Juicy observations on life, culture and society, every fortnight.
freshly squeezed is written by me, Sunil Suri.
I cross-post every issue on my personal website, sunilsuri.com, and you can read old posts there.
I’ve written about networks, identity, polarisation and narratives in recent months. Here are a few excerpts to give you a sample of what you’re in for:
Do you really want to consider complex social problems through a win-lose dynamic, pitting players against each other in competition? Collaborative game dynamics like the ones employed in Pandemic Legacy can help overcome this. But even then there are unintended consequences that might be unleashed in a game environment.
This national discussion we are having about racism is emblematic of a wider challenge that we in the West face. The need to reconcile values that we now believe to be universal with specific histories and cultures that are chequered with hypocrisy and ignorance of this very hypocrisy.
Solving this and avoiding the polarisation trap is not the sole responsibility of those moved by racial injustice in recent weeks. We all have work to do, but none more so than our political class. They must articulate a narrative and an accompanying agenda for societal change that enables us all to navigate a debate that is about our past, present and future all at once.
Our technology has not yet offered a path for us to overcome our polarisation and in fact, accelerates it. While our politicians seem uniquely ill-suited for the moment. Some are stuck in a bind, seeking the mythical common ground, but uncertain that it exists anymore. Others happily rally their tribe regardless of the consequences.
If you were going to design a virus that confuses our ability to act collectively, this is it. It is as if an invisible force has placed our public health on one scale and our economic well-being on the other. All the while, our policymakers frantically try to find a workable equilibrium.
