Daniel Sieberg: My Declaration of Disconnection →
In my opinion:
While I think its good to disconnect from social networking every once and a while (even for a few months or perhaps an entire year), disconnecting forever is a tad extreme— and quite unnecessary.
The solution isn’t to abandon Facebook or Twitter or whatever. I’d start by thinking about why you want to leave in the first place. What are the benefits of leaving? What are the benefits of staying? What are the consequences? What drew you to these sites in the first place? What’s changed since then? What needs to change? Etc.
Instead, try simplifying. Do you really need hundreds of friends or followers? How many is too many? Do you even keep up with them, and how often? Do they even keep up with you, and how often?
It’s also way too easy to get overwhelmed by endless tweets and perpetual news feeds and annoying application invites and excessive friend requests and other trivial shit. Just focus on the nitty-gritty, and forget about the rest.
So, if you are going to disconnect, disconnect from the excess, not the essence. Be an efficient social networker and eliminate the distracting or pointless aspects. In other words, disconnect from what doesn’t really matter.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
— Bertrand Russell. (See also, Dunning–Kruger effect)
Why we should think
I was recently asked why we, you, or anyone else should think. Here’s my short answer:
Thinking is the core of who we are as a species.
We’re all born with some kind of curiosity— maybe not right away, but inevitably, and nonetheless. For example, just observe the inquisitive spirit of a child: always asking questions, always eager to learn more. On the other hand, I think that as we get older we tend to accept things more and think about them less.
If people were to just stop thinking or if we were to just start accepting information and knowledge without question or evidence, no matter how prevalent that information may be, we would be denying ourselves the very core of who we are and not to mention, the opportunity of a lifetime. The chance to truly understand AND appreciate ourselves, our world, and each other. The chance to discover NEW and breakthrough ideas, concepts, knowledge, facts, or details. To solve problems with wisdom and good sense, rationality and logic.
We should think not just because we should, or not just about what others think we should. Thinking is as easy as breathing. We don’t need to think about breathing in order to breath; we just do. But, we shouldn’t just think about whatever, just so we are thinking. If we don’t understand what we are thinking, than how can we learn about what we don’t understand?
It is of the utmost importance that we don’t allow others to think for us, particularly when we don’t have or haven’t examined all of the [known] answers ourselves. Sure, someone could say, ‘the sky is blue’, but should we really just accept that as truth? There is so much more to this world than what meets the eye, or satisfies the mind.
I love this quote by unknown: “The true purpose of education should not be to fill the heads of the future generation with facts, it must be to teach them to think.”
Think about it.
Why Smart People Do Stupid Things →
Intelligence by itself doesn’t make you rational. Thinking rationally demands mental skills that some of us don’t have and many of us don’t use
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
— Albert Einstein
Slow Design →
The Six Principles of Slow Design (via Changing the Change, see full document here):
Principle 1: Slow design reveals experiences in everyday life that are often missed or forgotten, including the materials and processes that can be easily overlooked in an artifact’s existence or creation.
Principle 2: Slow design considers the real and potential “expressions” of artifacts and environments beyond their perceived functionalities, physical attributes and lifespans.
Principle 3: Slow Design artifacts/environments/experiences induce contemplation and what slowLab has coined ‘reflective consumption.’
Principle 4: Slow Design processes are open-source and collaborative, relying on sharing, co-operation and transparency of information so that designs may continue to evolve into the future.
Principle 5: Slow Design encourages users to become active participants in the design process, embracing ideas of conviviality and exchange to foster social accountability and enhance communities.
Principle 6: Slow Design recognizes that richer experiences can emerge from the dynamic maturation of artifacts, environments and systems over time. Looking beyond the needs and circumstances of the present day, slow designs are (behavioural) change agents.
These Slow Design Principles present a set of criteria against which the designer is invited to interrogate and appraise her/his ideas, processes, motives, and outcomes.
This should begin at the initial phase of any design project, with the designer returning to these criteria several times during the design process, and applying them again to evaluate the final design outcome and better understand its potential future impacts.
This process of careful and continuous (self-)questioning challenges the designer to reach for the core VALUES of design and her/his role as a designer.
Philosophy and principles of slow design (via Slow Design; see also Slow Theory):
- Design to slow human, economic and resource use metabolisms.
- Repositioning the focus of design on individual, socio-cultural and environmental well-being.
- Design to celebrate slowness, diversity and pluralism.
- Design encouraging a long view.
- Design dealing with the ‘continuous present’ (a term coined in the 1950s by Bruce Goff, the American architect who noted that history is past and the future hasn’t arrived but that the ‘continuous present’ is always with us).
- ‘Design as a counterbalance to the ‘fastness’ (speed) of the current (industrial and consumer) design paradigm’.
Articles on slow design:
Should I rename this tumblelog?
Should I rename this tumblelog?
“Nicklog” seems a bit off-topic and outdated as a name. I started using it back in 2007 because then this was my main blog, but I have since moved my main blog and am now using this as a sideblog.
Nicklog is a sideblog because I don’t use it to write about inspirational or thought-provoking content, like I do on my blog, instead I use it to share content that is inspirational or thought-provoking.
This tumblelog is not really about me, but of course, the content is stuff that I personally find interesting.
So, what do you think?
UPDATE: I just changed the name to ‘Stuff to Think About’ and also registered the domain http://stufftothinkabout.com.
Sometimes, a great idea is just a few good ideas meeting for the first time.
— Google (Introducing the Nexus One)
Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
— Henry Miller (1891 - 1980)
The Laws of Simplicity →
- The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
- Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
- Savings in time feel like simplicity.
- Knowledge makes everything simpler.
- Simplicity and complexity need each other.
- What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
- More emotions are better than less.
- In simplicity we trust.
- Some things can never be made simple.
- Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.
The trouble with life isn’t that there is no answer, it’s that there are so many answers.
— Ruth Benedict (via harshrule)
American Apologies →
A site dedicated to apologizing for all of the embarrassments, failures, and injustices done by the United States, as well as the Americans who have betrayed the ideals of one of the greatest countries in the world.
A look at some of the principles of critical thinking.
