Notices by James Fairbairn (james@mastodon.exitmusic.world)

This Substack post headline contains two propositions, both of which are very wrong

Can’t stop thinking about this

This mindset is endemic to the culture of my day job (working on a game platform) and it’s so… self-limiting

It springs from the assumption that if only you have a known starting point and a known end point, and a plan to go from one to the other you can accomplish anything

But what if no situation can in fact be fully understood? What if no real object can be fully understood because the very objectification of that object is an ontological convenience to put things into a Newtonian frame?

Does that mean you’ll never be able to effect change?

In fact the ability to effect change rests, at least in part, in your frame and its boundaries.

In many ways the ability to effect change therefore has more to do with chosen zones of ignorance than of understanding. To “make change”, in the modern sense of an identifiable singular actor doing things that are legibly causally connected to the outcome, to the ending of the “before” and the establishment of the “after”, one negotiates the frame that makes that change both legible and significant.

But there are also so many cases where change was inadvertent, because that change is what happened outside of the chosen frame. Take, for example, the “civilizing” frame that begat colonialism and globalization, and led to the destruction of lifeways and environment for a large fraction of the people of the world.

This actually demonstrates that, yes, what gets measured gets managed, as implied by the original headline. But that which is subject to change goes far beyond what is managed! And in fact, often, a given locus will play host to many overlapping modes of management that may or may not be aware of each other. And then - conflict. Complex, intractable, existential.

And here I’ll stop, though I’ve barely touched on “complexity” and “emergence” and all that jazz.

I just wanted to say this:

Regardless of intention, understanding or measurement, change is happening all around us and within us and through us. We are “changing the world” because of and despite all of our intention, our understanding, our praxis, our ignorance. Change is not a science but the very stuff of life.

So, understand *that*.

The economy is roughly 49% about how people feed, shelter, clothe and care for themselves/each other, and 49% about convincing people they’re doing okay so they don’t revolt

Once you see that the problem is not that we haven’t made the things that will solve our problems, but that we don’t have equal access to the ingredients of a good life that already exist, that frees you to see solutions in connection rather than in invention.

@skinnylatte I often think about comfort vs resilience these days - and the importance of a lived-in social fabric. How is Singapore these days in that regard?

I had a little rant - with bonus Latin coinage! - about designers making objects friendly that have no business being made friendly https://exitmusic.world/dark-discourse

@skinnylatte yes exactly. the food is soooo much better here :)

@skinnylatte recently moved from Novato in North Marin to El Cerrito in East Bay and I really miss those places being on our doorstep!

Just discovering the outdoor places around here - Wildcat Canyon, Tilden - and while they are lovely, they have yet to win my heart ❤️

@sanityinc that's right up his street! We also picked up a 90s shred machine (Washburn) for $100 in an estate sale about a year ago and fixed it up - first guitar in this video https://youtu.be/07mma3KRsv8

Who has written on the implications and practicalities of rehabilitating subsistence, in preparation for the transition of heavily-financialized economies to a post-growth world?

#permaculture #degrowth #subsistence #postindustrial

@skinnylatte I have a high school friend in this category (from Henry Fok’s family) whose approach to this problem has been to become incredibly well-read, driven and accomplished. But they have been absorbed into some part of the family business. I’ve never been able to figure out what what actually would have wanted to do if they’d made their own way. Maybe they don’t even know.

Just upgraded my single-user Mastodon instance to 4.4. Now that it proactively fetches comments on posts from servers you aren't necessarily federating with, the Fediverse feels 10000% more alive :)

The AI people think they’re developing “agentic technologies”, but what’s actually happening is they are becoming agents of technological capital.

Being young and making lots of money as part of a mission you believe is changing the world is not a recipe for self-awareness

cf. https://sfstandard.com/2025/08/05/ai-wearables-recording-devices/

@skinnylatte this is of great interest to me as I have recently become an East Bay person :)