Forwarded from n e s h i e ❄️
have you ever gotten fucked over by ransomware?
Anonymous Poll
36%
yes
36%
no
29%
i don’t use windows
My favorite questions by far are: "why," "how," and "so what?"
Often times the literal facts of a situation are obvious to us, and the big problems in life can appear equally self evident. What's harder is breaking things down into smaller problems. The bite sized kind that you can actually envision yourself solving.
"Why?" and "how?" are clearly useful in that sense; they help us get to the bottom of the tangled string of history that lead to whatever mess we're considering. But they also help us wind the tape forward. "How can I solve this," "why has nobody else done X," "why can't I just..." — these and others like them are all vital instruments in your mental toolbox.
"So what?" may sound confrontational, but the essence of it is more "what is the relevance?" It highlights why we're talking about something in the first place. Is it a problem? A solution? An explanation? Is this worth talking about at all, and where do we go next? How does this fit into the big picture?
The broader function that all of these serve is providing focus. Whether it's in a conversation or just in your own head, people have a tendency to go on tangents. Periodically stepping back and asking some of these big but simple questions can help you see if you're getting stuck in the weeds, or if this aside really is in service of the broader train of thought.
Often times the literal facts of a situation are obvious to us, and the big problems in life can appear equally self evident. What's harder is breaking things down into smaller problems. The bite sized kind that you can actually envision yourself solving.
"Why?" and "how?" are clearly useful in that sense; they help us get to the bottom of the tangled string of history that lead to whatever mess we're considering. But they also help us wind the tape forward. "How can I solve this," "why has nobody else done X," "why can't I just..." — these and others like them are all vital instruments in your mental toolbox.
"So what?" may sound confrontational, but the essence of it is more "what is the relevance?" It highlights why we're talking about something in the first place. Is it a problem? A solution? An explanation? Is this worth talking about at all, and where do we go next? How does this fit into the big picture?
The broader function that all of these serve is providing focus. Whether it's in a conversation or just in your own head, people have a tendency to go on tangents. Periodically stepping back and asking some of these big but simple questions can help you see if you're getting stuck in the weeds, or if this aside really is in service of the broader train of thought.
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Forwarded from n e s h i e ❄️
one driving factor behind the shift in tone in american journalism, i think, is the move to subnoscription based services
Forwarded from n e s h i e ❄️
instead of favoring corporate interests for ad money, they’re favoring what the readers want to hear (or whatever baits their attention), so they don’t lose subscribers
n e s h i e ❄️
instead of favoring corporate interests for ad money, they’re favoring what the readers want to hear (or whatever baits their attention), so they don’t lose subscribers
This kind of ties into a larger topic of analyzing systems of power that I have been thinking about a lot recently.
We have the language to describe how economic incentives shape the content created by newspapers, but economic models of consumer desires are notoriously incomplete, and the implications of the shift in tone are completely lost on us. We are missing the forest for the trees by analyzing this exclusively as an economic issue, rather than one of systems of power in general, and the sociological aspect of power doesn't even have a proper formal field of study behind it.
We know that the end result of this pandering is that the quality of news goes down, but what does that really mean? How would quality have been measured in the first place? And the answer is that the news served a purpose (i.e. informing the public), but the incentives governing the system in actuality are decoupled from that goal, because quality content is not necessarily the most entertaining, and thus the news is shit now.
We have the language to describe how economic incentives shape the content created by newspapers, but economic models of consumer desires are notoriously incomplete, and the implications of the shift in tone are completely lost on us. We are missing the forest for the trees by analyzing this exclusively as an economic issue, rather than one of systems of power in general, and the sociological aspect of power doesn't even have a proper formal field of study behind it.
We know that the end result of this pandering is that the quality of news goes down, but what does that really mean? How would quality have been measured in the first place? And the answer is that the news served a purpose (i.e. informing the public), but the incentives governing the system in actuality are decoupled from that goal, because quality content is not necessarily the most entertaining, and thus the news is shit now.
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Forwarded from Pedr Fhettrs
What is the worst city on I-95?
Anonymous Poll
6%
Boston
6%
New York
12%
Philadelphia
35%
Baltimore
18%
DC
24%
Miami
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