social fractals
Society doesn't form out of nothing. We articulate experiences, share information, develop meaning, come to agreements on ways forward, and form processes, governance, and systems to manage. Or not, and let chaos and trauma define us.
Right now, things are shifting in our society and our world. There are many areas where they are coming to a head – some delayed, some pushed forward, and some emerging. As someone who has been watching information patterns develop, it’s felt like chasing a rope – weighted by who knows what, it’s so far out of sight – over a cliff’s edge, trying to grab it.
Because, from my point of view, all these things are telegraphed in the information. Not in terms of oncoming, unavoidable trains. Rather, it’s in terms of this is where they said they were going to do this and this is the law they put in place, and these are the things to expect to come from them, and evolving ideas and tools.
Seeing people rail when certain things come to pass gives me hope. What I’m hearing most is that the information has been so muddied by “interested parties” that people who care but aren’t in the middle of it, don’t know who/what to believe. Our information environment no longer fits how we were taught.
This isn’t where I like to spend my time, but sometimes some of these information patterns won’t stop banging on the inside of my head until I write. So I write, and put them here. Because maybe, just maybe, I might give someone enough tools, enough confidence in their own information literacy, and enough overlap with what they are mentally labeling, “surely, no one is that…” that we can start making the bets that the greatest portion of humanity can actually live within.
List of articles tagged with or that call to or send for “social fractals”
Movements rally points
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The weight of our decisions: designing isn't simple
A habit of intentional design is the gravity point of building trust for what's new. Humanist design is the gravity point of real loyalty.
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Garbage in, garbage out
Truth is hard, and it's not made easier by how we talk about it and appproach it.
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The funky variability of meaning as a lesson in taxonomy
Taxonomy discussions might be boring according to some perspectives, but they are periodically necessary. Originally published on Medium.
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Variability and infrastructure
Done well, information architecture will live longer than the relevance of the raw data. As data shifts, as our data substrate and understanding grows, as ideologies are finally seen and sloughed: the information architecture needs to change with it.
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Articles tagged
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Winter is coming? Summer forever? Something else entirely?
I've been thinking alot about our economic system lately. It's not working. It hasn't been working, as evidenced by how much homelessness and food insecurity there has been increasing for so long, increasing suicide rates, and the self-medication of drug and alcohol abuse.
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The Epstein Class; potentially triggering
What the Epstein Class has done to children is horrifying and heartbreaking. It's also practice.
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Listen
The world is burning. We can hear the sizzling flames in the expanding targeting by ICE, pops in the darkling gloom that we hope are knots exploding in the heat and not gunshots.
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People first
People matter. Our whole humanity is where our magic is. There is a growing potential future where the simple belief that humanity matters takes on the sheen of authority-defined evil, for the simple reason that they want what they do to be the good, and what thwarts them is the evil.
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Just care
We won't get a chance to fix systems if we can't touch them.
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Determinism and shifting taxonomy
As more companies move to "determined algorithms", we need to talk about deterministic software. It's been around. We have some people enamored with it, some people angry at it, and lots of tangled meanings. That means that we all have to be careful about packing too much meaning into one little word, and assuming that everyone is on the same page.
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Human information systems
Everyday information structures that all people navigate.
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Economic floors and ceilings
It's useful to think about flowing water as an aspect of flowing economy, but what happens when there's not enough volume to flow in the population volume of the people who need to leverage it to survive?
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Marketing through the lens of information spread
Information spread is explicable; marketing is a truncated lens of information.
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Reach for a different model
We CAN be individuals, and a part of groups, and a part of the whole, and at peace, all without authoritarianism.
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The trailhead: smudging the binary
Data brokers are manipulating beyond those in their immediate circle. Defining each of us according to their benefit. Uncaring and unconcerned with how we define ourselves, nor our agency.
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Humanity rocks
It's the thread of this entire site. Humanity is a wonder.
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Looking at authoritarianism as steeped deeply in binary cognition
Acknowledging that cognition can be built to be steeped deeply in binaries helps me understand why our attempts to bridge with empathy fails.
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Shift your "grading" assumption
School grades are mostly based on memory produced under stress. But memory isn't critical thinking.
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Teach a man to fish
What happens if we stop enabling people to learn, and focus on profit-building for a few? Originally published on Medium.
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Life is change
Where we are is not where we will always be. Originally published on Medium.
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Information pollution, poisoning, and literacy
People are information beings. Our civilization is created from shared information with practical application — part know-how, part doing. Originally published on Medium.
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Shift priorities for a thought revolution
We live in society. If we don't care for it, we all suffer. Originally published on Medium.
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Painting a picture of the average US person under the BB Bill
Oh, people, it's gonna be rough if we have to wait and see to believe the telltale signs. Originally published on Medium.
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Trustlessness
Signs that we've entered a trustless society. Originally published on Medium.
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Approaching the news leveraging information literacy
Where we get information has scents of all the people it moved through. We can use ongoing information literacy to tailor who and what banners we trust. Originally published on Medium.
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Information is being cut off
What Trump and DOGE is doing to our past, present, and future information
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This is a story* of how people lost ownership of their data to corporations
*That makes sense from an information architecture and cognitive behavior point of view, and triangulated against what I saw first hand. Originally published on Medium.
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Simply complex
Simplicity is only a way into a problem set. It’s like a broken clock: perfection in a timey context. Originally published on Medium.
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Nominalism as a change point for climate?
What if nominalism is the key inhibitor to changing our cultural footing to work on our global carbon dioxide problem? Originally published on Medium.
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Thought experiment with information architecture
How did we get here? Hiring with a preference for “looking right” rather than trying to have real conversations around skills and ethos? The information mismanagement is even deeper. Originally published on Medium.
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It’s not a doom spiral, it’s a system rebalancing itself
Understanding social degradation as a system out of balance. Originally published on Medium.
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Another phase shift in design
Design has changed through the years, and I think we're entering another shift in how design is approached, used, and potentially impactful. Originally published on Medium.
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We’re missing the primary point of designing for accessibility
Designing for accessibility isn't about defining sets of visuals for every possible iteration of sight, but about loosening our brand authority enough to provide fungible tools. Originally published on Medium.
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Best practice
Best practice has it’s place, but it is not the only right answer. Originally published on Medium.
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It’s time for a new marketing paradigm
Sifting through marketing in all it’s forms is a burden for everyone, regardless of what we do to curtail it. It has no social benefit. It’s time to change it.
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UX is not living up to it’s humanist potential
Applied, effective UX practice can have a heartbreaking cost. Originally published on Medium.