Is "tools for thought" a scientific field? A design discipline? A "scene" in the arts? A tradition of craft? Day to day—what should I do today?—I feel pulled wildly between these framings.
Newly unlocked "letter from the lab" on navigating this tension:
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I suspect that you may be misreading the origin story of VisiCalc: youtu.be/ORvwzo-f1Sc They seem to have been driven by a serious context of use and a humble desire to _serve_ others who had the same problems rather than abstract science or innovation for its own sake.
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Yes, I agree! That's why it's in the "design" section rather than the "science" section. This account seems (to me!) compatible with the internal experience I describe; see e.g. the discussion at 6:49 ("How do you represent values in formulas?", about finding the primitive)
I see this space as a scene in the same way as 1970s 8 bit (homebrew) computing. It’s the intersection of multiple competing approaches. It’s too early to tell who is the Altair 8800 and who is the Apple II so we have to stay open to the possibility of new lenses and hybrids.
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