flâneur

Powerful enabling environments usually arise as a byproduct of projects pursuing their own intrinsically meaningful purposes

notes.andymatuschak.org · 162 words · saved by 1 readers

Studio design practices can’t create the most powerful Tools for thought: Inventing the Hindu-Arabic numerals requires both design genius and mathematical genius Mental states of deep software development and deep research thinking are mutually exclusive Insight through making in Tools for thought requires developing new software interfaces which express domain theories, then studying those interfaces and their usage to improve your theories. In practice, it’s quite difficult to think deeply about theories while in the midst of a significant software development project. And it’s hard to build momentum on software development when spending much of one’s day in reflection and writing. Worse: Switching costs are high between software development and research thinking. Novel user interface ideas are public goods One core challenge for Tools for thought is that their core insights are generally expensive to produce but cheap to duplicate. For example, Adobe developed countless interactions

Great creative work is usually the product of a single person Whether in music (Bach, Lennon), art (Picasso, Bernini), film (Tarantino, Anderson), games (Blow, Lantz), fiction (Kundera, Tolstoy), the most eminent work is usually the result of a single person’s creative efforts. Occasionally it’s a very small group (Eames, Wrights). Why is this? Consensus networks quell radical ideas It’s hard to hear yourself think This observation creates challenges for Tools for thought because Great tool-makers are often not great tool-users, and vice-versa; see Deep collaborations between…

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