Been thinking a lot about the API as a metaphor and the peace above vs the war below (both Covid and protests/riots/looting) API as storefront glass: read-only aspirational life API as great filter on social mobility API as defensive perimeter against viruses and violence
-
-
It can be hard to believe in your own relevance to the situation when nobody in the heart of the situation thinks you have any role besides staying out of the way and sending money to gofundmes. I’ve seen people buy into and internalize that dismissive, even contemptuous view.
Show this thread -
Saw a tweet for eg from someone saying “I have neuroscience phd and my boyfriend is a car mechanic and he’s essential I’m not”. Nice supportive sentiment but just not true historically. What’s essential in the short term is ephemeral in the long term and vice versa.
Show this thread -
The People of Action don’t exactly think highly of the above-the-API set, so it can be hard to believe in what you do (especially while wallowing in a sense of unfair, unearned comfort and security while others suffer). It’s easy to conclude you’re in the bullshit class.
Show this thread -
Yet the below-the-api wars are never actually winnable by the good guys without whatever the above-the-api classes bring to the party eventually. They’re just buying time in an asymmetric losing conflict. Time for above-the-api classes to bring a decisive winning factor to bear.
Show this thread -
So don’t feel too guilty (feeling a little guilty is good motivation) for safely watching the world burn on twitter and tv while enjoying your grocery and takeout deliveries brought to you by people taking more risk than you, for you even as poor-people resources burn.
Show this thread -
Even in the worst conflicts there are inevitably better and worse places to be. If you happen to be in one of the better places you could of course rush to the frontlines. Possibly you can be of use there. There’s people doing that. Kudos. I’m not one of them.
Show this thread -
But possibly you might be the one to discover a decisive tide-turning factor because you have the safety and security above the api required to bring the right kind of imagination and boldness required to turn the tide.
Show this thread -
For eg, the war against U-boats sinking shipping in the Atlantic was basically won by scientists in labs developing codebreaking tech and radar. Lots of examples like that in history. They didn’t risk being killed by torpedoes. Yet their contribution proved decisive.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.