lot of the things he is doing/building he does without permission. Some people in the close-by village are not happy about it but it seems they donât speak up cause they know there is nothing they can do - holy Elon will get his will anyhow. Kind of scary how one person can have so much power without being democratically legitimized?