How To Break Anything

Innovation + experience-minded design strategy. The pieces of a working model for understanding culture + change in an increasingly complex world.

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      21 Jan 2011

      Understanding seemingly invisible things

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      Img_8597
      Of all the abstract concepts of the world, I'm most presently enamored with "seeming." That is to say, I like things that seem like something until later we find out that they are in fact something else. As I see it, there are at least a few types of "seeming" things: paradoxes, illusions, and the invisible.

      I say "invisible" as in "undetectable," and I say "undetectable" as in "difficult for humans to detect if using only their natural sensory organs." The above is a clear example of this. As you know, what we call the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation is a remarkably small subset of the spectrum in its entirety.
      Img_8599
      For most of human history, anything that was outside of the visible spectrum didn't exist. In fact, it didn't even fit that category of knowledge that contains imaginary things we know we don't exist - these things that we can currently detect only though their extreme-scale electromagnetic radiation lived in that category of things we didn't know we didn't know about. 

      We developed with a particular talent for perceiving light within the 'visible' spectrum. What I like about the above display is that it helps demonstrate that this fact shouldn't necessarily limit us from understanding the existence of other things - and more importantly: their impact on the world. 

      This applies to physical phenomena, but I'd like to make a parallel jump to the cognitive. The common thread is as follows: the only things we think are meaningful are the things that we perceive. I was in a conversation yesterday about 'understanding' vs 'relating.' The classic example I tend to bring up is the idea of the loud motorcyclist who blasts his engine for passersby at every opportunity. This is something I clearly don't relate to. It's another thing to say that I don't understand. I know that the world is governed by cause and effect, and I know that if I were interested enough I could in some way uncover what the circumstances were that would lead someone to taking pride in something I wouldn't take pride in. 

      Unfortunately, far too many people genuinely *don't* understand the behaviors of others. Since I spend my time observing the world, I try to keep in mind that there are multiple methods for doing so, and the most natural ones aren't necessarily the most useful. Most of the things that lead to understanding are 'invisible' in the seeming way I've described above, but if you're in a field that requires you to understand other humans (read: most) it's certainly worth doing the work to shift one's perspective to a different spectrum of perception.

       

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      25 Dec 2010

      From: How Your Gifts are Really Valued

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      Recent behavioral studies are finding that when you give a gift, the recipient automatically values it lower than its actual worth. Why? Simply because it's a gift.

      Group payment service WePay decided to take a look at how gift-giving works and found that what you give can be worth—in the mind of the recipient, that is—up to 18% less than its actual retail value:

      How Your Gifts are Really Valued
      (Click to enlarge.)

      via lifehacker.com

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      8 Nov 2010

      [Offline Inspiration] "Tactile Ventriloquism"

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      Photo

      [from Daniel M Wegner's The Illusion Of Conscious Will]

      You may know that I really like illusions - mostly for their ability to concisely illuminate human limitation and fallibility. I now also really like this term "tactile ventriloquism." Will be thinking on how to work 'ventriloquism' into more concepts - it's a wonderful word, etymologically.

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      29 Jul 2010

      "Your environment, no matter how good or no matter how bad, eventually becomes normal to you": acclimation vs normalization

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      I ran into this video the other day on I Luv Juice, caught by the environment quote captured in the title above.

      It reminded me that once upon a time I was reflecting on acclimation, a thought that I find worth considering often:

      "I find it important to remember that humans acclimate to everything.

      This means that things we think are bad/painful/ridiculous become ok after enough exposure and time. It also means that the things we think are good/exciting/worthwhile become ok after enough exposure and time."

      It's important to note that I'm talking about acclimation in that post, which is closely related but is not the same as normalization. Both are about perception, but acclimation is concerned with affinity while normalization is a bit more complex, concerned with one's perception of how the world should function.

      When I talk about acclimation, I talk about how one's affinity for a new emotional state eventually shifts away from like/dislike with exposure; this is one's affinity for a new job, new city, recent breakup, or disliked food. In the post I help qualify with the statement "this is not to say that things stay that way; I'm talking about a relatively short timeline."

      Perhaps author Bernard Benson captures part of this with the following thought:

      "All we really want is otherness, tossing from side to side, greeting each toss with shouts of welcome, and contempt for the previous toss."

      As you see in the video above, normalization is a different beast, and a bit more complicated. Normalization is concerned with one's expectations from their environment and the world, captured best with the intension (linguistically speaking - not 'intention') of the word 'should.' That is to say that normalization is the state of subconsciously assessing your environment as operating as it 'should.'

      Normalization is entirely environmental, and helps explain why you have the beliefs, values, and worldview you do. It helps explain how others have developed those things as well. It helps explain why when those things clash between you and others, only by exposing each other to new environmental norms (either directly or cognitively) can your differences be resolved. I started exploring this once with the idea that the only cure is exposure.

      On a more entrepreneurially inspiring note, it helps to see how Brian in the video above uses this understanding to change the lives of students in the disadvantaged environment of New Orleans' 9th Ward.

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      11 May 2010

      What time travel might look like - perception, relativity, etc

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      Black_hole

      A bit of abstract thinking out loud, since there's been a good amount of buzz on time travel floating around lately with Stephen Hawking's most recent comments.

      The thing about time travel is that because we humans are naturally blinded to see things only from our own individual perspectives, I suspect our natural assumptions about distorting time are a bit backwards.

      That is to say: we think about "time travel" as a phenomenon primarily concerned about how we would be seeing the world through time.

      This phenomenon might better be described as the way the rest of the world sees us.

      This isn't too profound on some level - special relativity and general relativity is precisely about the perception of others.

      A way to clarify this is to think about the event horizon, which is the point in space at which light can no longer escape the gravity of a black hole. As a primer:

      Special relativity illustrates that because 'time' is intrinsically interwoven with perception, that perception (particularly what we 'see' on a watch) will change at very high speeds and within high gravitational fields - as we approach the speed of light (either through our moving fast enough or it's moving slow enough thanks to gravity), the perception of what it 'shows' us changes completely. This is why time slows down at high speeds and in high gravitational fields, measured by the comparison of two watches that have moved through different conditions. 

      One key point about relativity is that you don't notice this, others do. In fact, that's precisely why the term 'relativity' is used. 

      Back to the event horizon: 

      If you were able to observe someone moving towards a black hole, what you would be observing is the light reflecting off them. At some point - just past the event horizon - this light would never be able to escape the gravity of the black hole. At this point in the gravitational field, their watch would slow down to the point that it has actually stopped. The light that you perceive would be frozen. They of course would continue moving towards the black hole, and would perceive all the grisly experiences that come along with things like being ripped apart by gravity, but for you, they have been frozen in time. 

      I'm wondering if this is what we will discover "time travel" to be: not our own individual selves moving through space-time, but the relative perception of the world moving around us.

      In other words, when we "travel through time," we won't notice - others will. 

      [img/meaningful metaphor via fernando]
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      15 Apr 2010

      Entrepreneurship IS art - thoughts on "This Is Clutch: Banksy dupes the art world"

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      via thisisclutch.blogspot.com

      Exit Through The Gift Shop is an excellent story, and I do recommend you watch it. I like this analysis, particularly the last paragraph below (though as in the title above I'd argue that entrepreneurship is art):

      "At first I was pissed at Thierry for desecrating the art world, in fact I thought Banksy was too; but then I had an idea of what Mr. Brainwash was. He's not an artist, he's an entrepreneur. The film starts out with an anecdote explaining how he became successful selling vintage fashion. He found a profitable model for buying cheap clothes and marking them up 400%. It worked because people bought it. Well the same was true with his art; but then I thought, what if that was Banksy's plan from the start - after all he did get a lot of investors to spend their money on what has now been outed as superficial art."

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      23 Feb 2010

      re: persistence of 'identity' online: "In 20 Years No One Will Be Qualified to Be President"

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      Another  potential outcome is that we as a culture will learn to be more tolerant of what people do in their personal lives, especially as youth. Americans are plagued by an endearing notion of “Character”–that what we do in our personal lives speaks to our fitness for professional tasks. When complete lives are increasingly archived, we may need to step back from that ideal and let our leaders be human.
      via nextbison.wordpress.com

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      11 Feb 2010

      When we finally figure out quantum mechanics, humanity will look back on the Newtonian era like we were a bunch of Neanderthals.

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      Classical diagram

      Classical Physics
      According to classical physics, an electron will pass through a potential barrier if it possesses enough kinetic energy to overcome the barrier.If it has less kinetic energy than the height of the potential barrier then it will be unable to pass through the barrier under any conditions.
      Quantum tunnelling diagram
      Quantum Mechanics

      Quantum mechanics shows that electrons can be described as waves under certain conditions, and a finite probability exists of an electron tunnelling through a classically forbidden barrier due to its wavelike properties.When a wave meets a potential barrier, the wave does not instantly go to zero, but starts to decay exponentially within the potential barrier. If the wave has not reached zero by the time it has reached the other side of the barrier then there is a finite probability that it will be found on the other side of the barrier - the wave has effectively "tunnelled" through the non-conductive barrier.
      "Principles of Quantum Tunnelling: Classical physics and Quantum mechanics" via QTC Science

       

      (Which of course means our current perceptions of the world, down to their very fundamental assumptions - they're all so utterly silly.)

       

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      10 Feb 2010

      "Everything Is Amazing And Nobody Is Happy"

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      Media_httprumplos3ama_otxcp
      via rumplo.com

      This has always been the case, and will continue to be the case in the future. Today is not special.

      (this is pretty much just a reiteration of my last post re "the future is scary." How appropriate.)

      UPDATE: @linneamc passed along this clip that I got a good laugh out of. I'd ultimately say that we'll always be able to laugh at our ridiculous expectations; again, the present is no exception. 

       

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      6 Feb 2010

      More insight on cultural externalities and the arbitrary nature of what is important to us

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      via proseandconrad.com

      Conrad put together a good collection of examples here: The good old days of advertising

      (the 'more' part refers to my earlier post re: Tim Stock's The Structure Of Trends)

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      2 Feb 2010

      I think the concept of things being 'ruined' is absurd.

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      Mostly because it's hard from me to think that the last x number of years of humanity [choose your own number, anywhere from 30-3000] have been an exercise in things getting worse. I mean, when did things first start to get 'ruined'??

      Most people you ask this question, should they happen to be on the 'things need saving' side of the world, will give you a very predictable answer. Humanity stopped progressing usually when they were either in their early 20's, or when they were established in their careers.

      Which I of course find laughably hilarious.

       

      Who will save book publishing?

      What will save the newspapers?

      What means 'save'?

      If by save you mean, "what will keep things just as they are?" then the answer is nothing will. It's over.

      If by save you mean, "who will keep the jobs of the pressmen and the delivery guys and the squadrons of accountants and box makers and transshippers and bookstore buyers and assistant editors and coffee boys," then the answer is still nothing will. Not the Kindle, not the iPad, not an act of Congress.

      via sethgodin.typepad.com

       

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      2 Feb 2010

      "Derek Sivers: Weird, or just different?"

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      via ted.com

      I love this for the perspective on how our fundamental assumptions can always be completely wrong.

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      Kyle Cameron Studstill
    • Obox Design
  • How To Break Anything

    Hello friends and collaborators. I deal in innovation, working to build fantastic experiences enabled by the digital world. As part of this I track cultural change, primarily through observations guided by models and filters calibrated over years to sort out the cream.

    These pieces of thoughts here reflect concepts that are elements of those models: ecosystem thinking, long-term value, information filters, and pattern recognition.

    ("How to break anything" is an abstract notion that reflects my background in observation and analysis. Rules are meant to be broken, but only through understanding the rules - observing them with an empathetic eye - can they be broken constructively.

    So how to break anything? Observe everything.

    [You can't observe everything so how do you know what to observe? That's another project that I call Filter Theory - see the About link above.])

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