Essays
What actually happens inside you when you say you’re listening? When I’m waiting for my turn to speak, I’m not listening. When I’m filtering what you’re saying as you’re saying it, I’m not listening. When I’m debating whether I want to agree
Essays
I had cataract surgery on one eye last week. The world has been a matter of contours and shadows rather than resolved edges and precise detail. I couldn’t drive. I have been reading signs at distance, and signs at distance had become impressionist gestures. But for most of what
Ling- English
There is something immediately arresting about the aphorism, "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu." It does not argue its case or offer advice. It simply presents a scene, and once seen, it is difficult to unsee. One recognizes it before
Ling- English
Every Thursday night, around 2 AM, my bedroom window would start rattling violently. At first I blamed the garbage truck. But the shaking was too specific. Other windows stayed quiet. Eventually I realized it wasn’t the engine. It was the compaction cycle: the hydraulic ram crushing garbage at a
Ling- English
I don't know when this thought first occurred to me, but for as long as I can remember I've never been especially interested in celebrating my birthday. The day always seemed like something that should be celebrated, but not by me. The celebration belongs to the
Essays
Not dumb as in lacking intelligence. Dumb as in aware of your ignorance. Most people treat knowledge as accumulation. You learn things. The pile grows. You become more capable as the pile gets bigger. This is true. It is not sufficient. What the accumulation model misses is the edge. Every
Ling- English
The founders of the major AI companies know the existential stakes — they are the ones who published the warnings. This essay asks why the knowledge doesn't discharge the duty, and what ethics as another line of code cannot ask.
Ling- English
Organizations have their own humus — an invisible living layer of trust, memory, and relationships that forms slowly and can be destroyed in an afternoon. Meet the people who live there deliberately.
Ling- English
Gary Hamel's question about the managerialist mindset is right—but answering it as a list misses the source. One belief generates the rest: that a person is a type of thing. Everything else follows from there.
Ling- English
A cabinet maker works with the grain, not against it. Management works the same way — and the practice doesn't protect you from using it badly.
Ling- English
How are they feeling today? Are they after a big win that’s taken a lot of time and energy, or a quick win from being clever and nimble? Are they after a loss, a big loss, like a major project they worked on, prepared, pitched, and got a no?
Newsletter
The premise - Brendan McCord | Cosmos Institute Prussia, 1809. Napoleon has just walked through it. The nation wants officers and engineers. The diplomat handed the education file gives them something else. McCord traces what happened to that idea across two centuries and closes with the observation that the people using AI