And then there’s the relationship between us, the communication barrier that separates us, and the empathy that allows us to understand each other in spite of that.…

Both games I’ve helped design, "Journey" and "WAY", attempt to herd two strangers toward friendship. And both do it in similar and different ways.

But how do we do that? How do we design so friendship will emerge? And what is friendship really?…

What I’m interested in, is that spontaneous bond between strangers. I want to focus on online multiplayer that emphasizes shared goals, freedom of choice, anonymity, vulnerability, and communication.…

What were the seeds of my connections?…investment & responsibility…high stakes & real consequences…empathy…vulnerability…free choice…teaching…communication…

If the world isn’t valuing what we consider significant, we have the responsibility to create worlds that do.…

It’s what you choose to make that reveals who you are..."

"If I hated these pieces, I would say they were full of bathos, self-seriousness, and chaos. And I would be right. And I would be missing the point that these qualities are what make two quite different essays both brilliant to me, because even when I resist their points, they push me along axes that I did not know to look for. This would not happen if they told me what I already knew of.

What they say matters to me because they have become vulnerable by putting things in their own terms and risking overreach…

I participate in certain subcultures where a lot of weight is put on being smart and getting smarter. But it seems to me that for an awful lot of people trying to do good things, IQ is not a limiting factor. If you are smart but ignorant or smart but lack empathy, you are only better at coming up with justifications for the ways in which you are wrong."

[Jonathan Harris tells three stories about his fourth grade teacher, Baz

1. What make a great teacher?
2. How to engage your audience
3. On death]

"This repulsion toward vulnerability is really a resentment at being put in charge of a person who doesn’t know how to play the game of affecting invincibility. The main purpose of this game is pretending death will never come; the smaller goal is to pretend that we are all perfectly self-sufficient. This is why so many people were outraged at Lana del Rey’s “Saturday Night Live” performance: She stopped playing the game and forced us to bear witness to her crippling fear. This is also why people abuse the elderly and disabled and animals — their vulnerability is too obvious and provokes hostile resentment."

"It’s important to mess with the spiritual structure of the world — the architecture of ideas, institutions, identities and even the structure of filmmaking. Only by doing this can the ludicrous nature of the game be revealed. Maybe one day we will overcome our repulsion toward weakness and admit our fragility on a daily basis…"

"The format may or may not work -- most likely it will depend on the delicate chemistry between the pairing -- but in some ways, Wurman’s “conversation-over-presentation” approach seems in keeping with a current trend toward applying collaborative inquiry and discussion to today’s big issues and challenges. Of late, various types of innovation salons and conversational events have been popping up: Recently, Seth Goldenberg (a Bruce Mau Design alumni) launched the “IDEAS Salon,” initially in Rhode Island in April with a follow-up Silicon Valley event this fall. Instead of giving presentations, the high-level guests joined together to grapple with weighty questions; Goldenberg wanted to get away from what he dubs “the sage on stage” model used at TED and other conferences, in favor of a more conversational format. Similarly, the design firm Method has been hosting a series of salons in New York to explore big ideas in a more open and freewheeling manner."

"In the safest, most boring country, the worst lone gunman shooting happens. The worst in the world, in history. But it will not make our country worse. The safe, boring democracy will supply him with a defense lawyer as is his right. He will not get more than 21 years in prison as is the maximum extent of the law. Our democracy does not allow for enough punishment to satisfy my need for revenge, as is its intention. We will not become worse, we will be better. We lived in a land where this is possible, even easy. And we will keep living in a land where this is possible, even easy. We are open, we are free and we are together. We are vulnerable by choice. And we will keep on like that, that's how we want to live. We will not be worse because of the worst. We must be good because of the best."<br />
<br />
[via: http://tobia.tumblr.com/post/7987038256/in-the-safest-most-boring-country-the-worst-lone ]

"I am not a great teacher. Many of my former students would probably agree. I'm at times flaky. And I can certainly be absent minded. I tend to ask students to do too much work all at once, probably because that's the way I do things.

I'm a terrible test-prepper. When I do give lectures, I tend to go on tangents. Sometimes I mix up names, dates, events; this happens at family BBQs, too. [Many more examples follow.]…

I am far more interested in being a conduit for ideas. A conduit for conversation. A conduit for debate. For real learning. Connecting. Rethinking. Reframing debates. Debates and discussions. The stuff of humanity…

But I'm willing to not know.

I take a lot of solace in the example of Socrates. Not because I think I'm like Socrates, but because I think deep down Socrates is a lot like all of us. Socrates was a guy who both boastfully and intimately explained that in the end, he really didn't know anything.

And that was enough to change everything."

"There are any number of good reasons to raise the petrol tax rate. The current rate no longer brings in enough money to cover current highway spending. Petrol taxes are an efficient way to raise revenue, and the government needs revenue; President Obama's deficit commission recommended an increase in the federal petrol tax rate. Burning oil produces carbon emissions, and dearer fuel would reduce America's sky-high per capita carbon footprint. But a higher tax rate would also diminish the possibility that a sudden rise in oil prices would throw the economy into recession. That would be a nice risk to minimise! And yes, higher tax rates would hit consumers just like rising oil prices. But those prices are rising anyway; better to capture the revenue and use it, all while improving behaviour.<br />
<br />
It's hard to take any fiscal hawk seriously so long as this measure isn't on the table. It's as close to a win-win solution as one is likely to find."

"Brene Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk to share."

"There’s a difference between superficial conformity and authentic change. Great leaders create environments where authentic change is possible."<br />
<br />
"Change agents: (1) Give lavishly. The people that most powerfully enrich others don’t barter and make deals. They give without strings attached. (2) Share information. In my opinion, protecting information is usually a sign of weakness, fear, and manipulation. Backstabbers hide information. Granted, regulated, proprietary, or personal information is meant to be private. (3) Continually grow. Growing people grow others. Changing people change others. (4) Share themselves. Leaders that share their personal journey of frailty to success create environments where people grow and change. Fakers only produce fakers that groan rather than grow."

"Part of it sounds of false modesty, & part of it sounds of fear. But then you read the seemingly cornball quote above & you have to concede that at least some of it is sincere. He’s speaking in the first person plural– throwing down something like a moral injunction–but what “we” are enjoined from doing is the sort of thing that mainly only people like DFW need to be told not to do. You can hear him speaking as a seriously depressed person who, in his dark moments, succumbs to self-laceration & -recrimination, who inflicts terrible violence on his own spirit, who is not nice to himself at all. He has to know that not everyone is depressed like he is. But when he thinks of people in general, what he sees & worries about is their vulnerability to the kind of extreme pain he lives with."<br />
<br />
"That extremes of feeling can be made both more intelligible (psychologically & aesthetically) & more dramatic & beautiful through extremes of structure, syntax, & tone, &, maybe, vice versa."

"To be an Athenian is to understand that the thread which holds civilized society together is thin and vulnerable; therefore, Athenians place great value on tradition, social restraint, and continuity. To an Athenian, bad manners are acts of violence against the social order. The modern Visigoth cares very little about any of this. The Visigoths think of themselves as the center of the universe. Tradition exists for their own convenience, good manners are an affectation and a burden, and history is merely what is in yesterday’s newspaper." [See the comments for discussion of accuracy of Postman's depiction of Athenians and Visigoths.]

“I never liked the kids who raised their hands in class. I sat at the back, sulking, bored, & probably drawing something…Paying attention in class required effort, bravery, & a feeling of inclusion. That last one is the biggest. Owning problems, & showing vulnerability while you work on them is a big deal…I just assumed somebody smarter, older, & probably somebody dead for 100s of years had already figured it out. Why bother? Speaking up would just invite somebody to say “well Pythagorus once said…” The internet feels like that sometimes. You start to talk about a new idea for an interface, & somebody says “But Jakob Neilsen says…"…No matter who said what, it’s possible they were wrong, & even if they were right, sometimes pursuing your own divergent ideas lead to something brand new.”...“I don’t like hard rules at all. I think they’re all bullshit."

"Preschool children who 20 years later were relatively liberal were characterized as: developing close relationships, self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating, relatively under-controlled, and resilient. Preschool children subsequently relatively conservative at age 23 were described as: feeling easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and relatively over-controlled and vulnerable. IQ during nursery school did not relate to subsequent liberalism/conservatism but did relate in subsequent decades. Personality correlates of liberalism/conservatism for the subjects as young adults were also reported: conservatives were described in terms congruent with previous formulations in the literature; liberals displayed personality commonalities but also manifested gender differences"