As I continue tinkering away in the off hours building out a personal website, seeking in doing so to express IndieWeb principles and practices, last night I added a /now page (Why/What? indieweb.org/now & nownownow.com/about) and /blogroll (not in top nav) to the site.

Who knows whether Scott Kupor read and is responding to Jen Pahlka’s open entreaty in this regard (https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/dear-mr-kupor-please-fix-federal), but he regardless appears to be acting on the content of some, at least, of her recommendations - which echo broader advice for government reform found in her book, Recoding America, her co-authored “Radical How” report, and other writing and (on-point, I’d observe*) argumentation re: enhancing governments’ capacity and effectiveness - in the context of his role as Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, according to the content of this recent appearance on the a16z podcast: overcast.fm/+ABNwV9UT… (see most-relevant content to this part of the conversation starting ~ 28:40).

*Note that this observation should not be extrapolated as an endorsement of Mr. Kupor, his opinions and methods, nor the methods of those preceding him in the current U.S. administration’s actions on “workforce adjustment,” nor of a16z and its positions. Take this all as grist for the mill, as am I.

www.fastcompany.com/91635647/…

“Bluesky is … accused of being an echo chamber for progressives. After the blue tsunami of this week’s midterms, however, its inhabitants don’t seem to be echoing themselves so much as the vast majority of American voters.”

aragornarts.substack.com/p/what-is…

“We are not just tree managers. We are in fact the managers of landscapes in service to the community.”

My first real job, at 16-years-old, was as a labourer on a silviculture success research project, pulling 10 to 20-year-old trees out of the ground in regen blocks around the backroads of the Cariboo. Subsequent summers found me treeplanting in those same woods, and later, alone - again, in the woods, this time mostly in Northern Alberta, this time in mature forests - walking strip lines, mapping ecotypes (in anticipation of harvesting). My first degree ended with a designation steeped in forestry. Despite all this background, I never became a registered forester. But I did - and do - resonate with the complexity and tensions of this title, this role, this profession, and its ostensible - based on the professional standards inspected in the linked post - compass and ethics.

And so I resonated also with this thoughtful reflection “What is a Forester?” by Casey Macaulay, currently (an artist and) the General Manager of the Wells Grey Community Forest.

“Our responsibilities,” as foresters, Macaulay claims, “lay in the safekeeping of natural systems such that we can subsequently apply management practices for a sustainable harvest. The legacy of our success or failure in this mission will never be measured in the board feet turned out by the mill but in the resilience of the land to sustain our ongoing presence and the demands of future generations.”

Today, the trajectory of legacy appears to be towards conflict, again, rather than sustainable co-management, undergirded by relationships with both land and across actors currently divided by systemic pressures, among other things.

Reflecting on this, Macaulay observes:

“I have often imagined the latent potential of proactively channeling the energy absorbed by land-use conflicts into outcomes that benefit more of us.”

Me too, Casey. Perhaps our shared imaginations might see themselves - and the forests at their roots - transmogrified into the people and places of those outcomes, one day.

indyjohar.substack.com/p/living-…

Another timely and material post from Indy Johar, observing how society - and our contemporary technologies, implicitly here - has distributed the means of producing claims but concentrated the means of making them count. In this context, whoever controls access to original observation, routes to attention and credibility, or resources to act on beliefs shapes what gets believed and tested.

Indy closes: “Treating relational intelligence as a foundational public good means distributing the means of producing it. The people living with the consequences need the capacity to make what they know count, to examine the beliefs that direct decisions and to use what they learn to change what happens next.”

I’m particularly interested, in this moment of the centering of explicit, legible knowledge (as the [English] language at root of frontier genAI models), in the matter of what is omitted in this context - ie the tacit (and other) knowledge(s) that Indy includes in his inquiry here, presumably part of his definition of relational intelligence.

Morning walk scenes

Solidarity, ai-note taker tools, and etiquette

I’m grappling* with tensions regarding AI - generally, but specifically digital note-taking and synthesis tools in the present context - so am grateful (again) to have the benefit of Bianca’s thoughtful (virtual) companionship in this tension.

*Perhaps the better word is “scrupling,” introduced to me in this newsletter, an old Quaker practice of sitting with neighbours to listen, share and search for ways to respond when faced with difficult issues.

Took up an invitation to join a community call of Seth Godin’s Purple.Space the other day. Here are a handful of quotes from his opening “rant” (as he described it … not at all ranty from where I was sitting):

“We’re leaving the age of compliance and entering the age of initiative.”

“This is as ’normal’ as the world is ever going to be again.”

“Purple is an anti-(social network)*. An anti-(social network asks): How can we find, 2, 4, or 6 people to connect, and lead?” *Parentheses are mine given nothing about Purple is anti-social; rather, what I sense the community wishes to be is the opposite of what “social” networks - as they once were - have come to be as social media.

“The only way to do this is solidarity.” ~ Cory Doctorow

“Solidarity or solidarism is the provision of mutual moral and material support among the members of a group in times of need.” ~ Wikipedia

Cory was in town tonight, speaking at a Munro’s Books event. Two notes before continuing:

1. Up Local Book Stores! Thank you to the venerable Munro’s for hosting another memorable evening.

2. Speaking of the focal memorabilia, if you ever get a chance to see Cory speak, strong recommend. In lieu, give him a follow, yesterday.

For who-knows-how-long - I don’t, because not for a moment was I not hanging tenaciously on every word - Cory freestyled one of the most cogent, wide-ranging, up-tempo, illuminating pieces of low-key, high-fidelity advocacy I’ve ever heard.

The quote above was some of last words he uttered before crisply ending, pivoting on the ball of his foot to his right, and heading to sign copies of his latest book, A Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI (also: strong recommend).

And, while those words were in specific response to an audience member’s question about how to approach responding to AI as a skilled trades worker, it kinda felt like Cory’s answer to the whole shebang.

A difficult life is not less worth living than a gentle one. Joy is simply easier to carry than sorrow. And your heart could lift a city from how long you’ve spent holding what’s been nearly impossible to hold.

This world needs those who know how to do that. Those who could find a tunnel that has no light at the end of it, and hold it up like a telescope to know the darkness also contains truths that could bring the light to its knees.

Grief astronomer, adjust the lens, look close, tell us what you see.

~ Andrea Gibson