Good review, but it's worthwhile to note the source of the essays as well: it's a ribbonfarm adjunct and memetically sponsored by a16z, the saviors-of-humanity-

Good review, but it's worthwhile to note the source of the essays as well: it's a ribbonfarm adjunct and memetically sponsored by a16z, the saviors-of-humanity-with-no-ulterior-motives-whatsoever-but-keep-giving-us-billions-of-dollars-okay-mm'thanks. Normal humans aren't supposed to understand this stuff. You are supposed to sit back and absorb it potentially while under the influence of mind expanding substances. It has also been rumored it helps to have two or more brains to understand ribbonfarm posts after 2012. Plus, these writings are explicitly "inspired" by spending a year with Valley Thought Leaders and growing their already delusional viewpoints to even higher extremes (source: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/07/28/breaking-smart/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/07/28/breaking-smart/). If you want to know how the movers and shakers in SV view their positions on high, read these essays and bask in the glow of their perfect prophecies of how the future will play out and how they, the ones on high—they, and they alone, are instrumental to the future of humanity. (plus, like, lol sharing economy with 25% vig so you maintain a monied billionaire class, obviously. feel free to share, but always give us 25% or we'll cry.) These essays follow in the modern ribbonfarm style (high concept stream-of-thought/forget-the-world story telling—start with a thesis, see how far you can go until the world breaks). For example, here's a recent totally serious ribbonfarm excerpt about email: Stream workflows avoid the illusion of perfectability of information flows implicit in notions like Inbox Zero altigether. Flow Laminar is an asymptotic ideal you will never actually reach, because incoming flows always bring in entropy, and while you can impose laminar flow on downstream parts of a stream, the only way to get rid of turbulence is to shut down the flow altogether.