The Shame Machine
On the mining of our insecurities, the optimization of shame, and social media cycles of curated self-diminishment.
Social Platforms
On Brutalism in Product Design
Product designers have developed an unfortunate habit of appropriating architectural movements, stripping them of their philosophical foundations, and reducing them to a set of optimistic but still existentially restrained aesthetic guidelines. Brutalism is perhaps the most prevalent example of this trend. The brutalist movement emerged from post-war Britain's
An Internet for Masochapitalists
My earliest online activity sans usenet was posting on gamedev.net around the year 2000. Back then, surfing the internet was about exploration; humans made lists and shared links with each other as blogrolls, bookmarks, and posts on their personal homepages. Using a search engine felt like browsing content at
Agency and Context Collapse on TikTok
It's been about a month away from the platform for me, and I've been reflecting on what it feels like to see it from another angle.
BlueSky's Tradeoffs: Privacy, Centralization, and Protocol Design Decisions
A look at the real-world implications of 'decentralized' social technology.
Is BlueSky really an echo chamber?
Or are some people just uncomfortable with respecting boundaries?
How to amplify political division while laundering money through tech startups
The first thing we'll do is set up some shell companies. A shell company is different from a normal company in that it typically lacks active business operations, employees, or significant assets. Its primary purpose is to hold assets or manage financial transactions, often serving to obscure the
Why I will not publish on Substack
One phenomenon of social information tech startups like Substack is that their explosive growth is directly proportional to the amount of venture capital injected into them. That's why you'll find everyone from journalists and activists to propagandists and politicians publishing their work on the paid newsletter