I wrote a thingy about ideas, called No more ideas in the world.
Jonas-Merlin Schumacher wrote a response to it, called What I think ideas are for.
And this is my response to that response, called How change happens. It is my response response.
First I’ll do the meta thing and say Jonas-Merlin’s response is good and I am thankful for the time he spent making it and this is the exact kind of thing I welcome in my Call for critiques.
I almost completely agree with Jonas-Merlin, but there are two things I strongly disagree with. Let’s go through it all either way.
The response gives an accurate portrayal of what I believe about ideas.
The way I understand “No more ideas in the world” is that it’s a description of why the theme Wilson chose for their wikibloggarden is relevant in the world that we live in. That theme is No more ideas, an exploration of the, well, the idea that there are enough ideas and that instead of producing more of them, we should instead try to first do our best to kill them to see if they’re any good to begin with and if they survive the process then merge them with other ideas that did the same. With the ultimate goal of reducing the total number of distinct ideas in the world. Because after all, it was ideas that have gotten us to where we are in the first place, and while ideas that are total in nature are actually isolating and insular, the process of merging them is about connecting with others, which is the only way of seeing real change implemented in the world.
Yes that’s correct.
The response is also correct about what some of my goals are, I guess?
And judging from passages like “We think the only way to change the world is to bring new ideas and tools into it and take over everything and then ‘technology our way out’ of any problems we have”, I think that it’s safe to say that this is still Wilson’s ultimate goal: to see change implemented in the world.
Yes, I suppose I would like “change” to happen in the world, in a way. But, the funny thing is—
If you read my wikiblogardenite often, you might be able to guess what kind of change I would like to see. For example, I would like to be able to use the loo without fear and to get my arthritis medicine without too much trouble. Yes, this is the kind of change I would like to see implemented in the world.
The other kind of change I want to see implemented is the— I often write about wanting to get better at writing, and that involves me changing. Yes, it’s true: I am indeed part of the world and so changing myself does indeed change the world.
The funny thing, though, is that change is actually very easy to implement in the sense that we are all changing all the time and we can’t do anything to stop that. It’s much harder to make change not happen. So when we try to implement change, the enemy here is not “no change”. The enemy is “other change”. When we try to implement change, we are trying to make our change happen instead of someone else’s.
Change is easy! But it’s hard to steer.
I’m glad the response uses the word “implement”.
I doubt Jonas-Merlin Schumacher has read the paper I wrote with Dave Ackley, but in that paper we talk about the importance of being able to “implement” ideas in the real world. And the “technology our way out” quote is something Dave said within the paper.
The paper isn’t freely accessible right now because academia is stupid.
I’m glad the response identifies the anti-modernist undertones behind “no more ideas”.
The post posits that just maybe, more of what we already have isn’t the solution to a problem brought about by what we already have. More technology isn’t a valid solution to the problems caused by technology. Less is. But the ideas we get from the dominant communities in tech are about replacing the ones that came before with new ones, about expanding totally and ultimately replacing what is already there, a totality which itself is at the core of both the old and new ideas. So maybe the solution is to instead merge with what is already there in a way that improves it.
I agree that technology isn’t a clear-cut “good” in the world and that more of something isn’t the solution to it being a problem. I agree that ideas that have the ultimate goal of being implemented in a total sense–a new medium–are destined to fail if they are built by people who identify with this idea and have their ego wrapped up in it, instead of being ready to dissolve themselves in a true sense of community. And I agree that it would be nice if there simply was a bit more space, a bit more quiet, a bit more room to breathe.
It’s remarkable how many people in the tech world believe that new technology is always a net good. So I’m glad that Jonas-Merlin Schumacher agrees with me here.
Yes. When I look at the problems I face, technology is not so much a help but a hindrance. Social media has spread and largely normalised hatred against people like me. It has somehow gotten worse during my life, not better.
And it’s not technology stopping me from writing. Quite the opposite. Technology is this huge distraction, getting in my way, stopping me from practising.
That’s not to say that technology isn’t ever good. No. The point is that technology is not necessarily good. And not necessarily mostly good.
Anyway, yes, I’m glad Jonas-Merlin Schumacher agrees with me here.
Now we get to the part of the response where the author thinks they disagree with me but actually they agree with me.
But I don’t think that having ideas, implementing them and putting them out into the world is the problem. To the contrary, I think that this is necessary. Because it’s the best way to learn how the ideas that are already implemented in the world, as well as the ones others have–so ultimately the ideas you might merge yours with or for which you will have to sacrifice them–actually work. You learn about how they interact with each other and will come out better equipped to collaborate. Because you will have actual, real world experience of the forces that act upon ideas once you release them.
This might help you see your own ideas already at work in the existing tools, or it might help you to better imagine how things could be. Why they are the way they are and not the way they aren’t. It might lead you to realise that additive solutions aren’t always the way, and that increasing complexity might be a bad idea. That subtracting from things might actually mean subtracting yourself from them. That the context in which ideas were formed matters and that they will always carry a bit of that context with them. Having ideas and building tools keeps your ego in check. It’s also the best and fastest way to kill your ideas. And to be truly ready to work on other’s.
Yes, “implementing your idea is the fastest way to kill it” is something I agree with.
“Nothing kills an idea quicker than putting it into practice. If your idea is truly worth keeping, then it will be hard to kill.”
And I agree with Jonas-Merlin Schumacher that ideas are good.
And you might be surprised to hear that I think that ideas are good and that’s okay because this always happens.
For a while now, I’ve been pumping out silly mantras.
And when I do that, people seem to chop off words from them.
For example, I’ve been encouraging people to normalise sharing scrappy fiddles for a long time. And sometimes, people criticise that by saying “No I don’t think we should share scrappy fiddles” and then I’m like “That’s not what I said”.
The mantra is not:
SHARE SCRAPPY FIDDLES.
The mantra is:
NORMALISE SHARING SCRAPPY FIDDLES.
So I wrote up a clarification for that but still people ignore me, even the strongest supporters of the phrase.
“Normalise sharing scrappy fiddles” is a very buggy piece of code. It gets misinterpreted by most people who hear it, and it doesn’t run as intended.
The mantra is not:
NO IDEAS
The mantra is:
NO MORE IDEAS
WE HAVE ENOUGH
Yes, ideas are good. They are good because, when we implement them, we learn something. And we have many many many unimplemented ideas that need implementing. We don’t need any more! If you believe that ideas are good, then get to work on implementing them. That’s my advice.
So yes, I agree that ideas are not the problem. It’s people. People are always the problem.
I particularly like these points.
Ideas […] are destined to fail if they are built by people who […] have their ego wrapped up in it, instead of being ready to dissolve themselves in a true sense of community.
Subtracting from things might actually mean subtracting yourself from them.
Yes, the best way to implement or improve an idea might be to let it go / let someone else run with it / make it their own.
We can say the same thing for other people’s ideas. Someone else’s idea might need help from you. You don’t need to create your own idea to be helpful. You can support someone else’s.
This is what I am trying to do nowadays. I am trying to avoid making my own new flashy ideas, and instead getting involved with other people’s. Hey, yesterday I did some boring maintenance of someone else’s tool, not my own. It was very rewarding! You should try it.
My belief is that this is what all researchers, developers, experimenters, tinkerers, builders, speakers, leaders, artists should do. They should work with other people’s things, not their own. I’m currently testing that belief by doing it.
Yes, I am trying to get better at building community, or more accurately, making space for community to grow.
It’s very tricky to avoid having new ideas. It’s very tempting to drop what you’re doing and start something new. This is why I made a mantra for myself: So that I can tell it to myself in moments of temptation.
When I start to fantasize about a shiny new thing I could make, I tell myself “NO”.
NO MORE IDEAS
WE HAVE ENOUGH
And then I get back to work.
The mantra does not try to be “correct” or “right” or “accurate”. I don’t care about being right. I don’t care if it’s wrong.
The only purpose of the mantra is to influence myself / to help me stop making new ideas, and stay focused. So it needs to be convincing and it needs to have impact.
If the mantra works as intended, then it’s a good mantra.
Oh dear this response response got longer than I hoped for. We’ve run out of time for the bits I disagree with. I’ll give you a summary.
Back to the wikiblogardenite.