Shreeda Segan: On Becoming a Person, Pandemic Time, Timeless Way, Good Old Neon, Zero-Knowledge Proofs
Our curator this week is Shreeda Segan (@freeshreeda). Shreeda is an Austin-based writer who has profiled tech's most interesting figures for Mercury's Meridian magazine and Roots of Progress. She's been writing online since she was eight years old. She currently writes for Arena magazine.
Please enjoy these words that have mattered to Shreeda.
Shreeda's Picks
On Becoming a Person by Carl Rogers
Ever wonder what your therapist is thinking about during your sessions? A rare, honest take from the shrink's point of view. Rogers advocates for an approach to therapy that rivals the more popular psychoanalytic and cognitive behavioral frameworks. I've not read anything else on empathy that is more accurate, incisive, or challenging.
Pandemic Time: A Distributed Doomsday Clock by Venkatesh Rao
Don't let the title fool you. This article did not trigger my pandemic PTSD and instead helped me sense-make how the pandemic triggered broader cultural shifts. "Pandemic time can be understood as a liminal passage between the end of the industrial era and the beginning of the digital era."
Why do new cars look like this? by Blackbird Spyplane
What's up with the matte-yet-glossy, putty-like, almost-pastel-but-not-quite colors of new cars? Just scroll to the photos in this article and you'll immediately recognize what I mean. The power couple that writes this fashion newsletter takes on all sorts of aesthetic trends.
The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander
Relevant for anyone who dares to build anything that is inhabited by those who are alive. If you're like me, you'll read this book and pray that someday you build something, someday, that Christopher Alexander would be proud of.
Good Cogs and Their Tools by Brie Wolfson
"Good cogs get their performance reviews in on time. They never complain about company policy. They keep their trackers up to date and are always on time for meetings."
A cautionary tale for scaling orgs and a normie-friendly version of something like The Gervais Principle — one you might even be able to reference in a company Slack message when advocating for a good culture.
Maps of Meaning (2017) by Jordan B. Peterson
If you give anything by Peterson a chance, let it be Maps of Meaning. Not his culture war podcasts. Not his tweets. It's basically Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and The Other Greats synthesized into a single lecture series.
Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace
Probably the only story I've read that I felt genuinely might merit a trigger warning. Genuinely shocking, painfully genius. You don't have to read Infinite Jest to appreciate the magic (read: madness) of DFW. You just have to read one of his short stories. Maybe this one. (TW: mental health, suicide).
Protocols Don't Build Pyramids by Drew Austin
Traffic jams and other urban problems are not only systemic. They are protocol problems. "To claim that the built environment is full of infrastructurally constrained coordination problems is another way of saying that cities have protocol problems."
Ise Jingu and the Pyramid of Enabling Technologies by Brian Potter
Inspired by Ise Jingu, a Japanese shrine that is torn down and rebuilt every 20 years, Potter contends with the importance of preserving process knowledge.
Computer Scientist Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty (Zero-knowledge Proofs)
Zkps blow my mind. They're some of the closest technology I've seen to magic. A zero-knowledge proof "is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that a given statement is true, while avoiding conveying to the verifier any information beyond the mere fact of the statement's truth."
Ignorance, a skilled practice by Sarah Perry
The essay that gave me permission to ignore things. Ignorance is not only bliss; it's sometimes a virtue.
Spotlight on Shreeda's Work
Shreeda has been on a tear with Meridian Magazine. She has recently written illuminating and widely-shared profiles of Dwarkesh Patel, Byrne Hobart, and Emmett Shear.