JA WestenbergI write about tech + humans + philosophy
JA WestenbergI miss the internet
I know this is going to make me sound old – but I miss the internet.
The real internet. The one we used to have. Before it all got so much less – and somehow so much more – complicated.
I went online for the first time around 2001. The 90s had ended, and the world was coming online while I was coming out of my shell and becoming more self-aware.
JA WestenbergEveryone’s looking for the perfect app to keep their kids safe online. The answer is a desktop computer in the living room and we need to bring this shit back.
JA WestenbergFree speech is when you let people say controversial things.
Free speech is not when the world’s richest man builds a CSAM generator, hooks it up to the world’s largest public photo database, and gives 4chan a subscription service.
I’ve written thousands of words defending people’s right to be wrong on the internet.
I don’t need thousands of words for this. I have eight: what the fuck is wrong with these assholes.
JA WestenbergWe have "growth hackers" but no "stability hackers." "Disruptors" but no "preservers." Our entire vocabulary is oriented toward the new. We have no language for the equally difficult work of keeping existing things from falling apart.
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-maintainer/
JA WestenbergModernity is a conspiracy to replace 'thick' desires (community, craft, transcendence) with 'thin' desires (likes, sugar, dopamine). Revolt by doing something slow. Bake bread. Write a letter. Code a tool for just one person.
JA WestenbergDebating politics on the internet is like trying to perform microsurgery with a chainsaw while a crowd of people throws tomatoes at you for not using an ethically sourced chainsaw
JA WestenbergThe people preaching 'move fast and break things' are the same folks whose entire economic livelihood depends on the system moving very, very slowly and protecting their accumulated equity and I just think that’s beautiful (stupid)
JA WestenbergTech company lifecycle:
Year 1-3: Change the world
Year 4-7: Monetize the world
Year 8-10: Congressional hearing about what you did to the world
JA WestenbergThe real reason people hate self-checkout isn’t the loss of human contact it’s that you pay the same price but do more work, violating our intuitions about fair exchange. It’s like if restaurants charged full price but you had to bus your own table
JA WestenbergLife is lived on overlapping frequencies. One of us is falling in love while another is getting told they have cancer. A parent somewhere is watching their child take a first step, even as someone else buries theirs. Trying to synchronize the emotional weather of billions is a doomed endeavor. Better to accept that joy and grief will always coexist, and each gives contour to the other.
8/9
JA WestenbergIf you find yourself unmoved by the latest Taylor Swift release, that’s fine. But the person who is moved - who finds in it a brief reprieve from their own troubles or from the heavy news cycle - is not your enemy. They're braving the same churning sea as you, just with a different sail.
9/9
JA WestenbergPart of living well is the cultivation of joy that is not contingent on the disappearance of all misfortune. If we wait for that, we'll never bloody celebrate anything at all.
7/9
JA WestenbergLife is lived on overlapping frequencies. One of us is falling in love while another is getting told they have cancer. A parent somewhere is watching their child take a first step, even as someone else buries theirs. Trying to synchronize the emotional weather of billions is a doomed endeavor. Better to accept that joy and grief will always coexist, and each gives contour to the other.
8/9