economics
Baumol’s cost disease
Small economies
The economic value of old buildings
The mirror-image economy
You cannot consume what is not produced
The Fetish of human life
Avant-Garde and Kitsch
The trend is your friend 'til the bend at the end
The amorality of Web 2.0
An Essay by Nicholas CarrThe Internet is changing the economics of creative work – or, to put it more broadly, the economics of culture – and it’s doing it in a way that may well restrict rather than expand our choices. Wikipedia might be a pale shadow of the Britannica, but because it’s created by amateurs rather than professionals, it’s free. And free trumps quality all the time.
Tokenize This
An Artwork by Benjamin GrosserDifferent from the typical website whose URLs act as persistent indexes to a page and its contents, Tokenize This destroys each work right after its creation. While the unique digital object remains viewable by the original visitor for as long as they leave their browser tab open, any subsequent attempt to copy, share, or view that URL in another tab, browser, or system, leads to a “404 Not Found” error. In other words, Tokenize This generates countless digital artifacts that can only be viewed or accessed once.
Hints towards a non-extractive economy
An Article by Matt WebbThere’s a movement called the circular economy which is about designing services that don’t include throwing things away. There is no “away.”
A non-extractive economy is going to look very different to today’s economy. These points feel opposed somehow but they are part of the same movement:
- With CupClub, it’s all about infrastructure.
- With the battery-free Game Boy, it’s untethered from infrastructure: once manufactured, no nationwide electricity grid is required to play.
We’ll need better tools to track and measure. There will be new patterns for new types of services. New technologies to build new products. New language. So it’s fascinating seeing the pieces gradually come together.
The psychology of a discount
An Article by John MaedaFound on a wall.
The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
Field Notes on Science and Nature
An endless living world
If there is a heaven, and I am allowed entrance, I will ask for no more than an endless living world to walk through and explore.
Why Sketch?
An Essay by Jenny KellerLetters to the Future
An Essay by John D. Perrine & James L. PattonOne and a Half Cheers for List-Keeping
An Essay by Kenn KaufmanLinking Researchers Across Generations
An Essay by Anna K. BehrensmeyerWhy Keep a Field Notebook?
An Essay by Erick GreeneThe Spoken and the Unspoken
An Essay by Karen L. KramerNote-Taking for Pencilophobes
An Essay by Piotr NaskreckiThe Evolution and Fate of Botanical Field Books
An Essay by James L. RevealThe Pleasure of Observing
An Essay by George B. SchallerIn the Eye of the Beholder
An Essay by Jonathan KingdonUntangling the Bank
An Essay by Bernd HeinrichA Reflection of the Truth
An Essay by Roger Kitching