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Does Your Name Sound Like You, or Do You Look Like Your Name?

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Let's be Fwends is a journal about agility, organisations, technology, and the larger media landscape. And most importantly the role of all of us in all of that.

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Let's be Fwends #139:

Does Your Name Sound Like You, or do You Look Like Your Name?

An abstract representation of a network of nodes

“I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.”

~ Douglas Adams

Hey there, welcome to LBF number 139. Today, we check in with a generally accepted truth about the origins of the Internet, have a look at one way to use the concept of flow just a bit differently, and consider different types of failure in kindness. And on the topic of nuclear winter, is AI really the doomsday technology that will eradicate all our jobs, like many media are claiming? And finally a new theory about the age old question: Do all people with the same name really look the same, and if so: why?

Was the Internet Designed To Survive a Nuclear Attack?

If you're around long enough on the Internet you know that a common story of its origins goes like this:

  1. US military wants a command & control structure that can survive a nuclear war
  2. Computer Scientists invent a decentralised network architecture and prove that it's working by connecting many university campuses in the USA to each other
  3. The US military loses interest in the topic
  4. Academics continue to use the Internet and build the first non-hierarchical structure to build and share knowledge
  5. The Internet opens to the public, and everyone enjoys a free, open vast web of cooperation and knowledge-sharing

Now, to think about the Internet not as a bit-pipe for huge tech conglomerates but as something that resembles a decentralised web in any form, you definitely have to have a stamp in your netpass that starts with "19", but the big question is: Did it really happen like this?

Silicon Folklore did a deep dive on the history of the Internet, and the history of the history of the Internet, to find out.

That One Flow Hack

Have you ever noticed how certain tasks and projects are so captivating that you dive right into them, all energy and focus? While others drag on for ages, or you simply can't find a good way to start doing them, so you keep putting them off? Different tasks need different energies, and the same task that's a piece of cake when it finds you in the right mood can present itself as an unsurmountable obstacle if your energy is a bit off. The concept of 'flow' is useful to determine what kind of energy a task needs, and how you can best respond to it.

Failures in Kindness

Did you ever notice that leaving a decision completely up to someone else may seem accommodating an nice, but actually is the opposite?

Failures in kindness describes typical situations we all know, when kindness turns into pressure, intended or not. Well worth your time, ideally to avoid doing those things in the future.

Maybe AI Isn’t a Doomsday Technology After All?

The common narrative around AI nowadays is that it is two things in one: A huge productivity booster and a job killer.

But what if that's not entirely true? What if that productivity booster turns out to more complement human labor than replace it?

David Autor makes that point when he says that equitable access to AI technology, the widespread sharing of its benefits, and strong policies around investment and training can actually create new jobs, and better job conditions throughout society:

"AI offers vast tools for augmenting workers and enhancing work. We must master those tools and make them work for us"​

I don't know how tenable this outlook is in the long run, but one thing is sure: AI is here to stay.

Names And Appearance

You know that feeling that there is something like a "typical" Peter? Actually, there is. But it's not that parents choose their kids name based on their appearances (which would be hard, because I think most parents choose names long before their kids are born). It's the other way round: We change our appearance to what we think someone with our name should look like.

Interesting.

That's it for this edition of Let's be Fwends. As always, thanks for reading. See you next time. Or, if you're in Rotterdam this weekend for the start of the Tour de France femme, let's meet in Rotterdam. I'll be there, drop me a line if you're, too! 💛🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️💛

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