Research
Scale
The size at which a tool, group, or institution works, and the point where it stops working.
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Before the second watershed
Ivan Illich proposed counterfoil research to detect the corruption of useful, widely adopted technologies before the rot set in. (Think Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification” in webtech.) Let’s look at where that early corruption lies on the road to Illich’s second watershed.…
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Nemesis, the goddess of limits
The Greeks worshipped Nemesis as a goddess of equity and equilibrium — the balance of life within limits. Over two thousand years, Nemesis shrank into a word for revenge. Today she returns as a term for the structural, endemic harm…
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Why more makes less
Self-sabotage, counterproductivity, iatrogenesis, and Nemesis — from ancient to modern times, from road congestion to software, humans have described the same patterns.
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Limits are a design brief
For tool design, limits and scope are not obstacles to engineer around; they define the most essential features — the ones that will not be included.
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How many people can a tool serve?
Dunbar’s number is contested, but the finding behind it is not: human social capacity is finite and layered. Tools that ignore the layers work against the grain.
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A group is its own worst enemy
Clay Shirky took Wilfred Bion’s study of therapy groups and applied it to software. Groups are a runtime phenomenon, so tools for groups have to plan for how groups fail.
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Small is beautiful, fifty years on
Schumacher and Illich both published books about scale in 1973. Schumacher’s idea of “intermediate technology” adds a complementary test to Illich’s counterfoil research: is a tool capable, yet simple enough for its users to maintain?