dbuntinx

Paul Jarvis in zijn uitstekende nieuwsbrief the Sunday Dispatches:

Whether it’s an editor, agent or cofounder, their job is to challenge me—if they don’t push against my ideas with vigour, they aren’t doing their job well or doing my work justice. Being challenged helps us make our work and ideas stronger. It aids us in making them larger truths. I don’t know why so many people, especially creatives, shy away from being challenged—it’s definitely tough and sometimes a hard pill to swallow, but think about it: these people we ask to challenge what we believe are after the same goal—to make what we think and what we create the best it can be. We’re on the same page and after the same outcome. Besides, if we can’t convince one or a few other people of our logic, how logical is what we’re saying anyway?

Harvard Business Review:

When someone asks you to alter a current behavior, your first question is usually why? Because you’re not going to try something new or hard unless you’re motivated to do so.

Geniaal, verhelderend en bovenal begrijpbaar:

Even under a pessimistic scenario, it is possible to beat COVID-19, while protecting our mental and financial health.Use the lockdown as a “reset button”, keep R < 1 with case isolation + privacy-protecting contract tracing + at least cloth masks for all… and life can get back to a normal-ish!

Zie:

Kevin Kelly, die van Wired, maakte een crème van een lijstje:

It’s my birthday. I’m 68. I feel like pulling up a rocking chair and dispensing advice to the young ‘uns. Here are 68 pithy bits of unsolicited advice which I offer as my birthday present to all of you

Kate Marvel, klimaatwetenschapper bij NASA:

There is an entrenched system that extracts CO2 from the ground and pumps it into the atmosphere, one that results not from inherent human badness but from the choices of a few humans with power. Confronting that system will take work. We need to build things: wind turbines, solar panels, public transportation, denser cities, fairer societies. We don’t need purification. We don’t need absolution. We need to get to work.

Julio Vincent Gambuto:

This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the shit out of it all. We care deeply about one another. That is clear. That can be seen in every supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define — on our own terms — what this country looks like in five, 10, 50 years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.

The Atlantic:

In the short term, our cities will become more boring. In the long term, they might just become interesting again.

Marc Andreessen, in een ondertussen wijdverspreid opiniestuk:

The left starts out with a stronger bias toward the public sector in many of these areas. To which I say, prove the superior model! Demonstrate that the public sector can build better hospitals, better schools, better transportation, better cities, better housing. Stop trying to protect the old, the entrenched, the irrelevant; commit the public sector fully to the future. Milton Friedman once said the great public sector mistake is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. Instead of taking that as an insult, take it as a challenge — build new things and show the results!