Bradley Andrews

💬 An observation from Ivan Illich in Right To Useful Unemployment (1978) which feels especially pertinent in the age of LLMs:

Fifty years ago, most of the words heard by an American were personally spoken to him as an individual, or to someone standing nearby. Only occasionally did words reach him as the undifferentiated member of a crowd - in the classroom or church, at a rally or circus. Words were mostly like handwritten, sealed letters, and not like the junk that now pollutes our mail. Today, words that are directed to one’s person’s attention have become rare… This replacement of convivial means by manipulative industrial ware is truly universal, and is relentlessly making the New York teacher, the Chinese commune member, the Bantu schoolboy, and the Brazilian sergeant alike.

💬 My coworker dropping some accidental wisdom this AM:

“Remember, as strange as it sounds, a dull knife is the most dangerous kind of knife.”

💬 Maintenance: Of Everything:

MAINTENANCE is what keeps everything going. It’s what keeps life going. Every living thing spends a great deal of time and toil in maintaining its own life and the life of the systems it depends on… But so much of doing maintenance is tiresome. The apparent paradox is profound: Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional. It it easy to put off, and yet it has to be done…. When you take responsibility for something, you enter into a contract to take care of it. If it’s a child, to keep it fed. If it’s a knife, to keep it sharp.

Thanks to @snarfed for the discovery. I recommend the full passage.

💬 Prodigal Son by James Weldon Johnson (1927)