An Open Call for Pragmatic Meliorism

Meliorism (Latin melior, better): the idea that progress is a real concept and humans can interfere with natural processes to improve the world.

What would it look like to embrace pragmatic meliorism instead of cynicism?

• Acknowledging problems while focusing on solutions
• Learning from history without being imprisoned by it
• Maintaining high standards while accepting incremental progress
• Combining skeptical analysis with constructive action

This is harder than cynicism by orders of magnitude. It takes nuance, effort, and (critically) emotional risk. But it’s also more likely to actually improve things.

From Joan Westerberg We Don’t Need More Cynics. We Need More Builders.

My Instagram feed is about 70% David Lynch, on this the day of his passing.

Gil Scott-Heron The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The disadvantage of a clever lockscreen wallpaper like this is that you must fight the urge to actually use the scroll wheel.

I have owned at least three iPods.

Testing NIP 05 authentication. Looks simple, but that can be deceiving.

Campbell’s Tomato Soup has wheat flour in it. In and of itself, it’s understandable. It’s a natural thickener. But I’m Celiac. And I made an assumption. And now I can’t eat something I brought home.

Echodrone Gravity

Builds slowly. A little bombastic. A favorite track of mine. I hope you enjoy.

Bone-conduction headsets/buds may not be an audiophile dream, but they are a wonderful way to quietly keep music going while leaving room for the ability to participate in things happening around me. One other big win is ear health. Other kinds of listening devices create problems for me.

Did a little experimenting with PlexAmp this afternoon. I was happy that it was an intuitive way to stream from my Plex server. It’s really nice to have options that leverage what I already own.