Agency

[2024-08-04 Sun]

1. Surely you can be serious - by Adam Mastroianni

2. Useful Fictions | Substack

3. Things you learn dating Cate Hall - by Sasha Chapin

4. Things you're allowed to do

[2024-08-08 Thu]

1. DRMacIver's Notebook: Everybody is looking for permission

2. DRMacIver's Notebook: Social reality as a game

3. Learning to walk through walls - by David R. MacIver

   1. See the core point about unseeing

      The difference between Cohen and the palace guards is that the palace guards are inhabiting a social reality, and Cohen is inhabiting physical reality. The guards are thinking in terms of what is done, while Cohen is thinking in terms of what he can do.

      He is, in a very real sense, thinking with his muscles. He is acting as a physical entity in a physical space, and letting that physicality be the primary tool through which he expresses his agency. The guards are living in a world of socially significant actions constrained by rules, while Cohen is living in a world where physical actions are defined only by what happens in the external world when you do them.

      In contrast, the guards regard the walls as constraints. This is not because they’re any less aware, in principle, that you can walk through paper walls, but because they are obedient to the relevant rules of social reality.

   2. Nakatomi Space – BLDGBLOG

   3. Crime is a way to use the city – BLDGBLOG

      1. 15 Lombard Street – BLDGBLOG

         Sometimes to fully appreciate a work of architecture you have to commit a crime.

4. the complement of "you can just do things" is "you can just not do things"

   1. you can just drop out! You can just leave parties you don't enjoy! You can just leave relationships that you don't feel happy about!

   2. you can just not buy that iPhone

   3. you can just not try