People ask why we can’t reform the education system. But right now students’ incentive is to go to the most prestigious college they can get into so employers will hire them – whether or not they learn anything. Employers’ incentive is to get students from the most prestigious college they can so that they can defend their decision to their boss if it goes wrong – whether or not the college provides value added. And colleges’ incentive is to do whatever it takes to get more prestige, as measured in US News and World Report rankings – whether or not it helps students. Does this lead to huge waste and poor education? Yes. Could the Education God notice this and make some Education Decrees that lead to a vastly more efficient system? Easily! But since there’s no Education God everybody is just going to follow their own incentives, which are only partly correlated with education or efficiency.
Research
A collection of ongoing research and inspiration across design, technology, photography, and more collected in Are.na. Over the years I've developed a deep fascination for the visual image in culture, sports, photography, internet-culture, technology and fashion. Follow me on Are.na.
can someone at Spotify explain to me what in the hell they are doing with 45 hundred production deploys a day the website that doesn’t change at all until once a year they give you some basic ass crappy data about the songs you listened to??? > Boris sat down with Spotify VP of Engineering Niklas Gustavsson. > > Spotify ships 4,500 production deploys a day, and 73% of PRs are now AI-assisted. https://t.co/Bc0xPduumG > @ClaudeDevs - [https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2071671418245492926](https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2071671418245492926)
Critical Path by Buckminster Fuller This overall and inexorable trending to do more with less is known sum totally as “progressive ephemeralization.” Ephemeralization trends toward an ultimate doing of everything with nothing at all, which is a trend of the omniweighable physical to be mastered by the omniweightless metaphysics of intellect
I think a lot (too much) about a breakfast scene in Phantom Thread. The one where Daniel Day-Lewis’ character (the fabulously named Reynolds Woodcock), dress-maker extraordinaire (fully committed, utterly committed, consumed by dresses), is drawing, sketching, working on some design in silence while having breakfast with his new “muse” / lover, Alma. She butters the bread loudly. She pours her tea loudly. “Please, don’t move so much Alma,” he says. She looks at him like he’s nuts (he is a little nuts). “I’m buttering my toast. I’m not moving too much.” And he goes: “It’s hard to ignore, it’s as if you just rode a horse across the room.” He finally gets up and leaves. “Too much movement. Entirely too much movement at breakfast,” he says. Her movement has ruined the morning. I empathize with Reynolds probably more than I should. (While also feeling bad for Alma.) (Reynolds’ sister looks on in amusement; may we all rise to the level of sister.) On working days, when I’m trying to live entirely in Bookworld, that’s how I feel when I have to call, say, my bank. Too much movement. Entirely too much movement. Calling the bank. Listening to the touchpad menu options. Going through all the details with the bank person. Too much movement.
To be impactful, companies often need scale. But scale tends to break alignment. The bigger you get, the harder it is to keep “be good” at the center, because incentives shift toward shareholders, advertisers, or efficiency.
Life would be miserable if we only spent time in commercial spaces, because not all value can be captured and supported in a commercial context
Choice and will The digital landscape has an influence on our lives, but we are more directly affected by our personal choices. We must fend for ourselves, whether or not the technology industry chooses to deal with the implications of their work.
