Max Heald

Public knowledge helps us coordinate in groups— private knowledge makes us special to each other, and reminds us of ourselves. But cultures tend to encourage public knowledge by default.

Offline, our senses groove our minds to form memories, while body language and intonation make room for responses to unarticulated desires-- the basis of acts like graciousness, chivalry, and delight. How could we bring these kind of opportunities online, in hope of creating digital sensation?

It's hard to believe key societal resources like education, well-being, science, trust, and capital need to be doled out by institutions for the public good when they can simply be public goods, free for any person, community, or squad to access and build lives around. If we gave people the tools to organize themselves, we could figure out what kinds of lives work surprisingly well.

When facts can be hurled or re-contextualized at will, words lose value as a method of truth-seeking. Mapping systems instead-- making their objectives, tradeoffs, and centers of power clear-- could help us put conversations in context, and unclog our public discussions around what is, what should be, and why.

Bureaucracies have serious limitations, often ending up incentivized to fund work which entrenches their position as credentialers, rather than pushing their field forward. But many of our best discoveries have been the result of scientists, artists, and researchers having the freedom to experiment with odd, unpromising, and even heretical ideas. So what might a better-aligned system of research look like?

Our aim shouldn't be to pass every student through the rungs of K to PhD, but to create dextrous, capable contributors. Every field should have a pathway to onboard interested people to knowledge, apprenticeship, and eventually contribution to the field itself.

Every time there's a new thing to wear, buy, do, or believe, we're shown how to use it, and what it's worth, before we ever get the chance to interface with it directly. So how do we know we actually want something, and not the image of us doing it? To find any faith in our own decision-making, we have to start talking about desire differently.